Brooklyn Trip

When a man has a clearly defined goal, no matter what happens, he will not quit. Especially when three men have the same goal at the same time and when it involves food. So the other day on a Sunday my roommies and I decided to go to New York City's most famous pizzeria, called Grimaldi's.

Us and the Brooklyn Bridge

It is located right under the Brooklyn Bridge, right across the East River from Manhattan. Noone knows why it is known as having the best pizza in town, but everyone's heard about it. My guess is that Lonely Planet made a recommendation and that started the whole craze.

Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn

As I mentioned, the place is located under the Brooklyn Bridge. Right next to the Jehova's Witness' New York headquarters. Since the Brooklyn Bridge is not that far (at least on this side of the river) from the Manhattan Bridge, people living there find themselves living a little under a busy communication artery of connecting the two parts of the city. And, well, in America trains, trucks and all other moving objects are about 8 times louder than they are in Europe. Walking under one of the bridges, even though the trains seemed to be relatively distant, it was impossible to have a normal conversation. It is very hard to imagine how all the people live there.

Progressing down the line

When we finally reached the place we realized the prize would not come easy. It turned out that on that particular night a few more people from New York had the same idea as we did. And we spent a big part of the afternoon on waiting and progressing very very slowly towards the pizzeria.

Trying to kill some time. Thanks iPhone!

No, it did not progress fast. The thermometer on the nearby building showed around 90 degrees, which converts to around 32 centigrade. Of course the humidity was exremely high, typically for New York at this time of the year, so the restaurant promised to distribute "complementary water" to those standing in line. As it turned out there was enough "complementary water" for the first 5 people who asked for it. And the gentleman whom I would suspect of being appointed a "queue manager" behaved more like he tried to tame a herd of cattle rather than a group of people.

Me has fooooood!

But then - finally after 1,5hr of standing, we got in. The place was extremely small and the decoration, well, was non-existant. I do not know if it was going through some kind of renovation at the time we got there but parts of the wall had no paint on them. And the cuttlery and paltes, although clean, bore signs of many year's of service by displaying all the situations in their lives when a slice of pizza did not want to give in that easily to the knife.

A local treat

But, when the pizza arrived - it was really good. I don't know the extent to which it can be attributted to the fact that I had stood in a line for 1,5 hour before that smelling what came out of the Italian-made pizza ovens. That did not matter, the food was there and we were happy. It was easy to feel the New York atmosphere which can be described in three points: (1) there's little space so don't take up too much; (2) there is no time so you better be quick; (3) noone even cares you're here.

Brooklyn Bridge at night

As time was scarce we took off after about 35 minutes after getting in. With our stomachs full we decided to take a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge after dusk. It was a nice experience - the waters of East River provided a nice and refreshing feeling. Of course it was crowded and it was a miracle noone got hit by one of the many speeding bicycles there.

On the way home - queuing is a part of NY's life

In order to get home we needed to take the subway to the Port Authority station and catch a night bus from there to West New York. Once we got to the station we realized that there was a queue. Well, it must be a part of the life in New York. So in the end we made a calculation: leaving home at 5:55pm and arriving back at midnight, we ate pizza for 35 minutes.

New York, United States