| Port Jefferson, as seen from the back of the ferry as we left the harbor.
| The ferry passed very close to a sandbar. I suppose the sound
(geographic term, not sensory term) must be very steep near the shore.
| The ferry moved at twenty miles per hour. The wind blew at twenty miles
per hour. We didn't want to stand outside on the deck for very long.
|
Despite the temperature, Frank Pepe had a long line at
lunchtime. We waited perhaps half an hour in the cold, then another
fifteen minutes indoors, before getting seated at 2:30pm.
We eventually left at 4:00pm.
| The pizza oven.
While in line, we were told by someone who's been coming here for two
decades that the charring of the crust depends in part on how often they
vacuum out the oven. It happens multiple times each day.
He also
advised us not to order half-and-halfs, because it's not possible to get
each half simultaneously cooked to the proper doneness of toppings.
| The white clam pizza (clams, garlic, white sauce, no cheese), one of Frank
Pepe's classics. Like the other pizza we ordered, it was fairly greasy,
but not really in a bad way. It also had nice blackened splotches on the
crust. The slices had enough integrity to be eaten by hand.
Overall, I thought the two pizzas we ordered were perfectly respectable.
This particular pizza, with its chewy clams, I thought was decent; my
parents thought it was okay or didn't like it much.
I had leftovers several days later; it didn't reheat well.
| The original tomato pizza with mozzarella, the other classic. We all
preferred this one. Although not amazing, we thought well of it.
|
