Belfast: Day 5: A Black Cab Tour, Crumlin Gaol and Pizza

by Miss Penny Black

Another trip on the glider into town!

Looking for somewhere different for breakfast, I’d spotted the cafe at the linenhall library.

Very cute!

I had the granola and yes, those are choc chips. The yogurt had coconut in it, delicious!

The weather was doing its best to match the mood of the day.

Not far from the cafe we found our driver, who was named Danny because every family here names their eldest child Daniel.

As you might guess from this photo and his job, he was quite a character. He took us for a drive around the parts of Belfast related to The Troubles.

If you don’t know what The Troubles are you should google them because I’m not going to try to explain decades of religious and political conflict. Also if you haven’t heard of the problems in Northern Ireland and you’re over 30 you’re an eejit.

We went out in a black cab, which is always nice because they’re so roomy. Some things we drove past, others we got out to have a closer look at.

The company is owned by both Protestants and Catholics and so the talk is supposed to be unbiased, although I think it was pretty clear our driver was from one side. He did emphasise his desire for a continuation of the peace process and was very proud of the tour company for bringing both sides together. The mural below is a celebration of a non sectarian organisation and was sponsored by the cab company.

Below is the longest wall left from The Troubles, and still very much needed. Bits of rubble from week-old brick-throwing was in evidence.

I say black taxi, it was more a periwinkle blue.

On the other side of the fence is a catholic estate, the brick rubble explains the wire fencing over their back yards.

Danny showed us old and new style rubber bullets. They’re huge and they have killed many people, despite being used for safety reasons.

Danny gave us about fifty hour’s homework of documentary and book reading if we wanted to learn more.

Basically we learned a lot of shocking things and were feeling pretty sad and hopeless about it all so what should we do next?

Visit a gaol!

Crumlin Road Gaol is now a tourist attraction but was a pretty dire place to be interred for almost the last 150 years.

We did the walking tour, which meant following the arrows and paying attention to the many, many audio and visual presentations.

The Gaol is across the road from the old courthouse and a tunnel under the road used to join them. It was not the creepiest part of the place.

The creepiest part was the room where they hung people. I didn’t take a photo but it was a very plain room with a noose over a hole in the floor.

One of the more interesting facts was learning the origin of ‘screws’ as a nickname for the guards.

Outside were some tanks, jeeps and a helicopter on display.

The whole experience was quite sobering but it was the last of our historical activities for the day.

After the Gaol we headed to the Ulster Museum but first we needed a fortifying meal.

Pizza!

Orto pizza was a recommendation from Danny and Peter, who hadn’t been but heard it was good. The pepperoni pizza had honey on it, which counterbalanced the saltiness of the pizza very nicely.

We also got our own pizza cutters to slice the pizza. It’s a bit gimmicky but I’m sure lots of people enjoy it. Luke prefers a knife and fork when the pizza base is so thin and the toppings drip or slide when picked up.

The restaurant is directly across the road from the museum. Finally I’d get to see the finished GoT tapestry! It had been completed by an English workshop using Irish linen as the show was being aired. The final tapestry was over 80 metres in length.

We walked in and asked a member of staff where to find the tapestry. He told us it was in storage as HBO had borrowed it.

How annoying. I’ll have to wait until next time I guess!

Here’s a little picture I stole off the internet to give you a bit of an idea of the style.

We had as bit of a wander through the museum but we were both tired and decided to head back to the house.

We spent the evening declining food (too much pizza) and watching Drag Race, which was bright and shiny enough to distract us from what we’d learned during the day.

Thanks, Ru Paul!

28Apr2023

Stansted to Spain

by Miss Penny Black

I got to London from Sheffield an hour late due to terrible traffic. The driver was very apologetic and good humoured, which made the trip more bearable.

This photo is awful but it’s the only one from the bus.

I got off at Victoria feeling like I was starving and ducked out of the rain into a pizza place that promised real Neapolitan pizza.

