Pizza! One Man's Mission To Taste And Review Every Slice In NYC

September 28, 2010 11:26 PM

Pizza! Slice Harvester is one man's quest to taste and review every pizza slice offered by NYC's pizzerias. His mission statement reads, "...I'm going by neighborhood, starting in Manhattan, getting a plain slice at every place. I am f***ing sick of the current trend in Pizza Journalism that's all about f***ing artichoke guacamole tahini pizza on rice dough. That s*** isn't pizza. Sorry."
posted by Arthur Phillips Jones Jr (69 comments total)

The man has a good point. But he is going to pay for it in his gut proving it. God Bless.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:28 PM on September 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

1. Pick one thing to do. Exactly one thing.
2. Start doing it, and writing a blog about it.
3. Wait for the book deal.
4. ???

(No, there is no Profit)
posted by vidur at 11:34 PM on September 28, 2010 [6 favorites]

4. ???

Get a CBS sitcom everyone will forget in a few years?
posted by fishmasta at 11:44 PM on September 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

There's something really obnoxious about the way he's telling these stories. Also, the lame donation-begging is not doing him any favors. The whole thing smells like a half-hearted cash-in attempt.
posted by nasreddin at 11:47 PM on September 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Pizza journalists gonna journal.
posted by IvoShandor at 11:48 PM on September 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Took me awhile to figure out that the best reviews are placed under the perfect , great, and good tags, though I have to say I enjoyed reading the worst and total bummer categories. The guy ought to organize all these reviews and make an iPhone or Google Maps app of some kind.

On another note, I can't help wondering how many of the higher-rated pizza places are just salting the pies with MSG, especially since many of the slices up and down the ranking spectrum look almost identical. It would be interesting to know where the places are sourcing their ingredients (Sysco?) and what's causing the variation in quality.
posted by crapmatic at 12:12 AM on September 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

His review of Chelsea pizzeria's is pretty dead on. With the exception of Stella's on 9th ave, there isn't much good pizza in this area.
posted by cazoo at 12:17 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was expecting to be disappointed by this blog but was unexpectedly charmed. I think maybe it was the 'total bummer slice' tag.
posted by breath at 12:36 AM on September 29, 2010

Now I want a slice, bummer or not.
posted by breath at 12:36 AM on September 29, 2010

I'm enjoying the reading.

Maybe pointing out the shittiness of the local pizza fare will cause said pizza to improve.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:37 AM on September 29, 2010

So basically, all the best pizza in New York City is at the places where there is lots of foot traffic and tourists. That's actually understandable.
posted by parmanparman at 12:51 AM on September 29, 2010

Ditto crapmatic. So odd that so many of the slices looks so similar.
posted by rudster at 1:04 AM on September 29, 2010

I was under the impression that the current pizza fad involved fetishizing all things Neopolitan in the name of authenticity. Is that just a Bay Area pursuit, or is he blogging from 1987?
posted by dantsea at 1:45 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Does good pizza even come in individual slices on a paper plate? Even in Rome, single-slice pizza is a poor thing. Or is NYC different in this regard?
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:05 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Neopolitan pizza is crazy good. Went to Naples this year and just ate pizza. It's still a bit better than the OCD-Level neopolitan recreations we can get in the states at certain places- Possibly relating to freshness and sources of ingredients and lack of pasteurization for the cheese.

All those slices indeed looked pretty bad. Very good consistent results from all the NYC pizzerias, though.
posted by colinshark at 2:13 AM on September 29, 2010

Does good pizza even come in individual slices on a paper plate?

I'd argue that if you're getting your slice on an actual non-paper plate, you're doing it wrong.

Now I need to swing through Claudio Pizzeria in my old neighborhood.
posted by JaredSeth at 3:06 AM on September 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

So, in my area, we have a local organic agriculture / sustainable living organization that puts on a fair every year, actually pretty popular. And most years, I go.

At most such fairs, I grab a falafel pita, because you can't really go wrong with that.

