Sorry I have not read all replies in this thread. Skimming through it, it seems the bases have been covered. I go to DiFara's a few times a year.
Some of the pics I see here are quite close, but Dom is pretty heavy handed on the olive oil. I wasn't aware he used 00 flour, and what I get there versus the Lehman recipe here is pretty much the same. He uses a standard gas oven, and the bottom of the crust is well done and the topside of the crust is browned -- and any thin spots on the outer crust are usually just starting to blacken. There tends to be some pretty decent bubbles at the crust/sauce line and they blacken too. People that don't prefer DiFara's typically complain it is too greasy and crust burnt. Yet some complain the crust is too gooey. It is pretty well burnt on the outside, but tends to be gooey beneath the sauce/cheese -- which I attribute to the high amount of olive oil he puts on it. Again, go heavy on the oil. The pizza's we make here all have nice red sauce -- his starts that way but the heavy oil dilutes it and then when the sauce/oil/cheese cooks it comes out orangish.
He is quite generous with the fresh mozz. The patches of fresh mozz end up pretty white, and the rest is an orangish blend of sauce/oil/standard mozz. The standard mozz ends up almost clear.
Last time I went I talked to him and he said his Basil is from Isreal. It does have much larger leaves than any basil I've seen locally.
He seems to be pretty light handed with the sauce. It ends up being more oil than sauce in my opinion.
Despite the well browned and slightly blackened crust bottom, you can't hold a piece without folding it. The crust is not rigid at all except the outer crust. If you make one and can hold a slice without folding it and without it dropping and all the sauce/cheese falling off -- then it isn't right.
And yes, the dirt within the establishment probably also adds some flavors to the pie that we would rather not know about.
