Franny goes to Franny's

RRR & I started our day with a quick trip to Shake Shack while taking in doses of the Gay Pride Parade. Nothing like a shack stack, taxi dog and vanilla milkshake (shared semi-equally) to help get rid of Saturday night's hangover. I do enjoy Shake Shack -- -the lines can be obscene but once you get over the kitsch it is really great food and a nice place to enjoy a tasty albeit high calorie meal. I must say the burgers are far superior to the hot dogs but I think I am a bit spoiled by the "Italian" or "Newark-style" hot dogs from my youth --- please remind me to write about that one day.

After I commandeered the last sip of the vanilla shake we headed into Park Slope to be Brooklyn tourists. There are lots of great little places in Park Slope - wine bars, desert places, cute little boutiques - all on the way to the touted pizza with fresh greenmarket ingredients at Franny's.

We were immediately met with pleasant courteous service and we chose to sit inside versus the quaint outside garden since dark skies were looming. Shockingly I didn't have to twist RRR's arm to order a bottle of wine (Pian del Ciampolo 2002) that wasn't full-bodied since we wanted a lighter wine to compliment our pizza. I swear if she could have her wine with a fork & knife she would!

Our meal began some Franny-house cured meats: soppresata, pancetta, coppa, proscioutto & cacciatorini, a tender, garlicky cousin of soppresata. Fantastic! We devoured the rapini crostini and were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our tomato & buffalo mozzarella pizza. The pizza was very good but didn't quite live up to the hype or the train ride from downtown. Maybe growing up Italian and in NJ we are harsh pizza critics but even the fresh ingredients wouldn't put Franny's in the upper eschelon of pizza. However, if I lived in that neighborhood I would be extremely happy to have Franny's in my backyard...

I wouldn't necessarily call Franny's a bust, it simply did not live up to the hype. And they were out of Franny's t-shirts! That was the real rub! So I went home empty handed but tipsy thanks to the stop at a local wine bar whose name has completely escaped me - again tipsy!

During our subway ride home, RRR had the Oprah aha! moment.
What we are really in search of is the pizza we enjoyed every summer
at the Jersey shore. It all goes back to Gee Gee's on Manasquan Boardwalk. Blame it on the salt air...