Now, at an organic agricultural oriented fair, you might think you'd get well above average quality in the vegetarian food department... In this case, you'd think wrong. Just falafel, some sort of really crappy whole-grain pita that disintigrated on touch, and a few wisps of lettuce. Feta? Hummus? Olives? Hot Peppers? Goodness no!

I actually couldn't eat it, which really says something - I tend to pick what I want to eat, acquire it, and then finish every last speck of it, period. So for me to push away a plate after two bites, just wow.

Anyway, to get to the point, I still needed food. So I went for a good old standby, a slice of plain cheese pizza.

Now, some of you might have seen this coming, but have you ever had a whole grain pizza crust? Damn but that just doesn't work. The sauce and cheese managed to make it palatable (in the same way that enough cheese would make a paper plate edible), but these folks really need to stop experimenting with staple foods.

2/10 - At least they didn't make it with rye or some god-awful exotic herbs in the sauce.
posted by pla at 3:36 AM on September 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

The slice must flow!
posted by Joe Chip at 3:45 AM on September 29, 2010 [11 favorites]

and complete with obligatory Ghostface "like ziti" reference!
posted by rxrfrx at 4:27 AM on September 29, 2010

The one thing I have discovered when eating pizza with friends: to find out whether or not the pie is good or what you prefer, eat it without anything added to it...that is, sauce and cheese on crust. Add -ons detract from full sampling.
posted by Postroad at 4:50 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I am f***ing sick of the current trend in Pizza Journalism that's all about f***ing artichoke guacamole tahini pizza on rice dough. That s*** isn't pizza.

Whoa! Do you eat your pizza with that mouth?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:07 AM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

New York is full of crap pizza. Fortunately, it's also full of decent pizza. Really good pizza, however, is rare. In Switzerland, lousy pizza is quite rare, and really good pizza is way more common than McDonalds.

That being said, I wish I could find good Sicilian pizza in Switzerland. And Sicilian pastry. Oh, wait. Maybe I'm better off without the pastry. Got to watch the weight, doncha know.
posted by Goofyy at 5:17 AM on September 29, 2010

That floppy, oozing mess isn't pizza. It's some sort of trick the NYC fashion industry pulled to get people to buy new clothes regularly. You won't find real pizza until you're at least an hour north of NYC.

New England style pan pizza, now that's real pizza. Crust you can trust to hold up a layer of sauce, cheese and double pepperoni, a slice you can get your mouth around, none of this fold-and-eat crap that dribbles grease down your shirt cuff. And none of this single-slice, stand-around-and-eat-it business. You slide into a booth with a good view of the big-screen TV showing the Sawx game from last night, order whatever they got on draft, and get a small pizza if you're by yourself, it ain't too big. Take the unfinished slice or two home to eat cold for breakfast, or for your co-workers to steal out of the office fridge. Flirt with the waitress and leave a tip. That's pizza.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:21 AM on September 29, 2010

So......what I'm getting from having read through the first page of posts is that most pizza this guy's had sucks. A lot.
posted by limeonaire at 5:35 AM on September 29, 2010

The small, local, not well-known pizza shop with which I identify my youth and/or free-living college years is superior to the small, local, not well-known pizza shop with which you identify your youth and/or free-living college years.
posted by modernnomad at 5:43 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

New England style pan pizza, now that's real pizza.

No disrespect intended, but I've been almost everywhere (minus south america) and I've lived everywhere, and I don't think this is a true statement. As I see it, you really only have two choices when it comes to "authentic" pizza:

1. Chicago deep dish. Geno's East, etc. (although Geno's has sucked for about a decade now)
2. New York greasy-but-huge pizza pie. Grimaldi's in Brooklyn, etc.

We all know, deep down, that this is true.
posted by taumeson at 5:49 AM on September 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

I was a bit put off by all the negative reviews (especially the ones with "too much cheese" because, really, how can you ever have too much cheese?) but I kept going and was rewarded with this gem.

I can't believe such a thing as a pizzacone actually exists. And he tried one!

