After bicycling about 35 miles through some of the hilliest parts of the East Bay hills, I had a massive craving for pizza. But not takeout. I wanted to maximize the flavor by eating pizza in a restaurant while it was still hot and crispy, preferably accompanied by tasty beer. A friend at work mentioned last Friday that he was going to Lanesplitter that night, so it immediately came to mind.
I knew there was a Lanesplitter in Berkeley and in Albany, but I was even happier to learn there was a relatively new location in Oakland in the Temescal. Despite the name, there is no bowling at the Oakland location, just delicious crispy, thin crust, New York style pizza.
We started out with a salad (nice assortment of greens with garbanzo beans and kidney beans) and some garlic bread stixs (registered copyright??) with red sauce. The red sauce was good, but a little thin and cold. It would have been much better if served heated in a ramekin instead of cool in a shallow plastic cup. After tasting the pizza, I realized it was the same sauce. Again, it was much better warm/hot than cool. The salad gets a thumbs up; the jury is still out on the stix.
We had a 15″ Neapolitan with the four cheese blend, pepperoni, mushrooms, and spinach. The cheese tasted a little sweet. Not cloyingly sweet, but a bit sweeter than I expected. I would probably still order it again instead of just mozzarella, though. The pizza as a whole was delicious. The crust was exactly as advertised, though maybe a tiny bit overcooked. It’s a really fine line between getting a cracker-like crispy crust versus blackening the edges. They probably struck a reasonable compromise, as only one or two slices got a little burnt on the edge. I certainly don’t think I would have done any better. The pizza gets a big thumbs up.
One thing they need to do is raise the hanging lights in the kitchen. While I was watching a cook toss dough, the dough glanced off one of the lamps above him. He seemed to get a little more conservative in his tosses after that.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the tasty beer. After sweating over making the perfect selection to complement the pizza, I chose an Iron Springs Oatmeal Stout on nitro pump. It was a good oatmeal stout with a rich malted chocolate and coffee flavor. It was a bit hoppier than other oatmeal stouts I’ve had, though. Lanesplitter also had many other excellent beers, including one of my all time favorites, Boont Amber. They even had Lindeman’s lambic framboise and kriek. Though I love Belgian ales, I’m not a big fan of framboises and krieks. Nonetheless, I’m impressed when they show up on a beer menu. Next time I’ll have to try the Death and Taxes Schwarzbier.