Abitino's: "A rumination on the importance of second chances."

The facade of this building may look familiar to longtime readers, who will recall that I ate at another Abitino's location a few weeks ago with best friend Caroline, Famous American Babe of the 80s Phoebe Cates and her daughter Greta. For those who weren't with us back then, I'll recap the review in brief: we were terribly unimpressed. I mentioned in that review, and I will mention once again, that prior to that slice, we had just eaten at Gino's on 83rd and 1st, which is, I will definitively say for the first time ever, thus far, The Best Street Slice In New York.

When Cory and I walked up to this Abitino's, I said to him, "Listen man, sorry we have to do this. The pizza here just isn't gonna be that good." But he put on a good face, and when we walked in he immediately pointed up to the ceiling mounted speakers and said, "I LIKE this place! They're playing 'Livin' La Vida Loca'!" Which is funny now, because anyone who is following me on twitter will know that a few days ago I was wildly touched by Ricky Martin coming out of the closet. I'm not sure why his public statement spoke to me more than others in the past, but for some reason, I felt genuinely happy for him when I read about Ricky Martin. There's not gonna be a punchline here, I'm being totally serious.


Anyway, this slice. I still have problems with the corrugated cardboard consistency of the dough, and I am not gonna rave about this slice now or anything, but it is not nearly as bad as I made it sound the last time around. Which really speaks miles towards How Good the slice at Gino's is, if it could linger in our memories long enough to ruin a totally passable slice. The sauce was a touch too sweet for my tastes, but this was the first slice of the day where the cheese actually tasted like CHEESE. And that is important. I give this slice two thumbs directly in the middle, like if you put your hands in a thumbs up position and then pointed the thumbs at each other. Cory liked it, though, and he knows pizza, so it can't be that bad.

Rating:


Abitino's - $2.75
936 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10022