- I think this is the most Roman dish.
- So, this is, both focaccia and pizza, right?
- Yes.
- You're Roman, I'll play by Roman rules.
When in Rome, when in New York, I don't know.
I'm Scott, and I eat all kinds of pizza.
But my friend, Mark, he is a pizza purist.
So we're trying the craziest concoctions
claiming to be pizza.
But, are they "Really Dough?"
- OK, so, first you wanna start off
with 2 pounds of beef, 2 pounds of pork chop.
We're gonna season with salt, red pepper,
a lot of black pepper.
Oh no, there he is.
- Mark, what are you up to, man?
- Hi Scott, what's up?
- Makin' a movie?
- No, making some meatballs.
- Ooh, I've never had your meatballs.
- No, you haven't.
- No.
- How can I help you?
- I've never been a meatball on pizza guy.
I feel like, as soon as you cut the meatball,
it's not a ball anymore.
- If you want 'em on the pizza,
we'll put 'em on the pizza.
If you want 'em in a plate,
you could put it in a plate.
- I would love it on a plate, then,
that's what I'm gonna do. - OK, great.
- I do love meatball sandwiches.
There's a guy who does, in the Lower East side,
it's like a meatball sandwich, pizza combination.
- Sounds like pita bread.
- Kind of, but he calls it a pizza,
that means it's--
- Scott, Scott, that's not a pizza.
- Yeah, well, I--
- OK.
- He made up a word for it.
He calls it trapizzino.
I've never had it,
but I gotta go to the Lower East Side to try it out.
By the time I get back, you'll finish up
with these meatballs...
- OK, we'll have a trapezoid,
trapizzino, whatever it is.
I need to get back to my TV show.
- OK, you guys, you gotta put in the pepper.
- Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?
- Good, that's what you get for touching my food
without washing your hands.
- God, where can I put this?
You don't have a garbage can?
I got a lot of work to do, go!
- No, you don't, this is like--
Nobody watches your YouTube shows.
But if you want me to bring you a sandwich.
- Get out! - OK!
- Little curmudgeon.
I'm sorry, guys.
- Hey!
- Ciao, Scott!
- Stefano!
- Welcome to Trapizzino!
- It is great to finally be able to meet you, sir.
Ow, fair enough.
I want to eat me a sandwich, or a pizza,
or whatever you call it.
- Pizza, it's actually pizza.
- It's a pizza.
- You must know that in Roma is quite common,
stuffing the sandwich with ham and cheese and--
But when I thought, "OK,
if you want to put the meatball with sauce,
all the sauce they drop and they waste."
- Oh because this would come out of the side
of the sandwich.
- Yeah, and then so I had one tray with my pizza bianca,
plain pizza, I thought, "OK, I'll eat the corner."
I cut the corner like that
and it becomes like a pocket.
Because OK, I'll go on corner.
Oh great, I have my pocket.
Then I add something wonderful, all the sauce.
Look, these are meatball.
- Oh, that sure is a meatball.
- Yes.
- So it is a pizza sandwich?
Not a sandwich pizza?
- Yes, It's a piece of pizza
stuffed with old-fashioned Roman recipes.
- The word trapizzino is something you made up, right?
- Yes, there is another popular name, but they is tramezzino.
They sound similar but is different stuff.
That's a sandwich.
- So trapizzino is like tramezzino and pizza
combined, right?
- Yes.
- In Rome, people will call this what you make,
this trapizzino thing, a pizza?
- Yes, sometimes they come in and they say,
"Would you make pizza?"
And we say, "Yeah, we stuff pizza!"
- For me, I grew up in New Jersey.
I live in New York now.
I think of pizza not like this.
To me, pizza is where there's the bread base
and then there's something on top that's baked on top.
- So for you this is focaccia?
- Yes, to me this is focaccia.
- Something different about that.
- So to you this is pizza?
- Yes, plain pizza.
We say pizza bianca, like white pizza
because there's nothing on top.