Brave man.
posted by misha at 6:04 AM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm all for this, and I completely agree with the sentiment about idiotic showboaty "foodie" pizza. I've got a personal rule against eating pizza in any place that puts chicken on a pizza, not because it's not edible, but because we're not at the stage of pizza evolution where we're still trying to invent pizza. Pizza, as a thing, is complete, perfect, and requires nothing but a zen touch and the magical balancing act of ingredients, not a cavalier kitchen-sink approach of shoving some novel new thing on there and declaring yourself Wolfgang Puckeriffic. Just make a simple, lovely, amazing thing, and make it so sublime that I will pay twenty dollars to get on a Bolt Bus from Maryland and walk a million New York long blocks to get a slice of cheap wonder on a paper plate.

It's this subtle, impossible thing, how it all comes together, and in the same way that every new configuration of a bicycle since the basic safety bicycle came along gets deservedly relegated to a status as a distraction from the craft of bikebuilding, you can slap anything you want on a flat starchy object and call it "pizza," but you're just being silly.

For me, it'll be interesting to try out some of this guy's favorite places, because I come from a region in a postage stamp state that absolutely can't produce a decent slice of pizza. You can have an acceptable analogue, maybe, if you like 'em square, at Ledo's (or Pal Jack's Pizza, in my hometown, where I worked for seven years, on and off), and there's something to that flaky, thin-crust pie that's just lovely, but you can't really find a good slice of hole-in-the-wall pizza in Maryland that has that certain undefinable quality that pizza has in places like NYC, Philly, and Chicago.

Of course, I'm also a proper self-deprecating Marylander in that I know our pizza, by and large, sucks. It's amazing how many people will say "you think that's pizza? You've never had our pizza!" and yet, I don't know how many of my fellow Old Line Staters would make that claim with a straight face, unless they've never left the state. We've got Polock Johnny's, which rocks the sausages for the Lord, and you can still occasionally get a decent crab around here, when you can get them before they've all been sold to tourists and replaced with stupid imported Asian swimming crabs, and there are those who like Berger cookies (though the best Berger cookies are the ones that they don't package and sell--the butter crunch ones you can get at Lexington Market), but this place is a pizza void.

So, once in a while, I climb on the bus for NYC, enjoy my crazy futuristic bus WIFI on the way north, and go out scouting for a perfect little greasy slice of wonderful. I'll make some excuse that I'm up there to see a museum, or to watch people on the street, but we've got museums and people back home. It's the pizza.

Now I'm all hungry. Damn.
posted by sonascope at 6:04 AM on September 29, 2010 [7 favorites]

That floppy, oozing mess isn't pizza. It's some sort of trick the NYC fashion industry pulled to get people to buy new clothes regularly. You won't find real pizza until you're at least an hour north of NYC.

I'm usually one to defend New England from the constant claims by well, every single New Yorker that everything in their city is superior to everything in ours, but there's no fucking way in hell I can defend what passes for pizza in 99% of the pizza places here. I'm not even sure what "New England style pan pizza" is, but since the predominant pizza in this area is the shitty, greek-style, cardboard-crusted, plastic cheese coated, grease-covered crap you get in every mom-and-pop "house of pizza" in every town, I'm going to assume that's what you're talking about. If I'm wrong, and there's some other type of pizza that I've somehow managed to miss all these years, then please enlighten me.

Don't get me wrong, there is good pizza to be found here, but god damn there is a hell of a lot of shitty pizza in New England.

Now, if we're going to put the "Grindahs" from those same places against any sub, hero, hoagie, or what have you from anywhere else in the universe, then I will defend those awesome sandwiches to the death. But the pizza? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
posted by bondcliff at 6:06 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Good pan pizza is emphatically not greasy, and the crust is crisp on the bottom and edges, and soft and bready and thick, not cardboard. The cheese is usually straight mozza, maybe with some asagio or parmesean tossed in for flavor, shredded, same as used in the veal parm grinders. Local examples of good pie would be Hope St. Pizza (Dogfish Head on tap!), or Sicilia's Pizza Regular Crust.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:24 AM on September 29, 2010

Oh cool, I used to work with this guy! He is pretty young and an avid cyclist, so I don't think he is going to balloon up anytime soon.
posted by hermitosis at 6:38 AM on September 29, 2010

John & Joe's, my friends. John & Joe's.

