Friday, August 7, 2015

Visiting a Food Network Featured Restaurant!

with Missy Tippens

Earlier this summer, I was watching an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate. It was the Pizza episode. And they mentioned a pizza place in Atlanta. So I texted my son, who stayed in Atlanta this summer to work, and asked if he'd ever eaten there. He said, "Umm, yes. That's right next door to me."

:)

Soooo, very excited that he lives nearby, I decided I had to eat there sometime this summer. We took the opportunity on Monday before going to the Giants vs Braves baseball game, where we got to see my nephew, Buster Posy, who plays for the Giants.

First, two of my kids got dressed in their spirit wear, prepared to support their cousin! :)


Then we walked two doors down to Antico Napolitana Pizza. To read about it on Food Network, click here.


Once inside, we decided to get two pizzas for five of us--me, my three kids plus my son's fiancee (hubby couldn't be there). We ordered their most popular pizza, the one featured on the show: San Gennaro. And also ordered the Margherita pizza.

While we waited, we watched them cook in one of the three pizza ovens that hit 900 degrees.


The dough room was empty. They must prep in the morning, because their website says they serve until they run out of dough!


Before long, we had our pizzas! Here's what was left after we tore into the San Genarro. It had sauce made of San Marzano tomatoes, which is what I love to buy for my spaghetti sauce. Very sweet and rich. And was also topped by roasted sausage, Italian bufala mozzarella, sweet cipolline onions, and AMAZING sweet and spicy peppers. On the Food Network show, Aaron Sanchez called them dolche piccante peppers.

Here's your pizza tip for the day: Aaron also mentioned that they put cheese on the pizza before the sauce to keep the crust from getting soggy.


Ooey, gooey cheese!! The best thing ever.

Here's our second pizza. The Margherita, with San Marzanos, garlic, basil, and bufala. I read an article about the owner, and it said he flies in 500-600 cases of cheese from Italy each week.


Both pizzas were outstanding. With two hungry men (not to mention three hungry gals!), we cleaned the trays except for a few bits of crust. :)

Then we headed on to the game to watch Buster (my husband's sister's son) play!

While warming up. Photo taken by my father-in-law's cousin, James Cannon.

Here's my oldest son, his fiancee and my in-laws, who got us the tickets.



A gorgeous (yet terribly hot and humid) Atlanta evening.



We had so much fun getting to see Buster hit a home run!


Afterward, we got to go deep into the stadium, outside the locker room, to wait with other family and friends to greet the players as they headed toward the team buses.


We hadn't seen Buster since a family wedding in January, so it was great to have a few minutes to catch up.

Next week, I'll show you my pizza making skills. Unfortunately, I made the pizza before eating at Antico. But maybe I'll get a chance to try my hand again before then. :)


www.missytippens.com (Please drop by to sign up for my emailed quarterly newsletter!)

19 comments:

  1. Oh, we love pizza! We make it at least once a week here.
    When we were on vacation this summer, we had to go visit Pegasus Pizza in Eugene, a place I went to all the time in college. When I wrote Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits, I asked the owner if I could use his restaurant in the book. He said yes... and then said he remembered me from 15 years before... and that I liked the Bayou Pie! Crazy good memory!!
    I had to get pictures of him with all my kids and, of course, pictures of him showing them how to make pizza. Unfortunately, all those pics died when I fell in the bay the next week... but we have memories!
    Now it's a chain because 1) best pizza ever and 2) greatest owners on the planet.
    And now I really want pizza....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Virginia, I have to ask - what is on Bayou Pizza? Sounds so intriguing.

      Delete
    2. Virginia, I think we need to hear about your falling in the water!! I'm so sorry about the loss of photos. Did it ruin your wonderful camera that's only a year or so old?

      Delete
    3. Bayou Pie has a BBQ sauce blackened chicken topping with red pepper... and tabasco sauce either in the pizza sauce or on the side, where I preferred it, since the red pepper was too hot for me!

      Delete
    4. Missy, it was in my post a few weeks ago. :) Clamming and the tide came in a little earlier than I was expecting and I enjoyed a little swim to the shore. LOL My phone was in my pocket.

      Delete
  2. P.S. My Little-League-playing son loved the baseball pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This sounds like such a fun family evening, Missy. Starting with pizza was brilliant. I had been having cravings for pizza so when I went out to lunch with a friend this week, I ordered a personal sized vegetable pizza. The best thing about it was the crust.

    I'm trying to remember, but since you mention it, I have this feeling that the sauce was on top of the cheese on this one too. I'd never been to the place before, but my friend raved about how great their pizza is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mary, yeah, they put chunks of cheese on first (I watched the show again but couldn't understand what type because he said it so quickly, but I think it's a type of mozzarella). Then they drizzled on sauce. Then other ingredients and blobs of bufala mozzarella.

      Delete
  4. What a fun time you had. Yay. Now I'm hungry for pizza. We have a place in Bend that delivers to our campground and it is really yummy also.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh my word!! We don't even have pizza delivery to our house! Jealous, lol!

      Delete
  5. Sounds great! My daughter's there now. We'll have to try it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. First of all, it's so cool that Buster Posey is your nephew! He seems like a great guy - and I loved the Esurance commercial he was in. Here's the link if anyone missed it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r9S_uV_c8k

    And there is nothing better than a good pizza! We used to drive a half hour south to get our favorite, and then they opened a restaurant here in town. Fabulous! If you ever get to visit the Black Hills, you'll have to try Lintz Bros. Pizza :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jan, he is a great guy and hasn't changed at all.

      So nice you gave somewhere local now! We have a great place here in town, too.

      Delete
  7. Okay -- that commercial was funny. Thanks for the link, Jan, since I know nothing about baseball and even less about American baseball. LOL

    Drooling over the pizza. Haven't had pizza in forever and I usually make it myself -- a cheat pizza -- using flatbread for the crust but now I'm craving a real, honest to goodness pizza.

    Oh -- and I have an Italian friend who says that the cheese is supposed to go on the pizza before the other toppings...at least that's how they do it in Italy. Wonder how we topsy turvyed it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kav, I don't get pizza very often. But sometimes I have a terrible craving and just have to go have it. :)

      Delete