I am a bitter, ungrateful dick.

I was interviewed for AM New York this weekend and I guess it got published today.  I just got a chance to read it, and while I am really appreciate that this lady went out of her way to get my blog publicity or whatever, I feel a little bummed about the interview for one main reason that I'd like to mention.  The way it's formatted, with questions in bold followed by answers underneath, with no quotation marks or ellipses anywhere in sight, leads a reader to believe that these are the questions and answers, verbatim, as spoken during the interview.  Thing is, though, I don't think this woman actually recorded the interview, because it reads like she just wrote notes on what I said and published those notes as my statements.  She left out immensely crucial facts and details, and kept in ones that didn't matter.  It is totally not pertinent what pizzeria I was at in Colorado Springs if you're not gonna publish the part where I riff on the goofy name.  And mentioning that the waiter was taking notes while I criticized the slice is unimportant if you don't bother to mention that the ONLY REASON he cared about my opinion was because I am from Brooklyn.

Another issue I have with cutting apart and reassembling my sentences like some journalistic game of Exquisite Corpse is that it doesn't read anything like me talking.  I write pretty much just like I talk.  Ask Meredith.  Ask Jon Spies.  They'll tell you.  And in this interview I sound like a boring asshole who speaks in weird, terse, staccato statements.  Maybe I am a boring asshole!  But you know when you're working the cash register at a job and someone else starts ringing on your register a bunch, and then at the end of the day you're off by $15 and you can't help but think it's their fault even though it's just as likely your fault?  It's like that.  If my side of the interview had been published in it's entirety, or at least mention had been made that it'd been edited, I would feel a little better.  I probably just don't know anything about the newspaper.

The most egregious error, though, is that she left out a crucial element of what I consider a perfect slice.  "The dough should be about half the size of the crust, and it should fold well. Sauce shouldn’t be too sweet and it shouldn’t be cheap cheese. It should smell good."  That's what it says I said.  I totally specified how thick the dough should be, which doesn't matter in the scheme of things, but "it should fold well?"  Come on!  It shouldn't just "fold well."  The bottom should be cooked so hard that it cracks open like the callouses on my dad's feet, while retaining a fluffy, soft, undercooked interior of airy, perfect dough.  Imagine like, the bread equivalent of a seared tuna steak or something.  That is important!  Is that important?

Actually I think I'm getting worked up over nothing.  I really do think it was super sweet that this lady even wanted to interview me, and she sounded real nice over the phone.  I just feel bummed because I think she made me sound boring and I don't think I sounded that boring.  Maybe I'm just insecure.  My friend Jessi Jetpack said the interview was good.  I really like that she kept my "hell no" in for the answer when she asked if I have any food writing experience.

Blah blah.  Genuine thanks, lady, but next time mention if you're gonna edit someone or something?  I don't know, I come from the punks, where we publish long rambling interviews with assholes in all our publications and editing an interview is a crime.  But I'm pretty sure at journalism college they teach you that you're supposed to tell people if you are changing someone's quoted statements?

In short: WHO CARES?!!

Exclusive Pizza: "Death to Exclusive Pizza, Long live the new flesh."

Exclusive Pizza looked like crap. I was totally unenthused right off the bat. I don't know why, but there was just a gut feeling that the pizza here wasn't going to be very good at all. But a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do, right?

 
So I sucked it up, ordered a slice and paid my $2.00 for it. When it came and I was carrying it back to the table, the pockmarked texture of the burnt cheese reminded me of James Woods' grimacing visage, masturbating his new belly-vagina with a pistol in Videodrome.  As soon as I got to the table and set the slice down, Matty B took a look at it and commented that it looked pretty good, which means nothing because he's from California. 

 

The slice tasted about as good as it looked.  The cheese was burnt.  The dough was too thick, and dry, and hard as a rock.  Cristy said it tasted like Yo Mama's Pizza in Sarasota, Fl, which apparently sucks.  Matty didn't say anything, I think because he was embarrassed that he said it looked good in the first place. 

Exclusive Pizza

810 W 181st St

New York, NY 10033

That's Amore Pizza: "When your eye's hit the pie / and you just wanna cry..."

