2015-02-21

【Aiden in English】

        New York City (NYC) is one of the coolest cities on earth. People jostle around the streets. Every ten to twenty feet would be a restaurant, and cars honk and beep as they are in a rash to go somewhere. Chinese Spring Festival also just passed, so going to NYC seem appealing enough. Mom also decided to share the wonderful day with my friend. 

        It was never a good thing to have got stuck on a car from the Philly suburb to NYC with a friend who had a tennis ball and wasn’t afraid to use it for two hours. Yet somehow, I made it to Metropark Train Station in Edison of NJ, in one piece. Mom brought along Kevin and his mom Shirley to our trip to NYC. To be honest, I didn’t think that we were doing Kevin a favor. Last time when we met, he cared about dirt, and so “excited” may not be the best way to describe his feelings at this time, considering that we planned to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA). He told me that his mom made him study the history of all the places we were going, from the founder to the dirt it was made on. Typical Chinese Parents! 

        At Metropark, we took the NJ Transit to Penn Station @ 34^th St. in NYC. To follow the detour schedule during the weekend there, Mom led us from the subway C-train to Times Square @ 42^nd St., then transferred the E-train to Rockefeller Ctr. @ 53^rd St., and finally caught up with No. 6 train to 77^th St. In NYC, travelling above ground is chaotic, but underground isn’t much better. Luckily, Mom knew every tin-pan alley where we were heading for. At last, we ended up in our selected restaurant- Serafina Fabulous Pizza. Chinese food is great of all cuisines. But come on, pizza is taking over the world right now and so just enjoy its greasiness and cheesiness. A hundred years later, people would probably be eating pizza for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snacks too. 

        Serafina Fabulous Pizza looked small but cozy. I didn’t care how well the service provided and how fancy the environment encompassed (Ok, maybe a little). As long as I got pizza (and maybe a Coke), I was set! When four of us walked in, the thoughts of delicious pizza vanished. It was one of those superb Italian restaurants that served basically all the junk you could think of on your pizza. By the name of the restaurant, I should’ve known. There were the paintings on the walls and neat white table cloth on every table overlaid by a plain paper for kids to draw. Huge bottles of wine were on display. When I said huge, I meant the size and width of a bowling pin. We sat down and menus were passed out. Since pizza was invented for all those people who hated the formal, healthy, complex food, Serafina Fabulous Pizza kept pizza simple. Yet this eatery transformed it into a formal and not-so-pizzay pizza. When we ordered, I sat backend and let them pick because I didn’t see a single, simple pizza on the oversized page of pizza choices. There wasn’t a sole cheese pizza. As the pizza came, I wasn’t surprised about it at all. By the way, Italian restaurants seemed to always make their pizzas really thin, so we got three pizzas. 

        We started at Di Fabio with mozzarella cheese, a thin flake of Prosciutto or a dry-cured ham, tomato, and baby arugula on top. That’s my description because pizza should just have cheese on it, not raw, marinated meat and freshly sliced tomatoes with grinded black pepper. But after taking a bite, it didn’t taste all that bad. Strike that. A moment later, I ate something sweet like candy. It took me a second to realize what it was. Once I did, the pizza suddenly seemed a lot less appetizing (not that it looked any good in the beginning). Kevin looked at me and nodded. He knew what it was too. Under the slice of Prosciutto, the eggplant in sickly sweetness tasted so bad that I had to excuse myself from the table. When I returned, I had moved on left to the pizza without the eggplant. It was basically the same thing, just without the sweetness of the musky vegetable. To be honest, anything would be better without vegetables. 

        The next pizza Di Sofia had the bresaola or air-dried and salted beef, fontina cheese, mozzarella, and baby arugula. It was pretty good, considering the pizza was much simpler than the Di Fabio. The tangy bresaola gave a spring to each bite, and my appetite slowly came back, but I wasn’t sure if I would ever get over that taste of eggplant on pizza. Just thinking about it made me queasy. Mom split the last pizza while I was crunching on the crust. 

        The final pizza Di Vittorio was just a simple tomato sauce, basil, and blobs of Italian burrata fresh cheese on top. Yet as simple as it was plain, the pizza didn’t have the same effect of greasiness and cheesiness from Domino’s, Mystic Pizza, or small local shops. The tomato made it so sour that the mozzarella cheese barely stood out. It was like chewing something flavorless. The mozzarella cheese only gave a feeling in my mouth. 

        Simple equals delicious. It represents my new philosophy. Pizza should stay simple and that’s why people like it so much. 

