Voodoo Ray's, 11th May

I didn't mean for the night to end like that. But, looking back as the evening unfurled, it slowly but surely lead to this inevitable conclusion. And oh....my.God was it good.

The evening had started out with a trip to New Cross for a pop-up crab night. Very tasty but for the prices the food was really rather on the light side. £9.00 got you one crabcake. ONE. And some salad stuff. While I wasn't hungry when I left, I knew it wouldn't take much to reawaken my appetite later in the night. Then we headed up to Haggerston and met my friend Sophie at the Fox. Several drinks were consumed (which could only lead to booze munchies later) and then we went to the Alibi where more drinks were consumed and worse still, calories were burned by dancing. And that's when it happened. Sophie suggested we go to Voodoo Ray's. After all, we were hungry and it's only next door.

I now view Voodoo Ray's as both a blessing and a curse. Now, I know that probably nowhere in the U.K. is going to make pizza exactly the way they do in the States. But nowhere that I know of has come as close to it as this. This pizza makes the stuff at Mulberry Street looks as authentically NY as a Pizza Hut Deep Pan can be said to resemble a Napoli pizza.

I don't know what I love so much about a pizza that is so big the tip ever so slightly droops off the plate. I thought I'd found what I was looking for with Homeslice (and they are great, still have much love for them) but THIS is the real [almost] deal. You go in and there's a counter where the absolutely massive pizzas are sitting, waiting for huge slices to be handed over to you. You pick your flavour and then you can adorn with chilli oil, or take your slice to a table and garnish with parmesan or chilli flakes out of salt shakers. Check, check and check. It's the details that matter.

And the pizza is soo good! I had the special 'Full Moon slice' which is only served after midnight ,because everyone knows the best people come out after midnight. At least, I think I did. I just found the one I liked the look of most and pointed to it. I know it had meat on it in some form, and white stuff and it's described as having 'fresh tomato, mozzarella, bacon dust and mayonnaise' so that fits the bill. Stephen had the Thunderballs - meatballs, red onion, fontina and bone marrow glaze while Sophie had what she always has - Porky's. That's got cumberland sausage, stiltion, red onion and parsley on it. Admittedly not your average greasy pizzeria flavours so in that way they really aren't authentically American pizza at all. But they can be forgiven that because these toppings are awesome. We then lost any self control and ordered a second slice. Well, I'm happy to say Stephen and I were 'healthy' and split ours - the Hot Mix 5. Which was not kidding when it came to heat - pepperoni, jalapenos and red chillies definitely made my nose run. 

So now what am I to do? I'm so pleased I've got a place like this to go to, but how am I going to stop myself from going there every weekend? I'm already trying to work out when I can shoehorn it into another night. So so good. And so so bad for my diet. And wallet. While everything else is pretty much right on when it comes to emulating a pizza joint in the States, of course the prices are pretty much double what you'd pay out there, with each slice almost 4 quid. 

I actually took some pictures of my pizza but they are of such embarrassingly poor quality that I'm not going to put them up here. Alcohol does nothing for my photography skills.