Rose Pizza & Pasta: "I am so impressed with Penn Station."

Still well within the bowels of Penn Station, after leaving Don Pepe's, Eliza, BBC and I questioned the likelihood of there being another pizza place hidden in this transit hub that serves up a decent slice. When we saw the front of Rose Pizza & Pasta, we weren't quite sure what to make of it, but we were impressed with the massive selection of beers. They have 24 draughts, three size cups, and they all cost the same amount. So 32 ounces of Guiness costs the same as 32 ounces of Bud Light, and if I remember correctly it is only like, $6, which is crazy. If you are feeling like drinking beer through a straw on the street, this might be the place to go.

We got right into eating this slice and I didn't remember to photograph it right away, but I did get this totally unappetizing picture of the last 1/3rd of it. This was surprisingly good pizza! They just handed it to us right off a tray, and it wasn't quite hot enough, and the beginning lacked the complete crunch I so crave, but the ingredients were of good quality, the flavors were good and there was enough of everything without there being too much of anything! Towards the end this slice was near perfect, and the crust was absolutely impeccable. Ultimately, this slice would've been better if it had gotten thrown back in the oven for a second, but really, this piece of pizza was shockingly good. And what's even more shocking is that the average pizzeria in New York City totally sucks, as far as I can tell, but the two places in Penn Station are both way above average! It's pretty weird to me, but whatever. Weird world, right?

Rating:

Rose Pizza & Pasta - $2.75

I Penn Plaza

New York, NY 10121

Don Pepe Pizza: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

I haven't been to Penn Station in years, but it was here that I found the subterranean jungle I was expecting to find at Port Authority. (If I haven't been to either of these places in a long time you might wonder, how do I leave town? The answer is: usually in some touring band's van.) It is seriously such a rad and wonderful place! I bet if I had to commute from Jersey or Long Island to Midtown and I had to come hang around here every day I would be hell of bummed on the place, but just wandering in with Eliza and BBC (happy birthday, buddy!), we were having a blast watching all the tourists and salmon-walking through seas of LI Frat Jocks, current-day Sweathogs, and their various female counterparts.

Somewhere amidst this vast underground labyrinth of commerce, we stumbled upon Don Pepe Pizza. Bedecked in neon lights, which my crappy Phone-Cam was not so great at photographing, this place looked straight out of how I imagined the near-future San Francisco of William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy. Granted, Gibson is unbearably corny at moments, but sometimes a guy needs to just check out and turn his brain off, and I think you'd all prefer I read trashy sci-fi than walk around wearing a fake mustache dipped in homemade ether or a clown nose full of gold Dutch Boy spraypaint. ANYWAY.

It seems I forgot to take a picture of the slice at Don Pepe pizza, however, I was able to zoom in and expand the section of the above image that contains the pizza. Notice Chris studiously at work on the Burnt Black Crust Uncertainty Principle (BBCUP), which calculates the degree to which char marks on the bottom of a pizza slice affect its deliciousness.

So, here's that picture. As you can see from the crease lines, this slice was crispy enough, but it's crusty foundation bore too much weight in cheese, forcing it to fold far before the ideal point of roughly 1"-1.5" from the tip. Luckily, this was pretty delicious cheese, and the slice was structurally sound enough that it didn't break into pieces, so it was easy enough to eat the wreckage. This slice could've used a little more sauce, but the sauce that was there was delicious, the cheese tasted great and had a good texture, and the crust had a wonderful crunch. All in all, this may have been the most pleasant surprise of a slice I've had in quite a while.

Rating:

Don Pepe Pizza - $2.75

2 Penn Plaza

New York, NY 10121

Luigi's Pizza: "Decent bathroom, phenomenal ambience, but the pizza, it's not so good."

Luigi's Pizza looks so perfect! The outside is like, a perfect pizzeria facade and the inside is quiet and weird, with a TV playing some foreign news station and a very friendly pizzaman. There are all these really unappetizing food photographs hanging around on the walls and it is generally just a strange place. Also! The bathroom has graffiti in it that says, "R- You're the only one I faked it with. -M" and it also has a really comfortable toilet and decent toilet paper. No complaints there!