【紅霞譯文】

        紐約市當屬世界上最刺激最好玩的城市之一，到處車水馬龍熱鬧非凡，整個街道三步一小吃店五步一大餐館，馬路上汽車喇叭聲此起彼伏，人們爭先恐後使勁朝前奔。春節剛過，進城感受都市生活仍不失為一種過年的享受，正因如此，媽媽決定約好朋友一起北上。

        從費城郊區到紐約市需要兩個鐘頭車程，趕路的滋味並不好受，尤其身邊還有這麼一位網球在握並隨時扔球出手的朋友相伴。出乎意料地，我竟然大難不死，與媽媽、好友藝博還有其母親曉麗阿姨安全抵達新澤西州愛迪生火車站。坦率地說，此行給藝博帶來不少麻煩，記得上次我倆見面時他可是什麼都不在乎，因此要想調動他對此行的積極性談何容易，更何況我們去的是大都會藝術博物館。他告訴我說，來前他媽媽已要求他把今天所到之處全面研究一番，道地的中國父母呵！

        我們搭乘新州捷運，自愛迪生火車站上車至34街賓夕法尼亞站下車，先走出火車站再鑽進地鐵站。根據紐約周末地鐵運行時刻表，媽媽帶我們坐C車經42街時代廣場後換E車去53街洛克菲勒中心，最後轉六號地鐵抵達77街。紐約就是這樣，地上川流不息，地下人潮湧動，好在媽媽對大街小巷瞭如指掌，我們才能如期來到事先選定的六翼天使巨無霸皮薩店。中國膳食絕對無可厚非，不過在當今皮薩日益滲透到世界各個角落的情況下，咱何不順應形勢藉機好好飽餐一頓，說不定百年過後，人們早中晚三餐吃了上頓接下頓，甚至連筵席宵夜全部都是皮薩。

        六翼天使巨無霸皮薩店面不大，但非常溫馨。我並不在意服務有多棒環境有多美（應該說有點就成），只要有皮薩吃（也許再來瓶可樂），我心滿意足！當我們一行四人走進餐廳，所有美味皮薩奇幻異想統統蕩然無存，這樣一家高級意大利餐廳提供的基本上都是跟皮薩有關的垃圾食物，一看到店名字樣本身，我早該意識到這點。店內牆壁上懸掛着繪畫，潔白的餐桌布上鋪有一張跟桌面大小相匹配的白紙，可供小孩子們畫畫。大個酒瓶裝飾入眼，我所說的大非同一般，跟保齡球瓶大小寬窄差不多。待我們各就各位，菜單即刻遞了上來，既然皮薩專為那些憎惡正式、健康、繁瑣套餐的人創造而來，六翼天使巨無霸皮薩店正好貫徹了簡單為上的生活宗旨，並巧妙地將皮薩轉型為不似皮薩勝似皮薩。點餐時，我索性退居二線，由其他人勇挑大梁，因為從所謂浩瀚的菜單上，我一點看不出簡單二字，沒有任何皮薩只用一種奶酪，所以當皮薩送上桌後，我毫無驚訝之意。順便提一下，正宗意大利餐廳總是把皮薩做的很薄，我們共點了三個充飢。

        第一個叫法比奧皮薩，麵餅表面加有水牛奶酪、切成薄片的醃火腿干、西紅柿、嫩芝麻菜，按照我的理解，皮薩有奶酪足以，不必把醃製的生肉與新鮮番茄和絞碎的黑胡椒末摻和在一起，但剛嘗過一口，覺得味道不錯，別介意先前妄加評論。沒過多久，我吃到什麼東西甜得像糖果，找緣由並不費力，可食慾立馬大減（至少不像剛開始吃的時候感覺良好），藝博衝着我點了點頭，咱英雄所見略同。醃火腿干下面茄子的甜味實在難吃，我藉口去洗手間起身離開；等再度返回座位後，我拿了左邊一片不帶茄子的皮薩，除了沒有粘了吧唧的蔬菜之外，這片跟上片沒什麼不同。說白了，只要沒有蔬菜，皮薩都很好吃。

        接下來第二個是索菲亞皮薩，由牛肉乾、芳提娜乾酪、水牛奶酪、嫩芝麻菜等原材料組成，跟上面法比奧皮薩相比，索菲亞皮薩做法更簡單。牛肉乾香味撲鼻，猶如久旱逢甘霖，重新吊起我的胃口，現在連我自己都搞不清究竟能否忘掉剛才吃到的茄子，反正現在一想起來茄子就覺得噁心。在我慢慢啃麵餅脆邊時，媽媽把剩餘的打掃乾淨。

        最後一個維托里奧皮薩，除了番茄醬、羅勒葉、布拉塔新鮮奶酪之外，簡單的不能再簡單，因為簡單而鮮少像“達美樂皮薩”、“神奇皮薩”以及當地小吃店的皮薩口感油膩，同時西紅柿酸味重，壓過水牛奶酪，結果嚼起水牛奶酪並不覺得是在吃水牛奶酪。

        簡單可口，代表了本人的理念。比薩應該保持這種風格，而這正是人們喜歡的原因。