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I'm with you, mike n Tigerlily. Going to check it out in the next couple days.
My hope, up and above A 1 quality pizza, is good bread. One of my chief complaints about LC food (along with not enough quality Asian chow) is that it's very difficult to find great bread. What passes for artisan bread tends to be dense, sometimes bricklike, and less than inspiring flavor and texture wise.
Pleeeze make good bread, folks, and best of luck to you in downtown LC
Likewise. I've been watching this place under construction every weekend on my way to the library. I'll probably stop in this weekend. I'm thrilled to read they were overwhelmed with business.
Let me also add another new pizza place that just opened. It's not downtown, but this is what Sun News wrote about it:
Quote:
A new restaurant called Eddie's Done Deal Pizza has opened its doors at 1103 S. Solano Dr., in the building that used to house Casa de Menudo. Owner Eddie Farrell said he is a retired New York City detective who used to work in pizzerias in New York and wanted to run his own place. Open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., the eatery offers meatball sandwiches and calzones and well as pizza. Farrell said he hopes to soon offer cold cut sandwiches as well.
The phone number for Eddie's Done Deal Pizza is 523-1788.
And support it I did. The lovely and talented Mrs Tecpatl and I drove downtown to seek out good bread and maybe some lunch.
In this case, one outta two ain't bad...in fact, it was great.
The Pizzeria was full...no tables open and a waiting line when we arrived...so we elected to buy a couple loaves of freshly baked (and beautiful, by the way) bread for some scientific evaluation and lunch at home.
We got a baguette of Popular Sourdough $2.50 and a Rustic Baguette $2.25 broke off a crusty end of each on the stroll back to our car and started our evaluation. I'm happy, no..thrilled..to report both were excellent tasting and of high quality.
The Sourdough had a firm, crispy crust and the requisite slashes on the top had toasted up nice and dark and showed that the loaf had been kneaded, formed and raised properly. Inside was a nice medium crumb with raisin-sized bubbles, firm, chewy and moist bread, with a very pleasant, mildly sour flavor that developed as I chewed and savored. This is a first class loaf, and begs to be dunked in some soup.
The Rustic Baguette is a yeast bread, obviously raised and punched down a few times to increase flavor and develop the glutens. The loaf appears to be simply cut as a strip from a larger loaf of dough and is not rolled or pulled in any way to develop a hard crust. Thus it has a thin but crisp crust, enveloping a very open crumb with large bubbles and a stretchy, chewy but tender texture. This bread would be fine for sandwiches but really begs to be torn from the loaf and devoured as is, or possibly enhanced with a bit of cold butter or a quick dunk in some virgin olive oil. A winner.
These folks have some other breads which we'll try over the next week or so. Their Ciabatta looks excellent as does the Village Loaf -their version of Pugliese- and I saw that they make an Olive Ciabatta but there were none available at our visit. They also make the Sourdough and Brown wheat bread in boules, which is sometimes better for slicing and grilled sandwiches.
GREAT BREAD HAS ARRIVED IN LAS CRUCES (Gracias a Dios!), and as a guy who has bitched and whined about the generally second rate (and worse) bread available hereabouts this is a very, very good thing.
I wish these folks much success. Their dining operation looked a little shakey during my wait to order and pay for my bread (more about that later), but I hope they can work this out soon. It would be a tragedy for bread lovers if this place went away.
If you like great handmade bread, it's worth the drive for a couple of these very reasonably prices loaves. I'm going to keep one in the freezer for emergencies
And support it I did. The lovely and talented Mrs Tecpatl and I drove downtown to seek out good bread and maybe some lunch.
In this case, one outta two ain't bad...in fact, it was great.
The Pizzeria was full...no tables open and a waiting line when we arrived...so we elected to buy a couple loaves of freshly baked (and beautiful, by the way) bread for some scientific evaluation and lunch at home.
We got a baguette of Popular Sourdough $2.50 and a Rustic Baguette $2.25 broke off a crusty end of each on the stroll back to our car and started our evaluation. I'm happy, no..thrilled..to report both were excellent tasting and of high quality.
The Sourdough had a firm, crispy crust and the requisite slashes on the top had toasted up nice and dark and showed that the loaf had been kneaded, formed and raised properly. Inside was a nice medium crumb with raisin-sized bubbles, firm, chewy and moist bread, with a very pleasant, mildly sour flavor that developed as I chewed and savored. This is a first class loaf, and begs to be dunked in some soup.
