We met up with friends at a new wood-fired Italian Neapolitan pizza restaurant that opened 45 minutes north of Kansas City called Il Lazzarone. This is the same group with which we regularly try new restaurants, though I’ve been terrible about posting them all over the years. We sat inside for hours talking about everything from economics, rental properties, trust law, and oil stocks to the Catholic Church, steam saunas, and the new health care reform costs.
[mainbodyad](As a side note, the latter resulted in someone pointing out the negative cash flow implications of the tax subsidies; e.g., if you are poor, you still have these huge premium outflows 11 months out of the year and only recover them on tax day, which is an incredible burden if you are earning less than $10 to $20 an hour. To test the implications, I added several more paragraphs to the recent post on the topic, running assumptions as if Aaron and I fell into different household income groups. Even with the subsidies, the cash flow and bottom-line costs as a percentage of pre-tax household income, and after-tax discretionary income, are fairly horrific.)
Il Lazzarone happens to be across the street from the same restaurant where Aaron worked as a teenager, which was appropriate because our brunch group has known each other since we were all 14 or 15, and, in one case, elementary school. The pizza place served only cane sugar colas, pour-over coffee from beans that were alive only five days ago, and cooked in this huge open kitchen with the ingredients out in plain sight. It was such a great feeling being inside, scent of the fire in the pizza oven as it began to get cold, dark, and windy outside. By the time we left, hours after arriving, the snow had begun to fall.
Both of us plan on returning in the next week or two with our family members so they can try it. If you’re in the area, and have a craving for Italian pizza, it’s worth a visit.
I had the Uovo (right in front of me), which features a farm fresh egg, parmigiano reggiano, mozzarella, salami, extra-virgin olive oil, fresh basil, fresh garlic, sea salt, and black pepper. I had them add pepperoni, too. Aaron, to my left, had the Bianca, which was mozzarella, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, basil, and sea salt.
There’s something magical about the taste of food cooked over fire with wood as the fuel. You get it in campfire food, too.
The open kitchen concept was really cool because you got to watch them prepare, assemble, and finish everything. I should have gotten some behind-the-counter shots because, as we were leaving, they had these huge trays of cheese, tomatoes, and other vegetables out that made it look like something out of a food magazine.
Once placed inside the wood-burning stove, the pizzas took less than a minute to cook. I should have asked what the temperature is.
The interior of the restaurant is a repurposed brick building …
… another shot of the interior seating area of Il Lazzarone for my own reference in the future.
Seeing this amazing sight – some really good coffee sourced from a roasting company called Oddly Specific in Kansas City next to pure cane sugar Coca-Cola from Mexico – I began jokingly singing this song in my head …
We ended up going home to hunker down for the rest of the night since there was a chance the roads would get bad with the ice and snow. There’s nothing like being in a warm house, with the fireplace going, as the wind howls outside.
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