Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Nomad

Of all the pizza joints I checked out last weekend, the recently-opened Nomad Pizza in Hopewell, NJ was definitely the best. What originally started as a mobile pizza venture run out of a fully-restored 1949 REO Speedwagon with built in brick oven and refrigerator has finally landed an HQ just outside of Princeton.

(Courtesy of Nomad)

The truck is still used for catering events, but there's no need for it once you step inside the restaurant and see their beautiful oven-


Gorgeous, isn't it? What I wouldn't give to have one of these in my apartment. After Paulie Gee discovered this place last month, pizzaphiles from the tri-state area organized and descended upon the unsuspecting pizzeria. There were 26 of us in total; the regular diners must have been horrified by our incessant photo-snapping.


I got to see Nick, Scott, Paulie, and Adam once again, and got to meet Mark "famdoc" & Dorinne Horowitz, Jason, Linda, Sean, Cary, and many others. Along with the numerous bottles of wine and Mexican Coke floating around, Paulie Gee brought his own Limoncello for everyone to enjoy.


Once everyone settled in, the order was placed with Nomad co-owner Stalin Bedon to "make every one of your pizzas over and over until we tell you to stop." Nice. Shortly thereafter, the first Margherita appeared:


*Socks knocked off* Is that not one of the best looking Neapolitan pies you've ever seen? That char is unreal.


Perfect amount of buffalo mozz and pungent basil. The whole pie was very pliant without much of a crunch or outer crispy shell, but it was made and cooked with skill.


I grabbed a slice of the Shitake mushroom pie as soon as it hit the table-


This pizza had Fontina cheese, garlic, olive oil, sea salt, carmelized onions and Shitake mushrooms, organic and local when possible.


Suddenly pizzas were hitting the table left and right, it was like being caught in some sort of delicious meteor shower of pizzas. I can't eat it, but check out the size of those pepperonis!-


One of my favorite pizzas of the night was the marinara, something I wouldn't normally order, but the sauce on this guy was fantastic.


It had something spicy in the sauce itself for a little kick, then sprinkled with some black pepper for flavor. Extremely tasty. After all was said and done, the check came out... I've never seen so many pizzas on one receipt!


Nomad Pizza holds it's own against some of the best Neapolitans NYC has to offer- in fact, I hope they open up shop sometime soon in Manhattan (or park that gnarly pizza truck outside my apartment). It was great being able to put some faces to (blog) names; the communal nature of a pizza pie surely lends itself to meeting and making new friends.

Other great recaps of the event:
Philip Given/Susquehanna Photo
Famdoc
Slice
I Dream of Pizza
Passion-4-Pizza
And I'm sure Sean will have something up soon (once the video's done processing : )

2 comments:

  1. The secret ingredient in the marinara was red pepper flakes.

    We also enjoyed meeting and talking with you and wish you success with your film. Perhaps you should consider doing it in Smell-O-Vision
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-o-vision)

    ReplyDelete
  2. As one of the folks sitting at the table behind y'all that night, thanks for visiting our little town of Hopewell. We're lucky enough to be able to eat at Nomad all the time since we live around the corner, but we're glad that people are coming to town and helping support their business.

    And yes, the picture-taking was quite entertaining. You can spot my head in the back of a few of the shots.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails