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. 

【红霞译文】

        纽约市当属世界上最刺激最好玩的城市之一，到处车水马龙热闹非凡，整个街道三步一小吃店五步一大餐馆，马路上汽车喇叭声此起彼伏，人们争先恐后使劲朝前奔。春节刚过，进城感受都市生活仍不失为一种过年的享受，正因如此，妈妈决定约好朋友一起北上。

        从费城郊区到纽约市需要两个钟头车程，赶路的滋味并不好受，尤其身边还有这么一位网球在握并随时扔球出手的朋友相伴。出乎意料地，我竟然大难不死，与妈妈、好友艺博还有其母亲晓丽阿姨安全抵达新泽西州爱迪生火车站。坦率地说，此行给艺博带来不少麻烦，记得上次我俩见面时他可是什么都不在乎，因此要想调动他对此行的积极性谈何容易，更何况我们去的是大都会艺术博物馆。他告诉我说，来前他妈妈已要求他把今天所到之处全面研究一番，道地的中国父母呵！

        我们搭乘新州捷运，自爱迪生火车站上车至34街宾夕法尼亚站下车，先走出火车站再钻进地铁站。根据纽约周末地铁运行时刻表，妈妈带我们坐C车经42街时代广场后换E车去53街洛克菲勒中心，最后转六号地铁抵达77街。纽约就是这样，地上川流不息，地下人潮涌动，好在妈妈对大街小巷了如指掌，我们才能如期来到事先选定的六翼天使巨无霸皮萨店。中国膳食绝对无可厚非，不过在当今皮萨日益渗透到世界各个角落的情况下，咱何不顺应形势借机好好饱餐一顿，说不定百年过后，人们早中晚三餐吃了上顿接下顿，甚至连筵席宵夜全部都是皮萨。

        六翼天使巨无霸皮萨店面不大，但非常温馨。我并不在意服务有多棒环境有多美（应该说有点就成），只要有皮萨吃（也许再来瓶可乐），我心满意足！当我们一行四人走进餐厅，所有美味皮萨奇幻异想统统荡然无存，这样一家高级意大利餐厅提供的基本上都是跟皮萨有关的垃圾食物，一看到店名字样本身，我早该意识到这点。店内墙壁上悬挂着绘画，洁白的餐桌布上铺有一张跟桌面大小相匹配的白纸，可供小孩子们画画。大个酒瓶装饰入眼，我所说的大非同一般，跟保龄球瓶大小宽窄差不多。待我们各就各位，菜单即刻递了上来，既然皮萨专为那些憎恶正式、健康、繁琐套餐的人创造而来，六翼天使巨无霸皮萨店正好贯彻了简单为上的生活宗旨，并巧妙地将皮萨转型为不似皮萨胜似皮萨。点餐时，我索性退居二线，由其他人勇挑大梁，因为从所谓浩瀚的菜单上，我一点看不出简单二字，没有任何皮萨只用一种奶酪，所以当皮萨送上桌后，我毫无惊讶之意。顺便提一下，正宗意大利餐厅总是把皮萨做的很薄，我们共点了三个充饥。

        第一个叫法比奥皮萨，面饼表面加有水牛奶酪、切成薄片的腌火腿干、西红柿、嫩芝麻菜，按照我的理解，皮萨有奶酪足以，不必把腌制的生肉与新鲜番茄和绞碎的黑胡椒末掺和在一起，但刚尝过一口，觉得味道不错，别介意先前妄加评论。没过多久，我吃到什么东西甜得像糖果，找缘由并不费力，可食欲立马大减（至少不像刚开始吃的时候感觉良好），艺博冲着我点了点头，咱英雄所见略同。腌火腿干下面茄子的甜味实在难吃，我借口去洗手间起身离开；等再度返回座位后，我拿了左边一片不带茄子的皮萨，除了没有粘了吧唧的蔬菜之外，这片跟上片没什么不同。说白了，只要没有蔬菜，皮萨都很好吃。

        接下来第二个是索菲亚皮萨，由牛肉干、芳提娜干酪、水牛奶酪、嫩芝麻菜等原材料组成，跟上面法比奥皮萨相比，索菲亚皮萨做法更简单。牛肉干香味扑鼻，犹如久旱逢甘霖，重新吊起我的胃口，现在连我自己都搞不清究竟能否忘掉刚才吃到的茄子，反正现在一想起来茄子就觉得恶心。在我慢慢啃面饼脆边时，妈妈把剩余的打扫干净。

        最后一个维托里奥皮萨，除了番茄酱、罗勒叶、布拉塔新鲜奶酪之外，简单的不能再简单，因为简单而鲜少像“达美乐皮萨”、“神奇皮萨”以及当地小吃店的皮萨口感油腻，同时西红柿酸味重，压过水牛奶酪，结果嚼起水牛奶酪并不觉得是在吃水牛奶酪。

        简单可口，代表了本人的理念。比萨应该保持这种风格，而这正是人们喜欢的原因。