The fresh lemon is sliced extra-thin.
Dough Nation — the mobile wood-fired oven of Westchester restaurant The Cookery — usually turns out Neopolitan pies at farmer's markets close to home. But on the occasion of East Harlem's annual Giglio di Sant' Antonio Feast, the trailer-mounted oven was towed down to Manhattan, to the stretch of Pleasant Ave. anchored by Rao's.
The five-pizza roster includes a margarita and a bianco, a meatball and a sausage; the last sports green tomato jam. But at the sotto voce suggestion of the lady taking the orders, I gave the nod to a pie featuring fresh lemon and smoked mozzarella, with basil and garlic ($11). The citric and smokey flavors balanced each other well; normally I'd favor more garlic, though one can understand a lighter touch that doesn't overpower the lemon. Given another turn or two in the oven, the chewy crust would have been crisped just right.
Also shown from the feast: the giglio; performers riding aboard it; lifters.
Dough Nation
Mobile pizza oven of The Cookery
38 Chestnut St., Dobbs Ferry, New York
914-305-2336
www.TheCookeryRestaurant.com/dough-nation
Encountered at the Giglio di Sant' Antonio Feast
Pleasant Ave. near 114th St., Manhattan
www.EastHarlemGiglio.com
August (the 2012 feast was celebrated August 9-12)
