Ah, Totonno’s. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that last week was my first time eating at one of my home borough’s most famous pizza places. And it was fitting penance, too, for my major goof earlier this fall: on a trip to the aquarium with my kid, it was only when we sat down and I watched him begin to eat the limp, cafeteria-style pizza while I reluctantly tucked into a sad chicken salad that I realized with a doh! how close we were to Totonno’s AT THAT VERY MOMENT.

I made up for it last week. It was a dark & stormy night (though no tornadoes, like the trip to Di Fara’s I missed in September). But the pizza completely made up for the long, cold commute down to the edge of Brooklyn. By the numbers there were 6 people, 5 pies, 2 glasses of wine, and not sure how many Brooklyn Lagers.

And it was good. Thin crust, just the right combination of chewy and crispy. Excellent sauce to cheese ratio. We went for one each of the plain, pepperoni, white, anchovy, and sausage pies. I have to admit that I hit my limit before the last pizza arrived, and there were a couple of sausage slice leftovers, speedily divvied up in a rock-paper-scissors smackdown.

My favorites were the white pie, with its vampire-busting levels of garlic, and the anchovy pie, solely consumed by Boone, my spouse Jonathan, and me. What’s up with the fish-hating, CUNY Pie-ites? Where’s the anchovy love? Boone’s eyes were as big as saucers when he realized there were others there to help consume one round of salty tasty fishy goodness. Clearly I need to make future CUNY Pie outings more of a priority, lest Boone slowly perish from lack of anchovies.