Editor's note: Our foreign correspondent gives up the barbecue sauce trail this week to go where angels fear to tread, reviewing Alice Laussade's stint in the kitchen at Il Cane Rosso.
This meal cost more than $10, but it was for charity, the National MS Society
Waiter with cool haircut count: Several City of Ate staff cooking actual food for public consumption: One
You guys! On Monday night in Deep Ellum, The Cheap Bastard totally made pizza for everyone! And it was totally delicious, in an oh-my-god-the-last-time-I-had-this-much-meat-inside-me-was-college-if-you-know-what-I-mean sort of way.
Il Cane Rosso is totally awesome. I hadn't even seen it before, cheekily nestled next to the freeway underpass on the edge of Deep Ellum, like it's willing you to ignore it. It's got a balance between classy pizza joint and dirty pizza joint going on, like a stripper outfit on royalty. It's all wine and wood and open fire but also all metal and hip staff and swearing, you guys. Actual swearing.
By the time Richard and I rocked up, our well-respected (that was a joke, Nick, I think actually the best joke so far) web editor Nick, who was hanging out at his natural habitat of the bar, had already managed to get two older stoned dudes to order Alice's pizza. No one can confirm what methods he used to do this (and Nick isn't say anything) but this selfless act of charitable meat redistribution meant that by the time we ordered a special Meat Fight special pizza, there weren't any left. GOOD GOING NICK.
Praise baby jeebus then that the Cheap Bastard, Queen of Charitable Meat Redistribution, stepped in and located some spare meat, possibly slaughtering it herself with that knife she always tells me she carries when I try to ask her any questions. Wherever she got the meat from, she personally brought us her special Meat Fight, half beef, half pork pizza (there's a cheap joke in there but to be honest I'm too good for it) and a BONUS, SPECIAL ALICE CREATION which she delightedly christened the Pig Fucker. Apparently it contained lots of pork. I'm not really sure. I think she likes to talk about sex. By this point I was largely focused on the knife in her hand, which screamed "give me a good review and leave the Observer FOREVER" but I ain't intimidated.
Anyway, it was possibly the best pizza in the history of the universe ... no, scratch "possibly." Not that I was intimidated.
Alice wasn't really allowed to work the oven, of course, and the only people who bought the pizzas were stoned dudes, coworkers and Alice's family members, all of whom were compelled to do so by Nick's charm/weapon/erection, but the pizza was some of the best I've ever had. Well done, Alice, and well done CHARITY. We're all winners here. You guys.
In an attempt to not have Alice hunt me down and stab me for doing a frankly terrible and insulting impression of her, the fee for this article is being donated to the Meat Fight charity
