restaurant review: settbello pizzeria napoletana

i made a new year's resolution this year to try a new item of food selected from a list of "vegas musts" by some food critic guy and a chef in a recent issue of a local publication (the desert companion) i read when i'm bored at work. there were twenty items on the list, but six or seven of them were adult beverages... of which i do not partake... and one other one was fried intestines, so that left about twelve eligible edibles. thus, one item per month for the rest of the year. as you can see, i aim high when i set my goals... we should all be so ambitious. and altruistic i might add as this has given me a way to give back to you, my zombies. as luck would have it, i have decided to review each item i try over the course of the next year and, as a free-service to you, i will share my thoughts in an effort to broaden your culinary horizons.

first stop: settebello pizzeria napoletana.

settbello is one of the two best pizza places in vegas (gramaldi's being the other) and it's not even close (ok, anthony's is in the discussion). supposedly, in order to make the kin of pizza settebllos makes you have to be part of some exclusive italian pizza club or something. here's what there site says about it:

The Vera Pizza Napoletana (VPN) was established by Antonio Pace in Napoli, Italy in 1984. Signore Pace led a group of pizza makers whose sole purpose was to protect the integrity and defend the origin of the pizza making tradition as it began in Napoli over 200 years ago.

The VPN charter requires that members use only specific raw ingredients to create the pizza dough, that the dough be worked with the hands, never using a rolling pin and that it be cooked directly on the surface of a bell shaped pizza oven that is fueled solely by wood. The charter also requires specific types of tomatoes be used and only the use of fresh milk or buffalo milk mozzarella is acceptable.

i've been to settebllo before, so when i went a couple of weeks ago it wasn't a first, but i hadn't tried the specific pizza selected in the magazine article i mentioned above: the carbonara.

here's the description from the site:

Crushed Tomatoes, Pancetta, Egg, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

it was good... but not as good as their signature dish, the settebello. this particular pizza, i can't get passed... which is why i hadn't tried any of the other pizzas. it's that good. here's the description:

Crushed Tomatoes, Pancetta, Wood Oven Roasted Fennel Sausage, Roasted Mushrooms, Toasted Pine Nuts, Mozzarella, Basil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

we also tried the diavola:

Crushed Tomatoes, Finnochiona (Peppered Salame), Roasted Red Bell Peppers, Crushed Red Peppers, Garlic, Mozzarella, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

this one was also good, but if i had to rank them, i would say: 1. the settebello, 2. the carbonara, and then 3. the diavola. the settebello is as standard a pizza as settebllo the restaurant can get: sauce, cheese, sausage, basil and pine nuts (my favorite). it's close to traditional american stuff, but not so close that it's little caesars (not that i'm coming down on lc, it serves a purpose) and yet distinct enough to be a delicacy in its own right (the olive oil and pine nuts are a great addition, but the fresh mozzarella is divine). the carbonara is pretty similar to the settebello except that they put some fried egg on it... not bad, but it takes away some of the succulent flavor of the settebello which makes it not nearly as good as the same. the diavola is a nice change up in that it's a little spicier than what you're used to on a pizza... but it lacks the overall flavor of the other two, especially the settebello.

you can't go wrong with any of them as they're all exquisite, but if you're a first timer there, i would definitely start with the settebello and branch out from there. but, before you even get that far, the caprese salad is a must... i might like gramaldi's pizza slightly more than settebello's, but settebello gets the nod on their caprese salad. we also tried the insalata carpaccio this last go and really enjoyed that, as well. here's the description:

Bresaola, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Caciocavallo Cheese, Arugola With a Splash of Balsamic Vinegar and Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

bottom line: i recommend all of the items listed above.

pedicure part 2

some of you may recall a previous post i authored in which i detailed my first experience with receiving a pedicure. only the hardcorest of zombies will note that said post took place almost a year ago to the day during an attorneys' retreat to newport beach. yes, for those who have done the math, we just had our annual attorneys' retreat in newport again and, yes, i was fortunate enough to get another pedicure... but that's not all.

first, i stand by my previous assessment that pedicures are a wonderful thing and the fact that i enjoy them says nothing about my unquestionable masculinity. second, even though i have not had a pedicure since i first had one a year ago, i have been long looking forward to the newport trip so i could receive my second. finally that day came and after a bruising battle of a football game on the beach and a rain soaked biking expedition to balboa island, my esteemed male colleagues and i made our way to the local albertson's shopping center pedicure chop shop for some self-pampering.

the five of us who were secure enough with our masculinity to embark on such an endeavor entered the nail salon and were immediately greeted by a score of vietnamese women who showed us to our chairs and commenced chiseling away at the roughshod on our feet. but that wasn't all, one of the ladies asked if i wanted a neck and shoulder massage. is the pope catholic? let's do it.

next thing i knew, though, was that she was asking me in broken english to lift up my shirt. huh? then the next thing i knew is that she was not only asking me to lift up my shirt, but to remove it. huh? then the next next thing i knew was that my boss and another colleague of mine had already peeled their shirts off and were getting the rub down. so, if all your friends jump off a bridge, should you jump off the bridge, too? absolutely... if it means getting a massage. off went the shirt and on went the massage oil.

let me be clear... we weren't in private rooms tearing off our tops and getting massaged, we were in the main area of the entryway to the salon whose whole front wall was a window to a fairly busy shopping center parking lot in broad daylight. oh, and i was the one closest to the window... surprisingly, i didn't care. i guess it was the super relaxing massage i was getting that calmed my nerves and tamed my apprehensions.

in addition, there was an older lady sitting next to me and then on the other side of her were my boss and co-worker. when the tops came off and she was surrounded by some not so strapping fleshy males, she was all of a sudden smiling in a laughing at us and not with us kind of way. but, as noted above, i couldn't have cared less although it was kind of awkward... and i'm sure that anyone who might have waked in at that moment would have been beholden to quite the site. you come in, thinking you'll enjoy a people magazine, an episode of harpo the she-devil, or private viatnamese language lessons and the first thing you see is three pale white guys whose better days in terms of being in physical shape are well behind them not only sitting in your starship enterprise chair but getting a combination pedicure/massage. like i said, quite a site in that it's not quite the site you were expecting. feel free to take your patronage elsewhere.

all i'm saying is, don't hate me because i've got finely trimmed, filed, waxed, and buffed toe nails. hate me because i not only have finely trimmed, filed, waxed, and buffed toe nails, but because i've also got finely trimmed, filed, waxed, and buffed finger nails... oh, and did i mention i got all that done simultaneously with a massage. to say the least, these ladies were master salespeople. every five minutes they were asking me if i wanted something more, all while being under the influence of nail polish fumes, massage oil and the massage itself... i didn't know what to say. actually, i just kept pointing to my boss and saying, "whatever he's getting." and, of course, he was getting whatever they were proposing... at least according to them he was.

and that was just the pedicure. the rest of newport was great, too... but that's a story for another day.