James Street Pizza review / Club La Mark

I've often thought the worst time to review or even go to a new restaurant is at it's opening.  I've also thought the worst time to review a pizza place is after you have had pizza for dinner 3 times in a week . . . so why not review James Street Pizza for the 4th pizza in 10 days . . .right?

Need I say more.

While in Door County with Josh, Jenny and the kids I was invited to attended a pre-soft opening/stress test at James Street Pizza.  Being a pizza lover I HAD to accept.  Even it if meant canceling a trip to the Wild Tomato in Fish Creek which I consider the best pizza I have had in Wisconsin.

This is a pizza chef

So - Friday we drive back from Door and after being home for an hour I head to James Street to pick up a couple small pizzas.  Pepperoni, onion and mushroom.

Anybody that cooks know that mushrooms are surprisingly full of water which is a nightmare for pizza cooks.  SO - why not toss that at them to see what happens on night #1 (insert evil laugh).

James Street Pizza is in the ol' Bistro Racine(sp?) which has been remodeled into a different look tiny place   A brick-ish look that made the place look bigger somehow.

So I get there and order a pizza to go.  Take it home and it looks really good.  Especially since this has to be one of the first 100 pizzas made in the brand new oven.

 I have to assume with any oven there is a learning curve, especially one that is a revolving wood/gas fired (called a MIX) fusion oven.  What could possibility go wrong.

Well, not much it seems.

The crust was very good, a New York style pizza.  a TINY soggy in the middle but I will chalk that one up to "new oven" issues.  The sauce was very good and plenty of dood ol' Wisconsin cheese.

The pepperoni was not super spicy and not super greasy.  The onions were . . well . . they were red which is not my choice for pizza as I believe they are too sweet but other onions are available to order.  I always feel red onions are a cop out and just left over from salads.

The AMOUNT of onion was a little scant . . I want ONION, not just for looks but for flavor but this is an issue I have with 90% of onions on pizza. Don't be afraid of onions.   

My only regret was not tasting any wood flavor but I'm pretty sure that will come over time once they learn the oven.

Something I had not thought of was what is the pizza like COLD! And DJ tested it the next day.    Excellent. The slices have enough sauce and cheese to withstand refrigeration for the next day so day 2 the pizza is still pretty darn good.

REMEMBER - this review is after I have already gottn sick of ANY pizza so I gotta say I think we have a big winner with James Street.

They will have a soft opening this week and I BELIEVE this Friday they open for good.

BRAVO! 

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Last week DJ and I invited Josh, Jenny and the kids up to a quaint little cabin in the woods.

It as outstanding.  Fun time was held by all as the girls got to throw rocks in the lake and we just relaxed and tried not think about politics for 4 days (moron that later).

ANYWAY - I'll have more images as I get them out of my camera and phone.

We did go to the new Shipwrecked Brewery after it burned down last year. Still very good beer. Not a fan of their frozen over cooked hamburger patties.

HOWEVER - shifting gears Elweed and I ate at Club La Mark Saturday.  I have a small history with the Club as their employees asked me to take some secret glamour shots of the gray square box (at the time).  The owner happened to see me and was in my face screaming at me "What the F! are you taking photos of my bar for" type stuff. 

I made up some crap and all calmed down (certainly not the first time I have been screamed at for taking photos).

ANYWAY - we went into the Club and noticed outstanding breakfast plates and both said NEXT time we have breakfast in this little biker-sh dive bar that was literally full of woman.  No really - at the bar were 14 woman and 3 (including Elweed and I) males. What was up with that?

We ordered burgers and then Elweed tipped over his full beer (it was 11:30 . .COME ON . . already?)  But everyone was laughing and the atmosphere was like Cheers.

Then the burgers came.  HOLE CRAP!!!  THEY ARE HUGE!!!  Each burger comes with a knife and for $6.75 you get a BIG burger.  In fact - it's 9 ounces!  But here is the thing.  It's one of the best tasting burgers I have had.  Reminded me of The Bell south of Beaver Dam.  Fresh fresh fresh hamburger with an all important  bun to burger ratio. It was perfection.

I believe I ate 7 of the 9 ounces.  We both gave them as many stars as we could and will go back for their HUGE breakfast in a couple weeks.   WHO KNEW!!

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I see the White House decided to NOT have their flag at half mast and Trump ordered the flag raised to give the finger to McCain one last time.  What a freaking low life Trump is. How big of a douche bag do you have to be to be told not attend my funeral, by a former President (and Republican) and another Republican war hero who served 30 years in politics.

The ONLY flag in the country NOT at half mast is at the White House.  deplorable.

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The Oakland A's are changing baseball once again. First it was Money Ball where instead of picking players that LOOK the part they picked players by statistics.

NOW - after 2 years in last place they are making a run by playing players by launch angle.  While the Brewers have power hitters that hit into a lot of double plays (Yelich and most of the Brewers) the A's have fly ball power hitters.  Now double plays for them.  If you are going to have a low batting average anyway, why have ground balls.

In the last few years they have been acquiring batters that are anti-ground ball.  Very interesting.

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Gus the Weather Dog has his own facebook page now called . . . Gus the Weather Dog.

Last night a radar indicated tornado hit just south of Rio.  Gus posted this last night showing the wind. Red is one direction and green is the opposite direction.  You never want to see green surrounded by red.

The issue was there were so many strong storms that the outflow, the wind created by the rain replacing the air was creating turbulence and mixing with other outflows which was creating spin.  They are not strong tornadoes but still could be F1s

Columbus had 1.65 inches of rain while the Milwaukee area was in the 5-7 inches as the storms move east gathering strength.   

We should be calming down now for 24 hours but watch out for tomorrow as more sever and heavy rain is due when a large cold front hits the area. The high Wednesday won't reach 70. Weekend looks good, near 80.

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Speaking of apples.  Red Delicious is no longer #1.  Oh they LOOK good but are bland.  Gala is now the #1 apple produced in America.

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Nuff said this morning