That’s Some Pothole

Tacos on 12th St., strangely enough in the same location that used to house The Big Enchilada. What’s old is new again.

The Union Square Partnership offers many good deals on local shops and restaurants.

See them here.

Wondering what happened to the cute green building on 13th between 5th and 6th that housed Taste of Tokyo and La Dolce Vita? It’s gone. In its place will rise a small boutique hotel.

What is a Winter Warrior, you ask? For our dedicated neighbors who have braved the rain, sleet, snow and Polar Vortex to find the perfect butternut squash, you are a Winter Warrior! The friendly farmers at the Union Square Greenmarket would like to show you some appreciation.

You can pick up a Winter Warrior card at the Market Information tent and every time you check in, you’ll be able to earn rewards from these producers:

• Andrew’s Local Honey – Free Baby Honey Bear
• Anthony Road Winery – $2 Off any Bottle of Wine
• Consider Bardwell Farm – $1 Off any purchase of $5 or More
• Greener Pastures – Half Price on 1/4 lb of Sprouts
• Healthway Farm – 10lb Bag of Potatoes
• Hot Bread Kitchen – Free Chocolate Cherry Roll, Concha, M’smen, or Bialy with any purchase
• Lucky Dog Farm – 1.5lb Bag of Onions
• Martin’s Pretzels – Free $2-bag of Pretzels, or a Chocolate Pretzel
• Northshire Farm – $4 Off Any 4lbs of Vegetables
• Terhune Orchards – 5lb Bag of Baking Apples
• Troncillito Orchards – Half Gallon of Cider, or a Bag of Apples

The promotion runs through March 31st

More details have emerged about the upcoming 5 West 13th. St, a very tall condo with very few units. Consider it another safe deposit box for absentee foreign real estate investors.

Over on East 12th St., it was Piola, the Brazilian pizza place, and now it’s Ribalta, the Italian pizza place. And it’s a pizza school, too. UrbanDaddy writes:

There are book smarts.

There are street smarts.

And then there are pizza smarts.

Today, we’re going to focus on that last one.

Also, we’re going to eat a bunch of pizza pies.

So let’s enroll at Ribalta, the only pizzeria in New York with three different types of ovens and its own university (but alas, no football team), now open.

Bottom line, this restaurant is really quite absurdly serious about pizza. The dough: imported from an Italian mill and aged 48 hours before baking (we’ll let you imagine what this does to a crust). The tomatoes: all San Marzano and all hand-crushed. The ovens: plentiful, varied and powerful.

Yes, these master pizzaiolos/fusspots felt it was necessary to install three different ovens in the place. Brick. Wood-burning. And stainless-steel convection. Reason #1: to bake your sausage-and-sage pie precisely the way God intended. Reason #2: the syllabus required it.

See, when this place is not standing in as the prototypical Friday night date spot, it’s doubling as the city’s first Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli—an esteemed pizza school that’s been around in Italy since the ’80s. So eventually you’ll be able to register here for classes, seminars and lectures on the science of the slice.

Assuming you scored high enough on the pizza SATs.