But you can stuff right now.
- Let me ask you this then.
What is the difference between pizza bianca and focaccia?
- It's actually the same.
- I think you're more confused about this than I am.
- I'm sorry for my confusion.
- No, you can't argue with you,
you have such a beautiful smile.
- Yeah.
Let me warm it up a little bit.
- Yeah, I will not stop you from doing anything today.
This pizza, this sandwich, whatever it is.
Do I even think this is a pizza?
- When you walk into a pizzeria,
the aroma should punch you right in the face.
Real pizza needs to have the finest
and freshest ingredients.
Pizza should look as good as it tastes.
Pizza should be round or square, no other shape.
- But as I watch him construct it,
I'm more and more confused myself.
- You hear this name.
- Trapizzino. Trapizzino.
- You say, "What's that?"
It's more than pizza.
- More than pizza?
- Yeah.
- This is great.
- It's like a pizza.
Then I add something wonderful.
- You invented this?
- Yes.
- Wow, that was surprisingly fast.
- No, I'm not surprised, I'm not.
- And I also have to grant this because you can't hold it.
If you put it like that, the meatball will--
- Can you get a flight of trapizzini?
- Of course, there's a lady in Roma,
she ate seven trapizzino in half an hour.
- Wait, for real?
- Yeah.
- My kinda lady.
- Yes.
- You keep on filling these things up and I'm never leaving.
- This is the oxtail.
I think this is the most Roman dish.
- Then maybe I'm gonna start with the oxtail.
Right, so, you call it a pizza.
I don't even know what it is anymore, I just wanna eat it.
OK, so, cheers.
- Cheers, bro.
- That is tender, wow!
You got some on your nose, I love it.
That's a Roman nose.
- A Roman nose.
- The bread on this is phenomenal.
To me it doesn't read at all like pizza.
- Yeah, it's more than pizza, actually.
- More than pizza?
What are you talkin' about?
- I mean, different.
Because pizza is something alive, it's something...
(Speaks in foreign language)
- You know what I mean?
- I do, you're saying that the word pizza, really.
Maybe I'm thinking of it
and Mark is thinking of it too narrow.
So maybe it's much broader, right?
- Yes, it's pizza.
- Phew, OK.
I wanna eat more of it and ponder all this.
And then I know I'm gonna have to get some of this for Mark.
What's the best way for me to transport this?
Should I get a box?
- You tell me you want to carry,
we have to invent this also.
- Is that a pizza box, trapizzino box?
So you stick a trapizzino in each one of these?
Look, you got four spaces.
Can I get two meatball, two oxtail?
- Of course.
- And then I gotta be real careful to not drop it.
- Yeah, you have to carry it like baby, you know?
- How's that, like this?
- Like this.
- Oh, like this,
You know, how I carry pizza, yeah.
Thank you.
(speaks in a foreign language)
- Grazie Mille.
- Enjoy!
- Of course, have a good one.
- Ciao!
- Mark, it's me, you know Scott!
Mark, here's that pizza.
- Look at you havin' a nice day, readin' a good book
and drinkin' a Manhattan special.
- Yep, what is that?
- I know it doesn't look like a pizza box,
but just trust me, I know a lot about pizza boxes.
Pizza boxes come in all weird shapes and colors.
This is a trapizzino box.
You gotta admit, a big part of you is so excited
for when I open this up.
- I feel like a kid at Christmas.
- First, you gotta unlatch the bottom.
- What is it?
- This is trapizzino.
Pizza dough baked into these little squares,
he cuts them open, he cuts the inside
with a pair of scissors,
and then he stuffs them with some stuff.
When you're lookin' at this, you think pizza?
- Absolutely not.
- Why?
- It looks nothing like a-- it's like a sandwich or panini.
Let me ask you a question, pizza or not pizza?
- It seems like a pizza sandwich.
- A pizza sandwich is not a pizza.
