BOCCE USQ

CAN A LUNCH BREAK STAYCATION BE A THING?

There’s something about a bocce court (is it called a court?) that immediately makes me feel like I’m on vacation. Tossing balls at other balls, I mean what can be more (I wanna say “basic”) effortlessly enjoyable?  Whether I’m at grandma’s community by the pool, an upscale resort, some vineyard, even a backyard, it’s away and being away is awesome. Now, who’s to say a vacation has to be a week long, weekend long, day long? How about a long lunch reboot? I’m the first person to poo poo that idea saying that I absolutely need more, then I proved myself wrong—a couple of hours away from it all while technically being in the middle of it all in the heart of Union Square was absolutely wonderful. 

Here’s my experience at BocceUSQ. Walking up to the iconic open air pillared building at the top of Union Square Park, my sister, son, and I parked ourselves under a blueish green umbrella covered picnic table that sits adjacent to a single black bottomed bocce court. Before us sat two really short lunch menus. I was immediately questioning my lunch choice. Was this restaurant leaning on the awesome location and letting the ball drop on the food? Well, we were here, so now we were going to find out the hard way. I won’t lie, you know how restaurants outside of New York, particularly the ones when you’re on vacation, are often slow and the service is, well, meh. This was reminiscent of that. While our servers were kind, they weren’t terribly present but I got past that quickly because their pizzas were awesome. To get more specific, we ordered two pizzas—The Farm (Market Pesto, Mozz, Squash, Aged Cheddar) and Mushroom (Mushroom, Mozz, Bayley Hazen Blue, Garlic)—the Classic Caesar Salad, and the Italian Combo sandwich (Calabrian Aioli, Mozz, Coppa, Pepperoni, Salami, Roasted Red Peppers, Lettuce, on Bocce Bread). It was one of those moments that I fell in love with the pizzas at first sight and then my first bite confirmed that love. It was the perfect afternoon getaway!