Delivered! It was fantastic.

Also check out these fancy taps in the bathroom. Futuristic!

Feeling more at peace with myself and the world, I caught the jam-packed tube and then the Stansted Express and then taxi to the end. By the time I reached my quarters I did not feel particularly at peace with the world, more like a sardine that had spent too long in a can.

My accommodation for last night was pretty weird. I booked a place through booking.com that was in Takeley, a village very close to Stansted airport. It definitely didn’t look like a hotel and when I arrived it seemed to be a house made entirely of bedrooms. My room opened directly onto the back patio area, which had all the charm of a prison exercise yard.

‘Princess Rules’ is a pretty strange bit of decor in a room that’s probably most used by backpackers and low level business people.

In the morning I caught a local bus the one mile to the airport and met Danny, who had flown from Belfast. We haven’t seen each other in five years, although we talk many times a week over messenger. We both got married last year so I’m going to enjoy telling people about it and implying it was to each other, just to annoy him.

We quickly set about getting into trouble.

Well, Danny did. Then we had a glass of Prosecco at a bar while we waited for access to a lounge that Danny booked, where we could drink more Prosecco.

At the haunted bar, where a glass leapt off the bench and smashed for no reason because no one was anywhere near it.

A terrible photo (post Prosecco) of the Escape Lounge, where we had three complimentary Prosecco and breakfast.

The Ryanair terminal had its own special charm. I shouldn’t complain though, this was probably the best experience I’ve had with Ryanair… although it might’ve been all the Prosecco. Lesson learned! Ryanair plus four glasses of wine equals a tolerable experience.

The final glass of Prosecco was accompanied by a large coffee on the flight.

We landed and saw our first shell, the symbol and marker of the Camino.

We caught the bus into Santiago de Compostella then bought a bag of strawberries to eat on the train. Danny smokes so he stocked up.

Next was the high speed train to A Coruna, where we were staying the night. It was a 30 minute walk across town to the apartment Danny had booked and we were very grateful to grab some bread, ham and tomatoes (to go along with some pilfered cheese from the airport lounge) and have a picnic at the coffee table before bed. we can head all the cafes and bars below are packed with people but we are so very tired!

Tomorrow we catch a bus to Ferrol to start our walk. wish us luck!

5Oct2018

Here Comes The Planet 79 – Where to eat pizza in Naples (2018)

by Thorn

Being the pizza lover that he is, Luke explores some of the most renowned spots in Naples to buy a slice of the finest Neapolitan Margherita, and gets down to eating. After watching this video you will know where to go (and also maybe where not to go!).

For a more detailed description of every pizza Luke tried while in Naples, head to this entry of the blog.

20Jul2018

Pizza in Naples

by Thorn

Since this is a part of the trip I’ve been looking forward to, I thought I’d write my own post about the experience. I imagine quite a bit of it will be doubling up on what Amanda has already written, so apologies for that.

Although I definitely appreciate pizza more than some others, I could never call myself an aficionado. Not when I know there are people out there that obsess over all aspects of pizza making. As Amanda mentioned previously, I was a kickstarter backer of a documentary focused on Scott Weiner, of Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York. Now THERE is a guy who is an aficionado. A flour company that specialises in products for pizza makers once flew him to Italy to consult on upcoming products before releasing them to market. The guys who make the pizzas say that Scott knows more about pizza than they do.

All this is to say, I’m just a guy who enjoys a good slice. (Also watch that documentary if you get a chance, it’s really fun and interesting!)

I’m not going to go too heavily in to the history of pizza (Amanda touched on it briefly), suffice it to say that Naples is the birthplace, so any pizza lover owes it to themselves to try the pizza here if they can.

They have two “traditional” pizzas in Naples:

The Marinara, which is topped with tomato, garlic, oregano and extra-virgin olive oil.
The Margherita, which is topped with tomato, sliced fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and extra-virgin olive oil.

