Sunday, January 10, 2010

Mimi's: "High school expectations were met and exceded!"

During the course of our afternoon, Nate and I tarried over our few slices so lengthily, drinking in the endless and intoxicating stream of each other's charming company, that after only three slices it was almost time to meet some folks at the Met, an appointment scheduled by Nate that I decided to pretend I was interested in tagging along with for the sake of hanging out with my dear friend a little longer. Much like the friend-courtship that occurred when Chuckie VD moved to New York City from Chattanooga many moons ago, I once again used a trip to a museum as an excuse to pretend to be more sophisticated than I am. In fact, I acted like I go to the Met all the time and I'm pretty sure I pretended to have already seen an exhibit that I didn't even know was up. Such is life, we all have our foibles.

Either way, we had some time to spare, though not enough to cover everything on my list, so we headed over to the next place, conveniently on the way to the museum from where we were. Behold, EuroPan Pizza!


We took one look at this place, and quickly vetoed it. There was an enormous and unsettling display of premaid wraps and paninis. (Which makes me wonder, upon writing this, just WHAT they do with those at the end of the night. I would be curious to know if anyone has dumpstered EuroPan.) Either way, the place looked like crap, there were flat screen TVs showing the yule log on them recessed into the walls, and the whole place just sort of creeped me out. Nate suggested we end things on a high note and head to one of his old favorite slices from high school, Mimi's.


As it happens, I recognized Mimi's from my day of harvesting on the Upper West Side with 🍞, because after talking about UFO conspiracies for three hours in Central Park, we walked into Mimi's looking for a hot cup on the way to the 4 train, and I remarked to 🍞, "I bet this place has a great slice, I can't wait until it's time for me to eat pizza over hear." And sure enough, two months later, Nate was telling me that this was his second-favorite (right?, refresh my memory!) slice in high school.


Something I've learned to appreciate, or perhaps just a pattern I've only become cognizant of recently, is that oftentimes, good or great slices don't look neat and uniform. Johnny's, Tom's Delicious, Sal and Carmine's, if you look at the pictures in those entries, all the slices have a certain amount of character. So when I was handed my slice at Mimi's and noticed the irregularity, like the difference between a well-made leather shoe and some piece of shit from Target, I was pretty excited. And while Mimi's may not be on par with the slice's I mentioned above, it is certainly cut from a different cloth than most of the crap they call pizza in this town these days. The ingredients were great quality, everything tasted superb and fresh. The dough had the right amount of salt, the sauce was understated, the cheese a little pungent. The slice was substantial enough that it would probably fill me up and maintained it's integrity when I folded it despite it's weight. It was missing that special something that makes a slice INCREDIBLE, but it was really, really good. I mean, like, really, really good.

Vegetarians beware: the entire slice tasted slightly like pepperoni.

Mimi's Pizza & Family Restaurant - $2.75
1248 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10028

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Does anyone know how I can change the little icon that comes up when the site loads from the Blogger B to like, a picture of a slice of pizza or like, a Circle A or something?

5 comments:

  1. Hi Slice

    The little orange B icon is called a favicon (short for favorites icon).
    A search for blogger favicon on google will give you all the help you need.

    Stan

    ps. keep up the good work!

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  2. Mimi's was one of my high school favorites too! Glad to hear it is still good.

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  3. I used to order from this place all the time growing up. I agree that the 'za there is delicious. It is interesting to note that the pizza at the similarly names Mimma's on 2nd is also delicious. I smell a trend...

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  4. is this the place in the 80s (street)? If it is, I used to go to this place many times after school (Regis).

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  5. Yes, this place is on 84th and Lex, a block away from Regis. I'm so glad you liked this place. I live above it and have been eating here for decades. I agree, it might not be the best slice in Manhattan, but it's the best on the Upper East Side. The meatball parm hero and chicken parm hero are very good too.

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