It's kinda like a fancy hot pocket.
- It looks like a pizza crust, right?
- No. - Yeah, but when--
- That looks like a pizza crust to you?
- Well, it looks like if you baked a pizza dough.
- OK, it's a roll.
It kinda looks like before you roll it out.
- Oh, like a dough before you roll it out?
- Like a dough ball.
- Maybe, I mean look, that's like a slice.
It's just flipped on its side.
If you eat a taco sideways is it not a taco anymore?
Don't think too hard about that, don't worry about it.
- How do you eat it?
- With your mouth.
Try it.
- Do you squash the meatball?
- I'm gonna use my mouth to push the meatball in.
Oh, how'd you do that?
- Just open it up and it falls in.
- OK.
- You ready?
Go.
- Is it a race?
That's a meatball.
- This is a really, really good meatball.
It's more like a meatball sandwich.
- Yeah, kind of.
- You can't tell me this is pizza.
- Listen, he calls it trapizzino.
- OK, it's not, it's a trapizzino.
- It's a pizza sandwich.
- It does taste like a pizza crust.
- All right, so, you love it.
It tastes great, you keep eating it.
We're trying to have a conversation
and you just keep biting.
Is it a pizza?
- It's really, really good, but it's not a pizza.
- And there we have it.
Trapizzino, delicious, but not a pizza.
- But an amazing meatball.
- So what is holding this back from being a pizza?
I just wanna know.
- Just the ingredients is not what makes it a pizza.
- So what would make this a pizza?
- What was the first pizza you ever had?
- In my life?
- Yeah.
- I don't remember it, but it was probably at a roller rink.
It was probably a birthday party.
I was probably having a blast.
Still can't roller skate.
- I don't care about you know,
tell me about the pizza you ate.
- Dough that was baked with some stuff on top of it.
- What did it look like?
- It was square, it had these little, weird,
orange-y dark spots on top of it.
And on the very, very edge there was a coastline of tomato.
- This is not pizza, it's a trapizzino.
- I don't know why you just asked me
to go down memory lane with you.
- You didn't give me the answer I wanted to hear.
- What did you want to hear?
- You know, cut into triangles.
- But it wasn't.
- With dough, sauce, and cheese.
- See now we're gettin' somewhere,
this session's finally making sense.
- Square, dough, sauce, and cheese.
Right, that's my interpretation of a pizza.
- But this was a square until it was cut in half.
- I think you just love to frustrate me.
- It's one of my favorite things, but right now,
it's really that I'm tryin' to get down to your definition.
So, pizza dough--
- Why do you always doubt me?
- I always have a lot of questions about your brain.
I want your meatball.
You still promised me two hours ago
you were gonna make me a meatball.
I don't just walk into a place and make demands,
I'm not Mark Iacono.
Why are you tryin' to razzle dazzle me with this?
You forget about our pact, our blood oath.
- What do you think?
- About your brain?
It's scary, a lot of cobwebs.
I'll be here, I apparently have nothing better
to do with my life.
- I told ya I don't like the crust.
- Is that why your crust isn't that good?
- This is not a pizza, and you're not gonna stand there
and tell me it's a pizza.
Get out.
- God, why am I- hhaaaAAACHKg!!
- Get out, please.
Scott, get out of my restaurant.
- You said that before and I heard it.
- You gotta go, you're hurting my brain.
- OK, I understand what you are trying to say.
- Enough.
- All right, I don't believe you.
- And I have one last and final wish,
Scott is no longer allowed in my pizzeria.
- OK, Mark's solo end card, take 34.
Say, "Thanks for watching."
- Thanks for watching.
- Don't forget to subscribe to Thrillist.
- And check out some of the other episodes.
- And check out our other episodes.
- And don't forget to like, comment, and share.
- And don't forget to like comment and share.
- Yeah, we got it, all right!
- Why don't they give us those cue cards?
Scott, go.
- Jacket, I just forgot my jacket.