Writes Devorah Lev-Tov on The Spruce Eats:

Neapolitan pizza, or pizza Napoletana, is a type of pizza that originated in Naples, Italy. Neapolitan pizza is prepared with simple and fresh ingredients: a basic dough, raw tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, and olive oil—no fancy toppings. One of its defining characteristics is that there is often more sauce than cheese, leaving the middle of the pie wet or soggy and not conducive to being served by the slice.

Because of this, Neapolitan pizzas are generally pretty small (about 10 to 12 inches), making them closer to the size of a personal pizza. Neapolitan pizzas are cooked at very high temperatures (800 F-900 F) for no more than 90 seconds.

I like cheese too much not to go for the Margherita, so that’s what I decided to try at each pizzeria…

…except for the very first one! The first pizzeria we went to on the evening we arrived in Naples was Pizzeria Starita, which, I’d discovered, is known for its fried-base pizza called the Montanara. Everyone said it was the thing to try, so we ordered one of those and a Margherita and ate half each.

It was honestly hard to say which pizza was better. The Montanara had a delicious light crispy crunch to the base due to the frying, and the sauce was wonderfully balanced against the cheese to make a sweet and tangy topping. I noticed the base wasn’t as heavily charred as it might have been, so the bitter smoky taste only came through around the edges of the crust. Contrast that against the Margherita, which was an explosion of rich, tangy tomato which complemented the more smoky dough. Both pizzas were exceptionally good! It was entirely possible we had just had the best pizzas of our lives…

The next day we went on a food-focused walking tour around Naples. Amongst other things, we tried one Margherita pizza from Antica Pizza Fritta da Esterina Sorbillo.

Overall I wasn’t super impressed. It certainly lacked the wallop of flavour of the pizzas from Starita. I’ve heard that Sorbillo is supposed to be quite good, so I’m not sure why we got something substandard. I think there’s three separate eateries all named Sorbillo, one of which is the really famous one you hear heaps about, and another which is the bit we were in. I suspect that if you went to the proper one during the “queue for an hour to get one slice” time rather than when we were there for our food tour, it might be quite different. They did, however, have a pizza (more like a calzone really) that was deep fried and filled with ricotta, buffalo mozzarella, provolone and ham. That was super good!

Our breakfast pizza the next day was from Antica Pizzeria e Friggitoria Di Matteo in the old district. One small Margherita to share between the two of us.

This was a classic Naples Margherita street pizza. Hot, cheap and served in some grease paper folded in to quarters. The ingredients were runny but not too soupy, and there wasn’t too much or too little of either sauce or cheese. There was evenly spaced charring across the base. There was the telltale tang of the sweet regional tomatoes mixed with the salty mozzarella. In a word, for a hit-and-run Naples street pizza, it was perfect. As you can see the ingredients had slipped due to being held sideways while we were walking, but you can eat the pizza sideways so as to mash everything together anyway. It certainly didn’t detract from the taste!

That evening we went out to dinner with some friends who also happened to be in Naples. We went to Pizzeria Trianon da Ciro as they had a good range of pizzas and had a large amount of seating, which made it good for a group. Again I ordered a Margherita, although this time I decided to try one with additional olive oil.

The extra oil didn’t make that much of a difference for me, so I probably won’t order that again, but the pizza certainly tasted good. Not as good as Starita, not even as good as the street pizza from Di Matteo, but it was certainly tasty. And huge! So much bigger than all the pizzas we’d had so far.

As we neared the end of our time in Naples, I’d only have time to fit a few more places in. So I chose Antica Pizzeria Di Michele for the next day’s first pizza. This is the pizzeria made famous (apparently?) in the movie “Eat Pray Love” but it was certainly very popular before then.

After we worked out that we had to go and collect a ticket from the doorman to secure our place in the queue, we waited for a table. Considering the amount of people there were, and how few spaces there are, it was surprisingly quick.

