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“Motorino”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Italian	Brooklyn	Cheap Eats	Great

omato sauce. We tore into the pie (too fast, I burned the roof of my mouth), but I found that the pie was worth the blisters. The sauce is sweet, but it also has a nice heat in the background, though the crust was the real prize—smoky, puffy, chewy at the edges and thin enough in the body, but still strong enough to hold up the weight of the toppings. It was gone pretty quickly. We needed another.

Laura, our very sweet waitress with a Southern accent who told us of her recent move to New York from Nashville, helped us choose another, and we went for the artichoke pie topped with smoked pancetta, fior di latte (made in house) and sliced artichokes ($13).While I had about half a slice—and enjoyed the smokiness of the pancetta with the woodsy artichokes—Court polished off the rest. He seemed ready for another. That’s the thing about these pies. You think you can’t eat more than one, and you can. Most certainly you can allot one pie per person. Even if you have to take a slice home, it will make a great lunch the next day.

On a Thursday night with Kiri, Motorino was significantly more populated, almost every table was filled, smiling faces drinking wine and eating lots of pizza. It’s a simple pleasure that really works. In fact, some nights it even lures Mathieu’s old boss and mentor, Laurent Tourondel, who travels down to Brooklyn from the Upper East Side just for a few of his protégé’s pies.

We started with a tri-color salad—a toss of endive, radicchio and arugula in a peppery balsamic vinaigrette ($7). A special that night was pistachio-studded mortadella sliced thick and roasted in the oven, served with hot mustard. We jumped on that bandwagon, and cut into the smoky pinwheels, dunking its crispy charred edges in the spicy mustard. Wrap this in a tube of pizza dough, kids, and you’ve got a great new fangled pig in a blanket.

Pizzas were equally good that night—we had a Margarita with fior de late ($10) and yes, another artichoke pie. We wanted to try something new, like the one cloaked with prosciutto and sprinkled with oregano ($12), or the white pie swathed in mozzarella flecked with sea salt ($16)—but Kiri was committed to the artichoke pie and so it was. (Two slices made it home with me, which I had for lunch the following day, heated up on a pizza stone I keep in my oven that maintains the crust’s crispness.) We had a ... [more, click below]

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Posted: December 28, 2008

Other restaurants in Brooklyn :
+ Chickenbone Cafe-- Closed   + Pier 116-- Closed   + Chestnut   + Lunch at Peter Luger's   + 360   + Palo Santo   + The Good Fork   + Porchetta-- Closed Now   + Bocca Lupo   + Flatbush Farm   + DuMont Burger   + Dressler   + Farm on Adderley   + The Grocery   + Saul   + Black Mountain Wine House   + The General Greene   + Char No. 4   + James   + Chestnut   + No. 7   + Vinegar Hill House   + Motorino   + Buttermilk Channel   + Buttermilk Channel   + Vutera   + Watty & Meg    + Prime Meats   + Aqualis Grill   + Jack the Horse Tavern   + Roman's   + Fatty 'Cue   + Thistle Hill Tavern   + Broken English   + Trix, by Dara Pollak   + An Ode to New Orleans in Williamsburg: Maison Premiere, By Dara Pollak   + Brooklyn Wok Shop by Dara Pollak   + Arthur on Smith   + La Vara   + Gran Electrica   + Pok Pok Ny   + Ganso    + Reynard   

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