{"id":707,"date":"2012-07-11T22:16:48","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T02:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/?p=707"},"modified":"2012-07-12T09:34:16","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T13:34:16","slug":"punch-neapolitan-pizza-st-paul-vesuvio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/?p=707","title":{"rendered":"Punch Neapolitan Pizza (St. Paul)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The night before I grabbed <a title=\"The Bulldog (Uptown Minneapolis)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/?p=705\">my last MN burger lunch with my dad at the Bulldog<\/a>, I grabbed my last MN dinner with my madre at one of our favorite spots.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.punchpizza.com\/\">Punch Pizza<\/a> takes the\u00c2\u00a0Neapolitan pizza seriously. \u00c2\u00a0Punch is\u00c2\u00a0among\u00c2\u00a0the few U.S.\u00c2\u00a0restaurants\u00c2\u00a0to be certified by Vera Pizza\u00c2\u00a0Neapolitana (V.P.N), the Naples organization that oversees that quality of those wishing to take the V.P.N title. \u00c2\u00a0Aside from the three letters, the title means that Punch makes some of the best\u00c2\u00a0Neapolitan pizza you can find outside of Naples. \u00c2\u00a0Better than some I&#8217;ve had in Naples. \u00c2\u00a0Really freaking good pizza!<\/p>\n<p>The certification means an\u00c2\u00a0eagle&#8217;s eye attention to ingredients and process. \u00c2\u00a0The pizza is cooked at 800 degrees in a bell shaped wood fired oven. \u00c2\u00a0The high heat creates a crispy crust with a doughy layer under the toppings. \u00c2\u00a0The uninitiated might think the crust is burned. \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s not. \u00c2\u00a0That crisp, with the occasional blackened spot, is exactly how it should be. \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s a unique style of pizza perfectly designed to celebrate quality ingredients.<\/p>\n<p>My mother had the margherita. \u00c2\u00a0As always, it encapsulated\u00c2\u00a0the prefect simplicity of basil,\u00c2\u00a0mozzarella, and crushed tomatoes. \u00c2\u00a0I \u00c2\u00a0opted for the vesuvio (spiced salami, saracene olive, cracked red pepper, piparras pepper, and basil). \u00c2\u00a0The vesuvio was good, but in my selection my mind was too much on <a title=\"Toby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Public House\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/?p=274\">one of my favorite Brooklyn haunts, Toby&#8217;s<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0There was just to much going on. \u00c2\u00a0I should have kept things simple and ordered the margherita\u00c2\u00a0extra, a prefect combination\u00c2\u00a0basil, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Buffalo_mozzarella\">mozzarella di bufala<\/a> and crushed <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/San_Marzano_tomato\">San Marzano tomatoes<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0 Similar to the regular margherita, but made with absolutely the best ingredients to be found.<\/p>\n<p>Eating at Punch took me back to\u00c2\u00a0innumerable dinners with friends and family over amazing pies and back to Naples. \u00c2\u00a0If you live in the Twin Cities and haven&#8217;t made your way to Punch yet, now is the time!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The night before I grabbed my last MN burger lunch with my dad at the Bulldog, I grabbed my last MN dinner with my madre at one of our favorite spots. Punch Pizza takes the\u00c2\u00a0Neapolitan pizza seriously. \u00c2\u00a0Punch is\u00c2\u00a0among\u00c2\u00a0the few U.S.\u00c2\u00a0restaurants\u00c2\u00a0to be certified by Vera Pizza\u00c2\u00a0Neapolitana (V.P.N), the Naples organization that oversees that quality of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dining-out","tag-pizza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatcooklive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}