{"id":45819,"date":"2017-02-07T10:10:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T15:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45819"},"modified":"2017-02-07T10:11:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T15:11:33","slug":"prufrock-pizzerias-cauliflower-crust-gives-a-real-pizza-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=45819","title":{"rendered":"Prufrock Pizzeria’s Cauliflower-Crust Gives a Real-Pizza Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was noodling around the Internet a few years ago, looking for interesting ways to bring more vegetables into our family meals, when I came across a recipe for low carb cauliflower crust pizza.<\/p>\n

It involved \u201cricing\u201d the cauliflower by pulsing it in a food blender, then steaming in a microwave for a few minutes\u2014easy enough\u2014and mixing it with cheese and egg as binders, then patting it out on a pan, and adding the toppings.<\/p>\n

The pizza tasted terrific, but it wasn\u2019t pizza, really. The cauliflower flavor was strong, and the slices had to be eaten with a fork. Think of it more as a healthy polenta topped with cheese, tomato sauce and veggies.<\/p>\n

Had I made the crust too thick? Too thin? Put too many toppings on it? I kept experimenting, with better or worse results, but never with results that gave me the feeling that I\u2019d had pizza. The closest recipe required dumping the steamed, riced cauliflower into clean tea towels and twisting it to remove most of the liquid. It was a pain to do, and left me with aching wrists and two disgusting tea towels to scrape off and then get into the laundry before all those bits of cauliflower could dry on them. We could pick those pieces of pizza up, if we waited for them to cool sufficiently, but as a cook given to short cuts, this was never one that I felt like repeating.<\/p>\n

By the time 2017 rolled around, I figured cauliflower-crust pizza had become well known enough that a city as trendy as L.A. must provide some way to get my hands on it. A frozen concoction in elite food markets, perhaps, or a health-food joint.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, everything I needed was at a little pizzeria a few blocks from City Hall, in the rejuvenating historic core of the city.<\/p>\n

Prufrock Pizza is an unassuming-looking place within the Regent Theater, a reborn concert hall on Main Street. The photos I\u2019d seen online, of a wood-clad, candle-lit spot turned out to be the Love Song Bar, also part of the theater, which serves up drinks with outlandish names. And yes, they both refer to T.S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cLove Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,\u201d but that\u2019s as far as the poetic references seem to go. There is no sawdust or oyster shells, no pizza called the \u201chundred indecisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interior design of Prufrock is a hodgepodge. There\u2019s the counter area, with its white subway tile evoking the neighborhood-pizza joints of old. The opposite wall is trendy bare brick, and the main table decorations are large cans of San Marzano tomatoes.<\/p>\n

As you order at the counter, you\u2019ll find only one cauliflower-crust pizza on the menu\u2014gluten free, no flour at all\u2014the \u201cToto\u201d with mozzarella, tomato and basil. So the important thing to know is this: You can order any of the 14 other kinds of pizza with cauliflower crust, for an added $3.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSalsicci\u201d is a good representation of the kind of pie this place offers: both regular and smoked mozzarella, fennel sausage and roasted leeks. With the cauliflower crust, it comes to $16. The \u201cBianca\u201d a white pizza, is another signature pie at the place, with additions of gruyere, roasted garlic and truffle oil.<\/p>\n

What they arrive at the table, the pies sport edges of thin, deeply browned crust\u2014the 900-degree oven is obviously key to producing the crusts–and scents of smokiness and herbs. Though they\u2019re considered personal-sized, each is large enough for two. The sausage on the Salsicci is placed lightly, yet seems to infuse the whole pie.<\/p>\n

And for once, each slice can be picked up and eaten like a regular piece of pizza, though of course, these aren\u2019t the giant slices of pie you\u2019d get at a stand in New York. Because the crust is impossibly thin, the cauliflower doesn\u2019t aggressively make its presence known, though it can be tasted. Let\u2019s face it, even with people who have clearly mastered the riced-cauliflower beast, this low-carb crust isn\u2019t going to achieve the crusty heights of a traditional slice of Neapolitan pizza. But the rich toppings give it a burst of umami-ness that a cauliflower pizza otherwise lacks. It\u2019s a real-pizza experience.<\/p>\n

I could go home and try to imitate that thin crust, but my kitchen doesn\u2019t boast anything like a 900-degree oven, and anyway, why bother? My tea towels are safe now.<\/p>\n

Prufrock Pizzeria<\/a><\/p>\n

446 S. Main St.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles, CA 90013<\/p>\n

323-284-5661<\/p>\n

Open Mon-Thu, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.<\/p>\n

Fri-Sun, 4 p.m. to midnight<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Photo by Elvia Morales<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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