The Rustic Baguette is a yeast bread, obviously raised and punched down a few times to increase flavor and develop the glutens. The loaf appears to be simply cut as a strip from a larger loaf of dough and is not rolled or pulled in any way to develop a hard crust. Thus it has a thin but crisp crust, enveloping a very open crumb with large bubbles and a stretchy, chewy but tender texture. This bread would be fine for sandwiches but really begs to be torn from the loaf and devoured as is, or possibly enhanced with a bit of cold butter or a quick dunk in some virgin olive oil. A winner.
These folks have some other breads which we'll try over the next week or so. Their Ciabatta looks excellent as does the Village Loaf -their version of Pugliese- and I saw that they make an Olive Ciabatta but there were none available at our visit. They also make the Sourdough and Brown wheat bread in boules, which is sometimes better for slicing and grilled sandwiches.
GREAT BREAD HAS ARRIVED IN LAS CRUCES (Gracias a Dios!), and as a guy who has bitched and whined about the generally second rate (and worse) bread available hereabouts this is a very, very good thing.
I wish these folks much success. Their dining operation looked a little shakey during my wait to order and pay for my bread (more about that later), but I hope they can work this out soon. It would be a tragedy for bread lovers if this place went away.
If you like great handmade bread, it's worth the drive for a couple of these very reasonably prices loaves. I'm going to keep one in the freezer for emergencies
Tecaptl,
Did you read the story about the proprieter? It's in a frame in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. I thought it was very interesting.
Perhaps I was too tough on my first review. I didn't order any bread loaves, just pizza and a salad.
Did you read the story about the proprieter? It's in a frame in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. I thought it was very interesting.
Perhaps I was too tough on my first review. I didn't order any bread loaves, just pizza and a salad.
Nope, I didn't read anything....we got there just before noon and the joint was jumping, so we just stood in line to get bread and scrammed. I did see in a handout we took with us that he's a Johnson & Wales grad. They have one of the nations best H & R Culinary programs, and I had a sous chef who was a J & W graduate and a top notch perfomer. They teach gooood.
We'll probably go back at an off hour for lunch or dinner and check the place out more thoroughly.
I see you had a disappointing experience there...and I'd be peeved about it too, if it was me. Actually, when I read your report my first thought was: who the heck would wait almost 2 hours for a pizza?!?! I'd be gone after a half hour. Give em another chance though, OK?
My 7 or 8 minute wait to get bread was enough time to see that the help needs more and better training and that their layout and menu setup (waitstaff having to squeeze thru a line of customers to get in and out of the open kitchen area for one thing) needs some serious tweaking IMHO.
When I look at a restaurant operation I look first at the tables and guests, and in this case only about 25% of seated patrons were actually doing what they came there for...to EAT. Some were obviously waiting for a bill, and most of the rest were waiting for their food. This means the kitchen is likely running slow, something they'll need to work on if they want happy customers and also if they want to make some dough of the green and foldable kind. A 75% idle table layout means the restaurant is not going to get what all restaurants, no matter how good, need for survival: Turnover. You have to turn those tables as fast as you can if you want to do the numbers needed to make the place pay off. They're not there yet, obviously, and the place doesn't have enough seats to make up for slow turn.
We're a good example....we would have spent 15 bucks or more on lunch, plus our couple loaves to go, if there had been a decent chance of getting a seat. Instead, we left after spending only 5 bucks. We'll be back soon, but you can see the problem.
Not to mention customers like you who were disappointed by the long wait for the food, etc.
Had Eddie's Done Deal pizza tonight. My stomach is currently basking in the glow as I type this. Faith has been restored. That's the best pizza I've had since I've moved here. While there, I bumped into a fellow New Jerseyan, and a New Yorker (From Brooklyn, actually). We were all waiting for take out orders, and reminisced about the east coast. We all lamented how we missed east coast cooking, though we all agreed that we were happy here, and how tough it would be to move back. When I was handed the pizza in the box, I knew right away I had a winner. The grill in the back is not one of those conveyors, it is a real gas grill, like back in the old neighborhood. Went back home and ate 3/4 of the pie by myself.
This is the best food news I've had since I've moved here, and I will make it my business to buy there regularly. I doubt the other usual pizza places in town will be an option any longer. It's that much better.
I want to learn more about Las Cruces. I'm writing a novel set in that town in the 1970s. I'll probably pay it a visit in a couple weeks to get out of the cold of Salt Lake.
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The Bread Report
ain't bad...in fact, it was great.
I'd be gone after a half hour.
Give em another chance though, OK?