Come for the pie, stay for the garlic bombs. Holee SHIT.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:40 AM on September 29, 2010

"There was too much cheese"

What the what?
posted by oddman at 6:45 AM on September 29, 2010

Now I'm hungry for pizza :(
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:47 AM on September 29, 2010

"New England style pan pizza, now that's real pizza."

Yep, and you can buy it in New York City... as per my ask question here, though so far I've only found Singa's, where it's all individual pie size, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are other places doing bigger pies.
posted by Jahaza at 6:47 AM on September 29, 2010

You want great pizza? Make it yourself. The major barrier is the oven - most don't get as hot as you want - but still, you can use much better ingredients than all but the best pizza joints.

I use this recipe for crust, it gets crisp and chewy. Roll it as thin as you can.

At a minimum, use a baking stone in the oven, preheated as hot as you can get it for 30 minutes. It's even better on a ceramic cooker (I have a Big Green Egg) at about 750 degrees indirect over a lump charcoal fire.

Tomato sauce, that's another post. But it only takes 15 minutes to cook a nice pomodoro sauce from fresh tomatoes, olive oil, and basil. Have the kids spread it around. Clean up the resulting mess.

Scatter a few fresh basil leaves on top. Not on the kids' pieces, sigh. Grate a lump of fresh mozzarella, grate finely a chunk of high quality parm or romano spread as you like.

Slide it onto the very very hot stone. I use a Super Peel, you can use a regular peel covered in cornmeal or even the back of a baking sheet w/ cornmeal. Theoretically.

Bake it until you like it. Takes about 15 minutes on a 500 degree stone, about 12 at 700+, and I've heard of crazy pizza nuts doing it in 5 minutes at 1000+ degrees, but yeah, no. Damn, I'm hungry now.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 7:01 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Having lived the first half of my life in NY and the second half in New England, I can authoritatively report that NY pizza beats NE, and, in fact, the best pizza in NE is actually NY style - non-pan, bready crust. Here's what the chowhounds have to say about NY pizza:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/233641
posted by pavi at 7:34 AM on September 29, 2010

"I am f***ing sick of the current trend in Pizza Journalism that's all about f***ing artichoke guacamole tahini pizza on rice dough. That s*** isn't pizza. Sorry."

Pyuccch. People like this are the pizza analogue of the "Is this record truly punk rock?" people. It's lunch, not the Smithsonian -- deliciousness, not authenticity, is not the goal. Oh, and you can have my macaroni and cheese pizza when you pry it from my cold, dead, greasy hands.
posted by escabeche at 7:35 AM on September 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

You want great pizza? Go an hour north to New Haven and stay away from the places selling single slices. You could easily hit Sally's, Pepe's, and Bar in the same day with a good enough appetite.

I liked this blog much more than I was expecting to, though.
posted by jtron at 7:39 AM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

You want great pizza? Make it yourself.

I'm inclined to agree.

For sauce may I recommend Pomi Strained Tomatoes, it's what everyone uses in Italy.

Also, bake the dough with the sauce on for 10 mins, then add the cheese and other ingredients for another 10.
posted by Dragonness at 7:48 AM on September 29, 2010

Serious question: This pizza journalism he speaks of — it exists? Pretty funny either way.
posted by Mister_A at 7:49 AM on September 29, 2010

I'm all for this, and I completely agree with the sentiment about idiotic showboaty "foodie" pizza. I've got a personal rule against eating pizza in any place that puts chicken on a pizza,

This is pretty much every pizza place in NYC I think.
posted by josher71 at 8:08 AM on September 29, 2010

I skimmed thru every review on his home page and found it odd that he didn't like any of the pizza at all. Not a single one. So, um, why did he take on this project?
posted by spilon at 8:35 AM on September 29, 2010

