revuesday - Artichoke

Last night, my friend and I decided to grab a quick drink after our equally long days at work... granted my long work day consisted of playing outside with kindergarteners, setting up an archival display for Women's History Month and shelving books, so it was pretty much awesome but I'm always up for an after work cocktail.  Anyways, after a couple of drinks we decided that, so what if it's only Tuesday, we're going to hang out and enjoy a night on the town.  When it was finally settled upon that we'd go check out Michael Daves at the Rockwood Music Hall for a little bluegrass and rock & roll.  But it was getting late and if we were to keep on truckin' through the night, we'd need some sustenance to keep us awake and ready for anything.  Well you know what's just down the block from Beauty Bar and on the walk down to Rockwood?  Artichoke.

You can get a lot of really great pizza in New York City.  And every pizza joint on every block claims to be the best at what they do whether it's thin crust, deep dish, meat lover's, white, gourmet or traditional.  But there is something uniquely delicious about the slices at Artichoke.  The namesake pie is a crispy crust topped with a creamy mix of spinach and artichokes.  You know that spicy spinach artichoke dip I made awhile back?  It's like that but better.  And even better than that is the crab slice.  Though I'm a Jersey girl through and through, there's a pretty big chunk of my heart (and my stomach) that belongs to Baltimore.  Because of this, any dish topped with crab meat is one that I immediately love.  And a creamy cheesy pizza slice with some red pepper flakes tossed on is hard to beat.  It's basically the New York pizza equivalent of the indulgent crab pretzel from Bill Bateman's.  Mmmm maybe I need to make a trip down to Bmore soon, the food nostalgia has been driving me nuts lately.  But the crab slice at Artichoke is a serious competitor to the crab pretzel and since it's around the corner from work, it's so easy to stroll over and enter pie nirvana.

So anyways, we grabbed a couple of slices to munch on between bars and let me tell you, it was the smartest idea I've had in a long time.  Though we got a lot of goofy looks from other passersby because of our loud proclamations of pizza glory and tasty praises, we were so wrapped up in our slices that it didn't even matter.  If you haven't tried Artichoke yet, I highly recommend it, but prepare to get hooked.  I could probably eat an entire pie on my own and those are some big pies.  Self control and will power are not easy traits to maintain around these crispy, cheesy slices.  But tempt yourself, you won't regret it.  But whatever you do, make sure you don't leave your pizza unattended.  New York City is being plagued by a pizza thieving squirrel!  Hold on to your slices, folks.  This guys is sneaky.

hands off my slice, little dude!