Di Michele only has two pizzas on their menu – the Marinara and the Margherita – and a very small selection of drinks. You’re there for the pizza, not a dining experience. The time we were seated to the time we walked out the door was less than thirty minutes. And at least half of that time was spent eating super delicious pizza.

Here was where our research bore some fruit. We could tell that the Di Michele Margheritas were very good, but we noticed some differences against the pizzas from Starita.

These were charred a bit more on the base, and either they were using different tomatoes, or the smoky flavour cut against them too much, because they didn’t have the same burst of flavour. But they were still excellent, delicious pizzas, and not even as soupy as I’d been expecting – although there’s no way I’d attempt to consume one without a knife and fork.

That night we were meeting up with another friend of ours for dinner, and because she was coming in via boat and only had a small amount of time to spare, I suggested an upmarket pizza restaurant called 50 Kalò, as it was close to the marina and I’d read that it was supposed to be good.

Although there were a great number of pizza toppings and flavours on offer, I decided to stick with the Margherita so as to make it a fair test against all the others. And despite the fact that the restaurant was clearly popular – it was teeming with people and there was a massive queue to get in by the time we left – my pizza left a lot to be desired.

I can’t even describe it to you. At the time, I remember thinking that it just tasted like… nothing. None of the flavours took centre stage, or were very bold.

If ever there was a clear marker of just how amazing pizza in Naples CAN be, this pizza, by failing to make any sort of impression, was it. I had been spoiled with amazing flavour up until this point. It was a bit of a rude shock, and a sad segue back in to non-Naples pizza.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to angle for some great slice in other parts of Italy, of course! 😉

If I had more time in Naples, I would have liked to try the pizzas from El Presidente (owned by the brother of the guy who runs Di Matteo, so I’d hope the pizzas would be of similar quality), Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba (widely regarded as the very first pizzeria in the world – although apparently the quality has gone downhill) and Pizzeria Brandi, which is the Pizzeria that (allegedly) invented the Margherita. Maybe next time?

References:

The Serious Eats Guide To Pizza In Naples

Where to Eat the Best Pizza in Naples Italy – A Naples Pizza Guide

12Jul2018

Naples: Pizza #3 at Di Matteo

by Miss Penny Black

Round three of pizza this morning. Our first stop was Di Matteo’s, which was less than a kilometre from our accommodation. We got there so early that it hadn’t actually opened so we stopped at a cafe for a rather expensive cappuccino (Luke) and lemon granita (me).

I absolutely hate queuing for things and so I like to arrive, if at all possible, when an attraction or restaurant opens. We keep watching docos or seeing pictures of pizza places here that are swamped with people but so far we haven’t had to wait for a thing.

Di Matteo only have a serving window so we bought one Margherita then walked down the road to a church and sat on the steps. When they hand you the pizza here it is in a sheet of paper and they fold the pizza in half then quarters to make it easier to take away. It cost all of €1.50.

We took photos and video before we ate, which isn’t as annoying as it sounds because it takes a couple of minutes for the pizza to cool down to eating temperature. I had brought along my trusty scissors and cut the pizza in half. Luke thought it would drip everywhere but using scissors worked well and I’ve been glad to have them on me.

We both liked the pizza a lot – Di Matteo has an excellent reputation. The sauce was piquant and the crust had a good texture and char but I think I prefer my pizza served flat. Folding means the topping and crust get squished. Plus serving on paper means the oil does inevitably start to drip and you have to watch out or it gets on your clothes.

After the pizza we took the funicular up to the Castel san Elmo and admired the view. There’s not actually a whole lot to do there apart from a small modern art gallery in the centre but the view from the ramparts is 360 degrees and positively stunning.

Tonight we’re going to another restaurant so I look forward to eating my pizza on a plate and maybe having another Aperol Spritz. I think it is a drink that will now always remind me of Italy, much as peach iced tea now reminds me of Turkey.