NY Italian Food: Famous Amadeus, Mama Theresa's, Grimaldi's, and JFK Terminal Pizza

New York and pizza go together. Here's some of the pizza and other Italian food that I sampled on my last two visits to the New York City/Long Island area...

Famous Amadeus:

I had a slice of sausage and pepper pizza from Famous Amadeus Pizza in Hell's Kitchen. For a NYC pizza chain, I did enjoy this slice. I liked how they used slices of entire sausage instead of crumbling the  meat over the pie. The bell peppers were thickly sliced. Not the best pizza ever, but far from the worst. It was a little expensive as far as slices go.

Mama Theresa's Italian Restaurant in Westbury, NY:

I should have ordered pizza. Mama Theresa's had some delicious looking interesting pies behind the counter at the entrance of the restaurant. Instead, I decided to get pasta and ordered the Fusilli Al Pesto. At nearly $15, this dish was really disappointing. It was pasta and sauce, and nothing else. I don't know why I was expecting more, but I was hoping for at least something that I couldn't make at home for a fraction of what they charged here. Worst part was that the pesto sauce didn't even have much flavor.

Grimaldi's in Garden City NY:

I honestly don't get the huge appeal that Grimaldi's has. We ordered a half eggplant, half meatball pizza. Everything on here was bland and flavorless. The sauce had very little flavor. The cheese didn't seem to have any saltiness. The meatballs tasted like ground beef and nothing else. The batter on the fried eggplant was the most flavorful component of the entire pizza, but was still lacking. This Grimaldi's had a half hour wait. The one in Brooklyn gets lines around the block. I know the coal fire pizza thing is a bit of a novelty, but it's not worth waiting for when the rest of the is pizza lacking.

JFK Terminal Pizza:

I had a flight out of the Delta Terminal of JFK that was very delayed. I ate to kill time. I ordered a slice of vegetable pizza in the terminal. It was topped with spinach, black olives, sun dried tomatoes, cheese, and sauce. Pretty good for airport pizza. It cost way more than a slice of pizza should, but it was expected being inside an airport.

Grimaldi's Pizza in Garden City, NY

The Grimaldi's Pizza under the Brooklyn Bridge is pretty famous. I've seen them listed quite a few times as having some of the best pizza in the country. All that publicity must be a good thing for them because apparently the line to eat reaches city blocks in length on occasion. Needless to say, I never lined up for one of Grimaldi's pizzas in Brooklyn. Especially when I can get Grimaldi's coal oven pizza with no wait at another one of their locations in Garden City, NY.

I shared a 16" plain pie on my visit. The pizza had all of the characteristic charred marks and islands of mozzarella floating in a pool of sauce that are common on coal oven pies. I did like the pie, although it needed salt in my opinion. The fresh mozzarella nor the sauce had enough salt, but besides this issue, I liked the pizza. Grimaldi's pizza is definitely way overrated, but they do make a pretty good pie...

Red & the Brooklyn Bridge

I've spent plenty of time in New York, but one thing I never did was walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. I've read on travel websites that the walk over the bridge is one of the top ten tourist destinations in the city, and yet I had never gone. On my last night in the area, I decided to walk over the bridge and eat dinner somewhere within walking distance of the bridge.

We parked in Brooklyn and my initial thought was to eat at the famous Grimaldi's Pizzeria before the walk, but the line halfway up the block changed my mind. Instead, we proceeded over the bridge towards Manhattan.

Walking on the wooden boardwalk above the cars was a great experience. There were great views and the bridge was packed with mostly international tourists. Even on the way back, close to midnight, there were still plenty of people on the bridge. It was also really interesting to inspect the bridge up close rather than speeding by in a car. Old suspension bridges like this are so substantial and nice looking compared to the cable strung bridges that have replaced them.

Once in Manhattan, we headed towards the South Street Seaport. Since it was pretty late by now, we didn't want to risk restaurants closing for the night, so we ate at one of the first restaurants we came to. It was a Mexican Restaurant called Red.

Tortilla chips and really good salsa were served first.

I ordered a chicken and avocado tostada for my meal. It was basically a salad in a bowl made from a fried tortilla. The chicken had a really nice lime flavor, but the avocado wasn't ripe and was really hard. Overall, the meal wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. Pretty much an average salad.

After eating, we returned to Brooklyn and said goodbye to the city until the next visit...