Clams and Ham at Dolce Vita

Tam Vo

Clam pizza.

My sister-in-law visited recently and requested that we get some pizza at Dolce Vita. My response was to quote of Jules in Pulp Fiction, "Shit, Negro! That's all you had to say!" Unfortunately, the reference was lost on her and we enjoyed a moment of awkward silence followed by my attempt to explain the reference followed by more awkward silence.

In addition to great pizza, Dolce Vita is a favorite spot of mine for photographing food. It's something about the antique glass plus the black tables plus the colorful pizzas that make for some great food-photo opportunities.

The first pizza was a special of porchetta and portobello and basil, which is fancy talk for ham, fungus and weeds. Nomenclature aside, the pizza was great. The porchetta would make Oscar Meyer green with envy, and the mushrooms were nicely sautéed.

The next pizza was the vongole, which is Italian for "clams." Adorning this pie were vongole, garlic, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella. I'm a fan of clams, and what I really liked about this pizza was that the clam juices worked their way through the melted cheese and into the crispy crust. The result was a juicy pizza with a bottom whose crispiness was paper-thin. Any juices that collected on my plate were sopped up by the crust, which I butterflied to maximize its juice sopping capacity.