ForbesLife has a fantastic new look in its March issue, thanks to new editor-in-chief Richard Nalley. My favorite part of the March issue? It would have to be the Bookmarks: Tips from Local Insiders section (page 55). This month’s column focuses on New York City, and the restaurant tip in the column comes from…Salmaland. The [...]]]> ForbesLife has a fantastic new look in its March issue, thanks to new editor-in-chief Richard Nalley. My favorite part of the March issue? It would have to be the Bookmarks: Tips from Local Insiders section (page 55). This month’s column focuses on New York City, and the restaurant tip in the column comes from…Salmaland. The magazine excerpts a Salmaland writeup on one of my favorite spots for a delicious, no-brainer meal —if you consider buttery steak, perfect salty-crisp fries, and the absence of a menu to be pretty damn near close to heaven.

My second favorite part of the issue: the cowboy boot beauty shot on page 27. The Spanish Sendra boots in the photo look a little like the vintage brown cowboy boots I bought in Houston many years ago, and that I’m still wearing despite the fact that they’re hanging on by barely a thread. The chocolate-brown Sendras in the shot are luscious enough to eat, and if I can resist doing that, I may soon be taking them out for a test-drive on the brutal NYC sidewalks.

There’s something delightfully anachronistic about Torrisi Italian Specialties on Mulberry Street. The tiny new 16-seat cafe, with antique wooden furniture and cured meats hanging in the window and antipasti displayed in small bowls on the counter, looks like a place that would’ve existed in Nolita some years back when I first moved to the neighborhood. [...]]]> There’s something delightfully anachronistic about Torrisi Italian Specialties on Mulberry Street. The tiny new 16-seat cafe, with antique wooden furniture and cured meats hanging in the window and antipasti displayed in small bowls on the counter, looks like a place that would’ve existed in Nolita some years back when I first moved to the neighborhood. The area was still teetering on the brink of Little Italy-ness, and only slowly starting to get mowed down by precious little shoe shops and stores selling pricey and useless odds and ends. Mind you, I like some of those shops—and was sad when a few, like Jane Mayle’s gorgeous boutique, closed last year. But point is, t’aint Little Italy here no more. This comes as news to no one.

So it’s lovely to come across a Little Italy flashback on Mulberry, and so far I’m thrilled to have Torrisi around. I’ve already been in for sandwiches (various combos of mortadella, prosciutto, soppressata, fresh mozz, and  Lioni’s ricotta on Parisi Bakery seeded rolls) and antipasti like the intriguingly named “cauliflower with Progresso” (roasted cauliflower, breadcrumbs, rosemary). Never ate as much cauliflower as I have this winter; am lately enamored of it. Chef-owners Richard Torrisi and Mario Carbone, vets of A Voce and Del Posto, are onto an original hook here: The “Italian” ingredients are all American-made, hence that Progresso name-check. Torrisi opens for dinner this week, so I’ll be back for that.

In the meantime: Points for the vintage Billy Joel poster on the wall. Before he was marrying and divorcing models and tiny TV chefs and driving his cars into… (wait, am I about to say something libelous here?). Anyway, before the onslaught of douchiness, the man was writing some pretty tuneful, infectious (cheesy, yes, but deliciously cheesy) pop songs. His face in the room somehow warms it, gives it splash of old-New York history. Strange, but why fight it.

Confession: Yesterday I shamelessly stood in the long line at K! Pizzacone on its first official day of business. Around me in line were hordes of midtown office workers, curious passersby, and people who seem to receive their daily eating instructions from Eater/Grub Street/Feast/et al. And of course there were the obligatory food bloggers. God [...]]]> Confession: Yesterday I shamelessly stood in the long line at K! Pizzacone on its first official day of business. Around me in line were hordes of midtown office workers, curious passersby, and people who seem to receive their daily eating instructions from Eater/Grub Street/Feast/et al. And of course there were the obligatory food bloggers. God we’re annoying. Think I’ll just call myself a websiter instead of blogger, if that’s ok—at least for today. Onward:

The argument implied by K! Pizzacone’s existence—and by the flashing words on the LCD screen in the tiny takeout shop on Fifth Ave at 33rd St—is that a cone is a better vehicle than a crust for consuming pizza. Based on today’s visit, I’ve concluded the following:

1) Eating a mix of tomato sauce, mozzarella, and various optional toppings—your basic mushrooms, onions, sausage, pepperoni, prosciutto, and the like—when they’re all hot and melted together and sitting inside a crunchy bread-like shell, is never going to be a terrible thing. The pizzacone is potentially a perfect fast-food snack. Especially if you’re sitting in a movie theater or at a baseball game, where a pizza slice can be awkward to hold and eat without making a mess. But it’s just really not pizza. Can it replace the pizza slice someday? See #2 and #3.

2) A cone can only replace a real pizza crust if it’s even remotely as flavorful, crisp, pliant, fresh-baked-tasting, and delicious as an actual pizza crust. In other words, it needs to pull its weight as part of the entire package. But at K!, sorry to say, the cone is just a delivery method for the fillings. Ho-hum flavor, cardboard texture.

3) I’m sure K! Pizzacone’s tomato sauce was taste-tested obsessively before the launch—and it has an appealing tangy-sweetness. But when employees are squirting tomato sauce into the cones out of plastic squeeze-bottles, right in front of the customers, the whole I’m-eating-real-food illusion sort of falls apart.

4) Waiting 52 minutes for your pizza cone to be ready after placing your order—granted, it was the first day of business and the earnest, hard-working employees were way understaffed—is preposterous. But once the crowds die down, a five-minute turnaround time could be just fine for a portable, tomatoey-cheesy snack to eat as you speed to your destination.

5) A starting price of $4.90 for a small pizza cone is also preposterous. When you can get an exemplary cheese slice for $2 at a place like Joe’s on Carmine Street, and it tastes a billion times better and doesn’t involve plastic squirt bottles, K’s starts looking like a pretty weak business model.

6) An employee said the K! in the name stands for “Kone.” (“You know, since we spell it with a K”.) Hmm, but then why does the sign say K! Pizzacone? You know, with a “c”? A minor issue, but worth further investigation.

7) Lastly, I didn’t try the dessert cones, which can be filled with chocolate, ice cream, berries, and flambéd bananas instead of savory toppings. I can’t imagine anything wrong with that idea, not in theory anyway. Sure, a dessert cone is not a pizza—but at least that’s just a semantic issue.

Upshot: I do believe in the spirit of progress, engineering, innovation, the scientific method, and all the well-meaning if somewhat quaint stabs at inquiry and knowledge we humans can muster as we cling to life in this galaxy. And most of all, I’m not a pizza-pie purist. But I think the nice people at K! need to take this one back to the lab.