Speedy Romeo Visited 6/21/2013 3.5 Forks

Speedy Romeo 376 Classon Ave., (between Greene Ave & Lafayette Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11238

I would have never put Speedy Romeo on my list if it wasn't for a major shout out by  one of my favorite food blogs, Immaculate Infatuation.  It's definitely not in a part of Brooklyn that I would normally think of and had a buddy who was game to give it a try.  Cicily and I were looking for something low key that was close to both of us...ok, this place isn't really near me at all, but it was easy to get to from work, close to Fort Greene and I was curious about it.  It is right next to the G train, so in reality it wasn't that hard to get home afterwards.

Speedy Romeo is on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy and to be honest there weren't a ton of other restaurants near it.  In fact, this place was definitely hopping and seemed like one of the few neighborhood joints in the area.  They don't have a liquor license, but they do serve wine, so the only summer cocktail they had was a strawberry puree with white wine ($10).  It was tasty and sweet, but it didn't really feel like there was much booze in it.  Just something to think about if you want a nice cocktail/beer at dinner.   As for the menu, it's got a ton of specialty thin crust pizzas (similar to Roberta's) and then they also have what I heard was a killer steak, burger, pork chop and whole fish.  We started with the crab cake appetizer ($16) which was served with a celery root remoulade and citrus salad.  It was a pretty decent size crab cake but the best part about it was that it was almost all crab meat, no filler - that impressed both me and Cicily (we're both tough to please when it comes to seafood).  At $16, it is a bit pricey but I would have been a lot more pissed off if it was more filler than crabmeat, so I wasn't so upset.  I was torn between ordering a pizza or a burger.  I figured a pizza was only slightly healthier, so I went for The Kind Brother ($16) and Cicily got The Saint Louie ($16).  The Kind Brother consists of large whole wild mushrooms, smoked mozzarella, sage and an almost-raw egg cracked on top.  Although it was a very thin wood oven crust, I was surprised at how well all the ingredients held up on it.  It was a solid pizza but the crust was a bit too wood oven flavored and hard for me and after 2 slices the flavor of the smoked mozzarella made the dish seem a bit heavy too.  I loved the raw egg touch, it's something you don't really see much in pizzas.  The Saint Louie was provel cheese, italian sausage, pepperoni, and pickled chilis.  Cicily commented that she also liked all the ingredients and inside parts of the pizza but wasn't a huge fan of the crust either.  Somehow, we managed to leave room for dessert and we got the chocolate cake ($9) which was actually more of a deconstructed s'more.  It was a very thick cake (seemed like it was a flourless base) covered in a melted marshmallow topping that had been nicely brunt on top and then had a bunch of chopped up grammar cracker crust surrounding it.  It was super decadent and rich in flavor.  As someone who doesn't love chocolate, I was strangely drawn to it.   While it may sound like we didn't enjoy our pizzas, it's quite contrary, we did, but given the location, neither of us were really sure if we would go super out of our way again.  But If I lived nearby, I would put it on rotation.   Total bill: $62/pp with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp