Forewarning: yes, this is crafty corporate concept pizza. It’s not as glaring of an oxymoron when the corporation in question is Lettuce Entertain You, aka, LEYE. In addition to operating such monstrosities as Big Bowl, and Ben Pao — ex-Chicagoans currently trying to “Escape from LA” can cringe… now — LEYE also operates Everest and L2O. Everest was just listed as the 10th most expensive restaurant in the US, and L2O received 3 whopping Michelins this year. Between Everest and L2O, LEYE claims four stars. What does this have to do with Sella Rossa? LEYE owns Stella Rossa, Stella’s Executive Chef Jeff Mahin and sous Patrick Costa are both from L2O.

While there are 2 Ex-Chicagoans helming this “pizza bar”, do not expect Chicago pie shenanigans. I despise deep dish, I hate almost everything from Gino’s East/Lou Malnati’s and Pizzeria Uno/Dos/Tres/etc. After chatting with chef Mahin, it is clear he wants the pies to transcend categories, to serve a higher purpose, if you well. If Alice Waters moved to SoCal and had to make pizza, without her favorite wood burning oven, Stella Rossa’s deck oven baked pie might be something she’d produce. SM’s pie skips the Caputo 00 but uses sea salt, filtered water, live yeast, and Santa Monica farmers market sourced ingredients, natch. The result, born from months of scientific — Chef Mahin has a math degree from Cal — dough and yeast testing, is unnervingly good.

Serious Eats did a nice blurb in July (shortly after my visit) and aptly covers the most important points of Stella Rossa. What it didn’t do, was provide insight into Chef Mahin’s philosophy. This is a corporate chef who left his post to sling pie in a far away land. His sous chef, wearing a 3 Michelin star tattoo on his left bicep, migrated to LA also to sling pie. When asked how he dealt with transition, Mahin stated plainly: cooking is cooking. »continue reading Stella Rossa, Santa Monica: Michelin Powered Pizza

APRIL MOTHER-SHITTING FOOOOOOOL’S, FOOLS! HA! Did I surprise you? No? Well, I surprised myself with all the yelling, so much so, apparently, that I lost all bladder control. Although, to be fair, continence has never been DF’s strong suit. But you know what is DF’s strong suit? I mean, besides soiling myself. Yes, you guessed it—playing awesome jokes on people to celebrate April Fool’s Day! Why, here are some of my fave-rave examples.

When I was just a wee lad, I surprised my enfeebled, elderly next-door neighbor Old Jim by jumping out of a shrubbery on April Fool’s morn and yelling “Boo” as he got his morning paper. Then Old Jim gave as good as he got, falling over and pretending to die of a heart attack. He was so committed to the joke that he even held a fake funeral and burial for himself the next week, with all his family there weeping and crying! Now that I think of it, I never really saw Old Jim after that. Oh, he was a card.

And what better time for spring pranks than the halcyon college days? I am a proud graduate of Fontana University, and in my freshman year, I established myself as a prankster extraordinaire even before April Fool’s Day rolled around when I greased up all the footballs used by the ol’ FU pigskin squad before our big rivalry game with Riverside State. Our QB didn’t complete a pass the entire time, and we lost 65-0! The football team really loved my joke, so much that I had a wedgie for more or less all of my first year. And sophomore, and junior, and senior years too, come to think of it.

And back when I worked for American Pencil Sharpener Co. for all those years, we really cut up when April Fool’s rolled around. Why, one time my co-workers arranged for a policeman to show up at work and tell me that my home had burned down and all my loved ones were dead. Turns out–they weren’t! It was all a big gag! Oh, I laughed til I cried! Or at least, I recall crying a lot. Then I pranked those zany co-workers right back by slashing the tires of their cars in the employee parking lot. The joke was that they had to get their cars towed … and then buy new tires! One of them said to me after it all went down, “I’m seriously going to kill you, DF. This is not a joke.” How I guffawed and guffawed at his light-hearted japery; truly, my stomach was sore from laughing! What a merrie time we all had.

So as you can tell, April Fool’s Day is one of DF’s most beloved, coveted days of the year, even more cherished than Arbor Day, or possibly even the day McDonald’s annually re-releases the McRib. But there is one thing happening during this season of foolishness that is dead-ass serious: it’s an old-skool throwdown between the Tough Cookies and the Varsity Brawlers this Saturday, April 2 at the Doll Factory. By now, any bout involving the Cookies is essentially a grudge match—hell, as the three-time defending champs, they’re like the Yankees of LA roller derby, except without the tight pinstriped knickers. And DF is staunchly non-partisan, but in his opinion, the Varsity Brawlers have enough fight in them that they just might make the Cookies crumble. Don’t believe me? Check out this adorable, yet hilarious video as proof:

That one really made me laugh my ass off. Seriously: I am now assless. Anyone know where I can get an ass replacement? But even more seriously, this weekend’s Brawlers/Cookies tilt is going to go off hard-core, and I am not engaging in foolishness, April or otherwise, when I say that it’s going to be epic. So get your tixes here, and be there at the Doll Fac this Saturday, mo-fos–no joke!

Corrections, emendations, et cetera may be directed to DF at Losanjealous dot com. DF sometimes remembers that he has a Twitter account. But only sometimes.

Poster art by Pushy Whipped; (C) 2011 by LA Derby Dolls. All rights reserved.

I speak Urdu, Tagalog, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Esperanto, Mandarin, Norwegian, C++, Java, HTML, Snark, Blog, Quechua and North Korean, but not French. We get about 50,000 music press releases per day and even though this one originated from Hudson Street, New York, NY, I will be goddamned if I know what’s going on other than I dig the photo. “En concert blah blah blah, tck tck tck” indeed. Please, somebody help me (and Dan Black Sound) so that I can determine if I should post it, add one or more of his shows to our concert calendar, delete it or just what the hell, here.

Merci
Ryan