But this pizza, yikes! It is really an overwhelming bummer. When I was a little kid I did a lot of shit that was like, deliberately zany. It's one of those things that I think was probably a little annoying, but totally harmless and an important part of forming an identity for myself. Like, just trying out shit and gauging people's reactions to different ways I behaved or whatever. Anyway, at one point in like, 4th or 5th grade I got really into eating paper for like, a week. It started, I think, with the realization that you could just chew the wrapper of a Trident gum without taking it off and it would just like, totally vanish in your mouth. And then I was like, "hmmm, what other kinds of paper can I eat?" And I ate like, looseleaf and a piece of construction paper. I can remember the texture and flavor pretty vividly, and that's what the pizza at Luigi's tasted like. It was way too thin, and there was practically no sauce and it was just a disappointment in general. Towards the end it got okay, and the crust was really good, but this slice was, in general, a far cry from decent pizza.

Rating:

Luigi's Pizza - $2.25

304 8th Ave (25th & 26th)

New York, NY 10001

10th Ave Pizza & Cafe: "Maybe they at least have a good grilled cheese."

10th Avenue Pizza & Cafe is a nice diner and a shitty pizzeria. I mean it looks like a nice diner and the people who work there seem alright. But like, I guess it could be one of those places with pale bland homefries that can't even seem to make toast right. Who know, who cares? I am not the Breakfast Fetcher, or the Burger Muncher, but the Slice Harvester and I am here to tell you about pizza and you wanna know what you need to know about this pizza? It stinks.

Bland. No sauce. The texture of instant mashed potatoes. Sweet dough. Whatever, there is nothing really to say about this Slice. BBC hated it more than I hate cops, and Eliza thought it was redeemable if it had been cooked through more, but we all agreed that the slice we were holding in our hands was GAH-ROSS!

Rating:

10th Ave Pizza & Cafe

256 10th Ave (24th & 25th)

New York, NY 10001

R.I.P. Milano Pizza.

Milano Pizza had a real good slice. I went there a handful of times over a few years, most notably during some latenight hangouts with B. Parm at his FIT Dorm where I felt like a creep because I was well in my twenties. But such is life. Let's not get sidetracked.

Milano Pizza, I will miss you. I hope your owners are not broke and your oven is in capable hands.

love, Colin

DELI LOTTO 99¢ PIZZA Slice: "I have no idea what this place was actually called."

I was personally very torn about whether or not to eat here, because I've banished "Pizza Delis" from the Slice Harvester Kingdom, but I also need to make an accurate assessment of where the best dollar slice is! So we went in.


This pizza wasn't horrible, nor was it especially good. Eliza said, "I guess if I only had a dollar and I was hungry I wouldn't be that mad about this." Although BBC was visibly angry with every bite he took. There is nothing really worthwhile to say about this slice. It wasn't good. Whatever.

Across the street was a rather garish awning for "Deno's Party House USA," a bikini bar. I had never heard of a bikini bar, and I thought it was a bar where you could go in wearing a bathing suit and maybe they like, put sand on the floor. Like that weird Midtown bar inside a pool that all the punks used to sneak into, except without the pool. But Eliza told me that it's actually a bar where all the patrons are wearing normal clothes and the staff have to wear bikinis. Woah, weird.

Luckily, it was closed for good. I hope that if anyone found it to be a positive work environment, they have found a new place of employment, but for some reason I doubt this was a nurturing, sex-positive place to work and I bet it was more of a total shitty oppressive bummer. The awning is undoubtedly really cool, though.

We noticed on the window that they advertised "WI-FI ACCESS". Can you imagine being the kind of fucking total scumbag yuppie fucking shitbreather who works in this neighborhood and then afterwards comes to Deno's in your $2600 suit to sit around and drink Mai-Tais served to you by struggling actresses wearing bikinis because they can't make their rent while you are sitting there on your laptop nonchalantly slamdunking the Henderson account? I am getting mad just thinking about this. Sick fucking society, I'll tell you.

Rating:

On the Dollar Slice Scale:

DELI LOTTO 99¢ PIZZA Slice - $1.00

803 8th Ave (30th & 31st)

New York, NY 10001