say cheese

It must be the hot stone. At the urging of a blog reader (more about him later), my family and I stopped for dinner at Brooklyn's Original Pizza in Lenoir City on our way home from Atlanta. It says on the front of the menu that they are East Tennessee's only hot stone pizzeria. The crust was the perfect thickness, or maybe I should say it was the perfect thinness. It was the perfect softness too. My first slice drooped exactly the right way before I pressed down on the center and folded it the way New Yorkers do.



In the past few weeks, I've written about trying the pizza at Mangia Pizza & More in the Turkey Creek shopping center and at I ♥ NY Pizza in South Knoxville. A comment on one of those earlier pizza posts directed me to an online review of Brooklyn's Original Pizza, which in turn, prompted me to visit the place this week. The reviewer is right, the pizza at Brooklyn's Original is just like you'd get in New York. I loved it and will go there again when I can. Because Mangia is closer to my house, I'll go there more often. Mangia's crust has a delicious breadstick flavor to it that strays from true New York style but I liked it a lot. A whole heckuva lot.

The guys behind the counter at Brooklyn's Original Pizza were happy have me take their picture. They told me how they are now world famous because of the online review I had read at KnoxvilleYankee.com. They asked if my photos were for the Internet. I said yes without realizing that they might have thought I was going to post them on the Knoxville Yankee site rather than my own.



The author of Knoxville Yankee has written a very entertaining recap of what happened next. Here's my favorite part of his post (which you must read in its entirety):

Apparently some guy showed up that evening, claimed he knew me, knew my name, and spent about an hour there taking photos and talking to them all the while saying it was 'for KnoxvilleYankee.com'. Now there is the possibility that my friends at Brooklyn's Original heard wrong - they were short-staffed this week - but if they heard right, that's some creepy stuff because I have *NO* idea who that guy was. He certainly wasn't affiliated with me.

And so I'm putting a call out to identify this mystery Yankee who claimed he was down with this set. Here's what we know (pardon the 'Clue' like description):

• He was estimated to be in his early 40's
• He has a beard and glasses
• He was with a woman and younger teenager who were assumed to be his family
• The 'son' was described as around 14 - I didn't hear about the 'wife'
• He has a 'northern accent' which could either mean a real accent or the absence of a southern one.
• He has a nice camera, and spent a great deal of time setting up food shots, getting pictures of the guys tossing dough, etc.
• He ordered a large pie with oregano and three salads (good taste - nice).
• He was nice.

They may have gotten a few details wrong (I never claimed to be from Knoxville Yankee, I only said that I had heard of it) but at least they said I was nice. I've been recognized a lot lately, so I need to be on my best behavior.