Providence Pizza Meltdown: "Looks like pizza, tastes like shit. You're never gonna know until you bite into it."

I'll return to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow, but tonight I'd like to share some information about the horrible pizza in Providence, Rhode Island. Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Boston drinking this horrid tea that tastes like bubble gum while the homies are at the club they're playing tonight a little ways down the street. I don't think I fully realized what an important band I was "touring" with, but these people were all famous already! If you haven't heard them yet, Forgivers feature Berk from Glassjaw, Keith from Rise Against!, and Charlotte from 7 Year Bitch. Total super group! I'm so privileged to be able to travel around with such rad celebrities.

Anyway, yesterday we ended up heading to the neighborhood over by all the colleges in Providence. Keith wanted to hit the gym, Charlotte needed to get some more watercolors, and Berk had to get a pedicure (he has sensitive feet!), so I was left stranded downtown. That's when I realized that there were three pizzerias just on the block I was on! I started thinking about the horrid slice Mikey Sauce had gotten me at 2am Friday night, and realized that I had to do further research into the indigenous pizza of downtown Providence. So I went to the first place, Nice Slice, employer of the Providence Punks and much heralded Best Pizzeria in Town and ordered up a slab.


I don't know if you can tell from my crappy picture, but there is totally some bullshit whole wheat thing going on with the crust. Boo. To top it off, the whole slice was too thin and it was just generally subpar. Pretend it's not pizza and maybe it's a decent snack.

Right across the street was Antonio's, which looked promising until I realized it shared it's location with a burrito joint, much like a half assed Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell. But I went in anyway, because I am a glutton for punishment, and the slice looked ten times more like actual pizza and not some art school, gourmet crap.


Sadly, this slice tasted like someone had spread sauce and melted cheese onto a pizza box. The dough was basically the consistency of cardboard. The sauce and the cheese were fine, but the dough and crust were awful, which led me to ask Charlotte whether Providence is at a higher elevation than New York. Because last week, Megan, my friend and pizza comrade, who is such a dedicated pizza-maker that she reads PMQ Magazine, told me that elevation affects the consistency of pizza dough! No shit, right? You never thought about it, but it makes total sense.

Anyway, after Antonio's, I headed to the last place on that block, Xtreme Pizza & Wings. What a shit show. I walked in, and there was some dick boss behind the counter yelling at the girl at the register like a shitty dad. He eventually stopped barking asinine orders at the poor girl and gave her enough time to take my order. It was then I noticed the pies waiting to be sold.


The counter of this place looked like a fucking burn unit. Every slice I saw was a Freddy Krueger. Then this frat dude walked in and was all, "I'm here for the pickup."
And the lady behind the counter looked over at the two to-go pies that were boxed up next to one and other and was like, (and I am not even joking or embellishing here), "Xtreme BBQ or Chicken Terriyaki Xtreme?"

Fuck. But I had already ordered my slice, it was too late to leave. And then I was handed the worst slice of pizza I've ever seen in my life:


The ultimate Freddy Krueger. The cheese on this slice looked like a giant nasty scab. It was grosser than my face was when I got doored on my bike coming home from Cassie's halloween party a few years ago and had nasty road rash on my face and looked like a zombie. It was grosser than when I saw a tape worm at the beach. It was grosser than the grossest thing you can imagine.

(As a side note, feel free to post the grossest thing you can imagine in the comments section of this entry. Winner gets to know that I am thinking about what they wrote while I masturbate.)

The crazy thing about this slice was that even though it was totally burnt to shit, it had the grossest most soggy texture ever. Like that pizza I ate with Meredith and Josh Ferguson (I think), that turned into like, a weird soup in your mouth. So gross. By far the worst pizza ever in the world.

Anyway, I still think the pizza I that Mike Sauce took me out for two years ago at Tommy's was totally decent, so if you're ever in Providence, go there. Although really if you're ever in Providence you should just eat a Vietnamese sandwich or a fucking Hot Weiner with Meat Sauce from N.Y. System, duh.