Jersy Pizza in Pacific Beach: Hoboken

Place:
Hoboken
1459 Garnet Ave.
Pacific Beach

Time:
Sunday 6 September 2009
(Labor Day weekend)
Around 4:30pm

Investigation Led By:
Agents Nick, Nader and Joe

Atmosphere:
8.5 out of 10

Pizza:
7 out of 10

Hoboken is a pizzeria with a mesh of east coast culture on the one hand and west coast style on the other. The music alone warrants another visit, but while I may hesitate to admit it in front of a local Pacific Beach (PB) resident, the pizza at Hoboken could learn a little from other New York style pizzerias in San Diego, particularly Bronx Pizza.

Hoboken has a worn wood facade painted black that expresses a sort of simplicity that is welcoming to the heavy foot traffic on Garnet. As I walked in, the hundreds of dollar bills taped up onto the brown brick walls commanded all my attention. The bills have all sorts of drawings and words on them mostly drawn with a black felt pen. Two rows on each side of the building were lined with clean black pleather booth seats accompanied by shiny black table tops; and down the center, a few highly lacquered wooden picnic tables. The floor was plain concrete with residue of the tile that had previously been laid. The floor and the black facade complemented each other and created an easy-going vibe.

The east coast and west coast distinction at Hoboken literally takes sides. On the East wall there’s a historic map of Hoboken New Jersey in a case. Next to the map are a number of magazine covers and posters of Bruce Springsteen. Further down the wall, my favorite poster of the place, hung a large black and white mugshot of a young Frank Sinatra. On the west side of the building, appropriately enough, are posters of surfers catching well formed waves during sunsets and clear sunny days. The three TVs on each side represented the interests of each coast: the east side was turned to baseball, and the west side TVs played a surf video.

Hoboken deserves the prize for having the best music at a pizzeria in San Diego, a close second is Newport Pizza and Ale House. Both pizzerias coincidentally are in beach areas that appeal to the younger generations. It seems to be a truism in music that, while older people may have once made groundbreaking music, they usually tend to lose their edginess in time. We listened to Led Zeppelin to The Beatles to, of course, Bruce Springsteen and others who all made our pizza experience that much better.

One customer was a belligerent and apparently angry-for-no-reason man with an Australian accent and an America Flag bandanna on his head. Honestly, while driving to PB, I anticipated this kind of behavior since there is a reputation for PB, to accumulate young people who tend to be slightly less than hypersensitive. But to my surprise this man was the minority. Across the pizzeria was an Indian family of 8 conducting family business, a friendly couple walked in smiling as we were eating and one guy sat on the east coast side of the building fixated on the baseball game.

Nader chose to sit at the window opening in the front of the shop to watch the passers-by. The table was sticky and only started to bother me after about 15 minutes. As we waited for the pizza we sat down with our beers. I had a freshly tapped sweet Oktoberfest Brown Ale by Samuel Adams. Nick ordered a Flat Tire that was a little watered down.

The pizza was brought out to us. We ordered the Sicilian cheese, tomato basil and peperoni. The Sicilian cheese pizza was a inch and a half of nicely raised bread with a pleasant crunchy bottom. The bread had an accessible taste of garlic. The mozzarella was sprinkled with enough oregano to make the spice one of the central flavors of the pizza. The tomato sauce was sweet with an appropriately thick consistency to match the massive pizza bread below it. I thought the pizza bread, with its crunchy bottom, was baked with care, but I the taste and combination of the cheese and oregano reminded of the pizza that used to be served in my elementary school lunch lines. The second Sicilian piece, however, did not bring me back to the grade school cafeteria, but the association was already made, and it stuck.

We also tried the pepperoni. One of its unique features was that the pepperonis were spicy. This complimented the oregano, which again was used liberally. The crust was thin with a lightly crisped bottom. But the grease from the cheese began to cause pizza problems. From the end to about the middle of the slice, the pizza bread was soggy with grease.

The best pizza I we ordered was the tomato basil: thin slices of fresh tomato and sprinkled with fresh whole-leaf basil. The tomatoes were sweet with a juicy firm resistance when bitten into. And let’s not forget the sprinkle of oregano, which was the least prevalent on the tomato basil.

A relaxed and friendly man rang us up. He patiently explained to me what they had on tap. Slices at Hoboken run from $2.50 for a regular and $3.00 for a Sicilian slice. Whole pies range from 16” for $14 to 20” for $16 (additional toppings are $2). Specialty pies range from 16” for $18.50 to 20” for $22.50.