Someone let me know when it's appropriate in this thread to crow about Pequod's Pizza in Chicago.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:38 AM on September 29, 2010

You people railing against exotic toppings on pizza, you're crazy. Check it, here's some pizza with awesome Chinese food and ranch dressing. Was it delicious? Yes, of course it was. For heaven's sake, it's like y'all never seen the Ninja Turtles before.
posted by Greg Nog at 8:45 AM on September 29, 2010

There's a great Italian pizza place in Covent Garden that's really cheap and much better than any chains or the tourist places selling it off hotplates by the slice. But for one thing - no doner kebab pizza. With garlic sauce.
posted by mippy at 8:52 AM on September 29, 2010

You want great pizza? Go an hour north to New Haven and stay away from the places selling single slices. You could easily hit Sally's, Pepe's, and Bar in the same day with a good enough appetite.

I came in here to say this, but you seem to have it covered. Although this fellow might not be into Bar's mashed potato pizza.
posted by pemberkins at 9:03 AM on September 29, 2010

Are we sure this guy is an expert? I mean I know he has his own blog and all. I notice from the photos that he seems to put a lot of condiments on his slice, which makes me wary.

Also, Deep Dish/New England/Switzerland/My Favorite Pizza Place is the absolute best? Yes a lot of them are great, but this guy is comparing New York style street slices which is a distinct category of food. It's like those people say that Guinness is real beer and Budweiser is not. Guys, it's a completely different drink, they are not in competition!
posted by solmyjuice at 9:07 AM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

This guy is doing exactly what I suggested my wife and I do once we finally move to New York.

Aw, to hell with it, we can still do it. But good on him for doing so.
posted by grubi at 9:23 AM on September 29, 2010

Reminds me a lot of Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

I love these kinds of sites. Earnest, happy, doing their thing and being thoughtful about it.

It's like the anti-snark and I love it. Fuck snark.
posted by the young rope-rider at 9:46 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, solmyjuice, but that sounds like the pulings of a New York pie fan afraid to acknowledge the Elm City's apizza aprimacy.

New Haven pizza is objectively the best pizza in the continental US.

Furthermore, the best pizza in Chicago is the New Haven-style Piece in Wicker Park.

YEAH YOU HEARD ME
posted by jtron at 9:51 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also yeah Chelsea is where they send all the food they couldn't sell at ridiculous prices in other neighborhoods. It's awful. There are two good, somewhat fairly-priced restaurants. That's it.
posted by the young rope-rider at 9:51 AM on September 29, 2010

New York is full of crap pizza. Fortunately, it's also full of decent pizza. Really good pizza, however, is rare

Yeah seriously. That whole New York Pizza thing? LIES! I was sadly disappointed when I moved to NYC, ostensible land of great pizza, to find...quite the opposite.

Call me a yippie, but I'd take my goat cheese/apples/hazelnuts/squash sauce Portland pizza over some nasty over-sized slice of cheese that's sat out and been reheated New York pizza.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:18 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'd be much happier about this whole thing if it didn't remind me of Skeleton Harvester.
posted by moonmilk at 10:30 AM on September 29, 2010

Furthermore, the best pizza in Chicago is the New Haven-style Piece in Wicker Park.

I will admit that their mashed potatoes + barbecue chicken pizza is mighty tasty, and they have some very fine beer, but it is certainly not the best in the city.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:38 AM on September 29, 2010

solmyjuice, I hear you. There is a beauty to the utility slice that people just don't seem to understand.
I personally stick with the gospel of John but there's something to be said for the fluffy, "gourmet" slices from Two Boots.
Throwing in the ubiquitous New Yorker comment, you're all just jealous of our clearly superior pizza.
posted by blueskiesinside at 11:34 AM on September 29, 2010

Well, he likes Siena across the street from me here, so that's a good baseline for agreement.

I still haven't been back to my favorite pizzeria from my pre-9/11 life. I suspect it's not there. I don't want to know if it isn't. At any rate, it was the cheapest slice around (still only a buck-25!). Even if it's still there, I know the price will have climbed. =(
posted by Eideteker at 11:38 AM on September 29, 2010

Probably a good place to put this.

