New York eats – Lombardi’s, 32 Spring Street New York, NY 10012-4173

From their website - ‘During the year of 1905, Lombardi's was licensed by the City of New York, becoming America's First Pizzeria.’ Which is why we HAD to visit this place when we were in New York.

Jet-lagged, slightly wet from the rain, and so very tired, grumpy, and hungry (these 3 things go together), we traipsed through the wet streets of Little Italy to get to this famed pizzeria. In the dimly lit street, slightly misty from the drizzling rain, we saw the shiny, colourful restaurant standing out like a bright light full of food-y promises.

A friend of ours said that we’d be expecting long queues at this place (not good when one is tired, grumpy and hungry). And so it was to our great surprise when we found NO queue at the restaurant door (only to find the crowd of people huddled by the bar inside, all waiting for their turn). Blah.

Spent a few dollars on some drinks, and started waiting. One nifty trick I found which seems to work is to kinda stand as close as possible to the waitress holding the Power Pad (the pad consisting the waiting list), to kinda be in the way and to ask as often as possible when your table is going to be ready. Granted, this also makes some people look at you funny, and might even get you yelled at, but it also gets you to your table.

Having been led to the table which could not look any more traditional than it did (cheqeured red and white plastic table clothes, Tiffany-style lamp shades, Italian posters on the wall), we were given a one-page menu. Hurray for one-page menus!

Condiments on the table.

Large pizza with 3 toppings US$25.50 – mozzarella, spinach and meatballs. Why? Mozzarella because it’s tough to find any cheese nicer than fresh mozzarella on top of pizza. Spinach because we like the taste of wilted, soft, green spinach on top of bread, and meatballs because they’re meatballs. Mmm mm mm.

The largest pizza ever was then brought to the table, which, without the elevated stand, would never have fit on the table.

The fresh mozzarella was awesome! Soft and stringy, and very creamy in a nice way. The meatballs were spicy, soft, and tender. Spinach, nice and perfectly wilted.

And yes, one slice is huge.

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