Fat Sal's: "Fat Sal's with a vengeance."

Fat Sal's has been haunting me since I went pizza eating with Phoebe Cates. It came back to rear its ugly, totally inconsistent, head when I met up with Kever OCP and Ernie a couple months ago. Once again, Fat Sal's provided a perplexing enigma. Actually, that is totally giving this boring place way more credence than it deserves. The mystery of the first Fat Sal's is undeniable, and the second was just wildly inconsistent, in that they served me one great slice and one totally horrible one. This Fat Sal's location basically split the difference in that they served me one totally mediocre slice.

Here's the thing, I was so caught up in hanging with Jonathan and discussing my history with Fat Sal's that I somehow forgot to photograph this slice. I know that is like The Ultimate Betrayal, but considering this is the first time in 300 pizzerias that I've done this I think I get a pass, okay? Besides, to make up for that I've offered some supplementary information about Philadelphia Pizza-Related Fast Food!

Anyway, Fat Sal's's slice is, first and foremost, a real slice of pizza, which is refreshing in Midtown where there seems to be nothing but crappy fake pizza served at weird cafeterias and delis. Despite the fact that this is actually authentic pizza, it's not very good. It has a decent texture throughout most of the slice, but the sauce is overall far too sweet and there is not enough of it, to boot, leaving the slice foul tasting and too dry. Quoth Jonathan: "I'm just not sold.

My ultimate assessment is that this slice might be worth it compared to the rest of the neighborhood, but on the spectrum of all pizza, it ranks pretty low. And speaking of the neighborhood, while we were eating this slice, Jonathan and I got to talking about how weird Hell's Kitchen can be and he reminded me of that time two years ago when those two dudes pushed their dead friend to the Pay-O-Matic in an office chair so that they could try and cash his Social Security check. And I figured I'd remind you, dear readers, these are the moments of total dementia that make this town great.

Rating:


Fat Sal's - $2.50
510 9th Ave (38th & 39th)
New York, NY 10018

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In other news, I recently had the pleasure of driving to Philly for an evening with Support New York so that we could have a meeting with Philly Stands Up. They were totally gracious hosts, cooked us an amazing meal and sat through a really intense 6 hour meeting about Heavy Shit and then brought us to a dance party. At the dance party, I ran into my old friend Justin Bender (whose new band is playing in Brooklyn on the 19th, I think!) who asked me if I had ever had the Pizza rolls at Peking Inn on previous trips to Philly. Though I have eaten the delicious General Tsao's Tofu from that place a million times, I never even knew they had pizza rolls, so I was intrigued. I bough two, one to eat in the store, and one to take home and disassemble.

Notice in the left picture, that this "Pizza Roll" looks just like an egg roll. Yet if you will look at the image to the right, you'll see that it is, in fact, full of pizza. Fresh pizza roll verdict: Delicious!

Fortified by the strength imbued by pizza-type foods, I was able to safely ferry the entire SNY collective back to Brooklyn in slightly over two hours. Upon arriving home I put my remaining pizza roll in the fridge and promptly forgot about it until yesterday. To the left we see the fresh out the fridge pizza roll, bisected. Note the totally weird "pizza paste" on the inside. So strange. To the right is our half-pizza roll, having been placed in the microwave for 45 seconds or so. Not that the pizza sludge becomes a delicious mixture of cheese and "sauce" when heated. Day old pizza roll verdict: Scrumptious!

Let's make it official: Slice Harvester is Pro-Pizza Roll!