Ladies Who Lunch – Michael’s of Naples

I don’t know about you, but it has been a long time since I’ve been out to ladies who lunch.  Which is ok, but lunching out is one of my favorite things. And sometimes, I start a draft for a post, but never get around to finishing it. So today, in the spirit of Throw Back Thursday, I am posting this treasure from the vault:

In this week’s edition of Ladies Who Lunch, I will be telling you about my adventure to Michael’s Pizzeria, one of the top pizza places in Long Beach.  Also, somewhere that I had never been.

My dear friend works in the food business; it is important for her to stay up on all the restaurants around town. So, even though it was a Saturday, she was working, and I got to be her faithful and willing assistant!

We grabbed a table near the open kitchen so that we could converse with the chef, Julio.  You know when you get those déjà vu feelings that are for real?  This was one of those times.  It turns out that Julio had worked as a chef for Patina in the past and had catered at least one of my events (the catering kitchen was one of my favorite places at events, so I always met the chef).

Because I take my job as a lunch assistant very seriously, I needed a glass of wine and they had a great selection of interesting Italian white wines available by the glass.  The sweet, young waiter had a creative way of interpreting the wine list, but even though I had no idea what he was talking about, he was willing to bring a taste of this one and that one so that I could figure out which I wanted.

For food, we had the arugula salad.  I love an arugula salad.  This one was just simple and nice, arugula, a little cheese, and balsamic dressing.  It was the perfect compliment to the pizza we ordered, the Capricciosa on gluten free crust (it’s called teamwork people).  The Capricciosa has prosciutto, artichokes, mushrooms, olives, mozzarella, and tomato sauce.  Yum!  Even though the gluten free crust was not like a traditional, thin, crispy, wood-fired pizza crust, it was tasty.  We found out that it is Julio’s own, special recipe.

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We also found out that he makes all of the mozzarella himself in-house.  And boy is it delicious.  But that’s not all!  Julio ALSO makes all of the gelato in-house.  And boy is it good.  I would usually have more savory food and skip dessert, but I will never skip the gelato here.  It made my life better.  The only downside was that we had decided to share, so I didn’t get my very own scoop of salted caramel gelato (I hadn’t known that I needed my own scoop, but now I do).

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Now, my friend has furnished me with the supplies to be able to make my own gourmet pizza at home – special Italian flour, a big can of San Marzano tomatoes, and buffalo mozzarella. I’ve been meaning to give it a shot but haven’t been able to overcome the new thing inertia … maybe this post is going to be the kick-in-the-pants that I have been needing!