*slinks away*
posted by dobie at 12:18 PM on September 29, 2010

His review of Big Nick's Too is pretty spot on. Wish he had an index, though.
posted by zarq at 12:20 PM on September 29, 2010

As I see it, you really only have two choices when it comes to "authentic" pizza:

1. Chicago deep dish. Geno's East, etc. (although Geno's has sucked for about a decade now)

I don't give a rat's ass about "authenticity" myself, but I thought most foodies disdained "deep-dish pizza," i.e. "it's not real pizza":

"The truth is that no matter how much you like it, Chicago deep dish is not pizza. Its its own (imo revolting) thing, a flatbread that caters to the tastes of obese midwesterners."
posted by mrgrimm at 12:24 PM on September 29, 2010

I've got a personal rule against eating pizza in any place that puts chicken on a pizza, not because it's not edible, but because we're not at the stage of pizza evolution where we're still trying to invent pizza.

Well, I can see a perfectly reasonable genesis of this rule. But I spend the vast majority of my time with a girl who eats neither beef nor pork, but sometimes enjoys a pizza, and does quite like chicken. I've even come to enjoy chicken pizzas a lot, because it can be meaty and delicious without being quite so damn fatty.

I realize attempting to be healthy whilst eating pizza may be a fool's errand, but keeping a constant eye on the fatty food margins seems to be helping, so, hey. Chicken pizza it is.
posted by flaterik at 1:55 PM on September 29, 2010

Mmm delicious Siena pizza.

Curse you, MeFi!
posted by Eideteker at 3:36 PM on September 29, 2010

bondcliff I but since the predominant pizza in this area is the shitty, greek-style, cardboard-crusted, plastic cheese coated, grease-covered crap you get in every mom-and-pop "house of pizza" in every town, I'm going to assume that's what you're talking about. (Bolding mine for emphasis)

See, you've just described the problem with most pizza - Italians didn't invent it. The Greeks did. And they do it far, far better than any wimpy "flat pasta with crappy marinara sauce and a bit more cheese than normal" (or the only seeming alternative, an inch thick slab of bread with almost no sauce and a sprinkling of cheese as an afterthought).

That said, most Mom-n'-Pop places, as well as all chains, tend to just plain suck. Now, if you walk into a pizza place and an old Greek guy asks you, in an accent so thick he has to repeat the question three times (and doesn't hide his annoyance at your lack of understanding), what you want - There, you will get a damned fine pizza.
posted by pla at 3:37 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, and if you try to order it with chicken or pineapple or ranch dressing, expect him to (rightly) come after you with a pizza-chopping machete. ;)
posted by pla at 3:38 PM on September 29, 2010

All you need to know about NY pizza.
posted by Splunge at 3:49 PM on September 29, 2010

I've got a personal rule against eating pizza in any place that puts chicken on a pizza, not because it's not edible, but because we're not at the stage of pizza evolution where we're still trying to invent pizza.

How will we know when we've gotten there?
posted by IndigoJones at 4:18 PM on September 29, 2010

I think I found something I hate more than No True Scotsman and No True Punk Rock Record: No True Pizza
posted by tehloki at 9:55 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

The truth is that no matter how much you like it, Chicago deep dish is not pizza. Its its own (imo revolting) thing, a flatbread that caters to the tastes of obese midwesterners.

Random comment on website quoting. Clever. What really isn't pizza is that floppy, thin crust crap everyone else thinks is pizza. But, I mean, Midwesterners are soooooo fat, aren't they?
posted by IvoShandor at 12:36 AM on September 30, 2010

But, I mean, Midwesterners are soooooo fat, aren't they?

For the record, I am a born-and-raised Midwesterner and I am not fat. At least not now. I also like deep-dish pizza.

Also, when I order pineapple on pizza, I like it integrated with the sauce and cheese, not just placed on top.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:02 AM on September 30, 2010