I'm a crispy bastard. I love crispy, thin little pizzas known as bar pizzas, or tavern pies, if you will. These bastards are crispy, but they are also tender, oh so tender. Why the "bar" or "tavern" in the name? Well, because they are served in bars, and the story goes they are thin so as not be too filling, because keep in mind you are at a tavern drinking your choice of ale, and you need room in your bowels to be drinking as many pleasurable ales as possible, but of course you're drinking many ales so you soon feel hungry and you want to pleasure yourself with some pizza, but you want to still pleasure yourself with your choice of ale, so now you can have both pleasures because the pizza is think so the pleasure ale and pleasure pizza all fit inside!
Anyway, I took the Metro North train, leaving from Harlem and running express to Stamford, Connecticut, my destination. But my destination was not Stamford-at-large, but rather Riko's Pizza, a bar style pizza pub. I de-trained the train at Stamford and walked to Riko's. I had asked friends if they would join me on this adventure, but they all said no, and I said screw them and went anyway, for a man must sometimes do what is necessary, even if no one else will. And so I walked to Riko's alone, but I wasn't really alone, for I had my pride.
I arrived at Riko's, an unassuming place within a small strip mall type place. I sat. I ordered a pie with "stingers," whole roasted jalapeno peppers. The pizza arrived. I ate. Oh god it was a very good bar pie, extremely similar to Colony Grill, also in Stamford, which is probably my favorite bar pizza. Riko's was basically the same, perhaps the only small deficit in comparison being a crust which was not quite as caramelized as the crust at Colony. But a great bar pizza at Riko's. I walked back to the train, with my pride and a belly full of delicious pizza. Forget friends.
Riko's Pizza, Stamford, Connecticut