Cristy, Matt and I left Rap Pizza and wandered around in a daze, still high off the incensual aroma of Rap's rad slice, until we found That's Amore Pizza a block or two away.

 

I was pretty pumped at the front of the place.  The filthy awning and Italian Ice Area out front worked in collusion to take me back to childhood.  As soon as we got in, though, I lost any expectations that the rad exterior might have instilled in me.  The slices sitting behind the counter just didn't look very good.  I ordered my slice, paid my $2.00, sprinkled on my usual array of pizzeria spices (if you care to argue about the legitimacy of spicing pizza, we may as well keep it all in the comments section of this entry, just for the sake of containment), and brought the slice to the table, feeling pretty unenthused about how it looked.

 

The undercooked, thick glob of cheese at the very front of the slice, falling apart, with sauce poking through the holes in it's structural integrity, really turned me off.  While I totally realize that this is someone's ideal slice, I also realized that I am not that someone.

I kept my reservations to myself, so as not to prejudice Matt and Cristy, my pizza partners.  Taking the first bites, I was impressed by how good the sauce tasted, though I did mention, after everyone had tried it, that I was generally unenthusiastic and thought the slice had too much cheese.  Cristy mentioned that there was "something wrong" with the taste of the crust.  The she put her finger on it, "it seems like this crust has been frozen!  It's a good thing, though.  I fucking love Elio's."  Take that however you will.

Generally speaking, I think the slice was totally undercooked overall, and it might've been a little better if it had been a little more cooked through.  However, with that much cheese lumped on the middle, it'll never really be possible to cook it more without the cheese turning into total liquid and dripping off.  Initially I thought the crust was pretty good, but that was just because I had bitten into the reservoir of grease that had collected when I'd folded it in half.  The rest of the crust was the most textureless, flavorless waste I've tasted in a while.  The sauce sure was good, though.

That's Amore Pizza

1405 Saint Nicholas Ave

New York, NY 10033

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I got a really nice letter recently from my friend Kate Ferencz, whose new tape my roommate happens to have put on in the living room ten minutes ago and it is BLOWING MY MIND.

did you get the idea for the pizza blog when you were traveling through sad lonely places where there wasn't any good pizza? I'm sitting in my mom's house in westchester reading it and thinking about how it really makes me want to eat pizza and remembering what it was like in new orleans when all we ever ever did was talk about how we wished we had pizza, or sometimes, you'd think it but you wouldn't say it, because you didn't want to remind everyone else around you and make them all upset.  I can't believe I'm about to leave pizza land again.  keep up the good work!

You can listen to Kate's rad music and check out some upcoming tour dates on her myspace page, which you should do.  She is way talented and worth seeing live if you're in the Southeast, where she will apparently be playing some shows next week.  And if you aren't lucky enough to live in Asheville or Murphreesboro (really, Kate, Murphreesboro?), you should still listen to the songs and order a record if you like them.

Rap pizza: "You could have my heart or we could share it like the last slice"

Matty B came over yesterday at 12:20 or so.  Meredith was already here for band practice.  So when Matty showed up and was all, "hey, I was in the neighborhood so I figured I'd stop by," I was like, "Wait, but Matt, we talked last night about having band practice today!"  But the man was tired and had forgotten.  Luckily he was biking past my house and was seized by a totally overwhelming desire to stop by and see me, because he loves me so much.

Anyway, band practice was superb.  I've had all the songs stuck in my head since we started showing them to Meredith.  After band practice me and Matty drank coffee till we were crazy and waited for my friend Cristy to show up, so we could all head up to 181st st and eat some pizza.  She arrived promptly, we sat around and talked, then walked to the subway for the trek to Washington Heights.  During the course of our lengthy subway ride we told stories about adolescent awkwardness, discussed Matty's new comic (topics: confrontations with yuppies, craigslist ripoffs, failed experiments in queer sexual practice), shared goofy makeout stories and just basically made too much noise and acted more gregariously than is fitting for public transit.  Here's the thing, though, we couldn't help it.  I seriously felt like I did as a teenager when I just wanted to talk really loud and fast about everything awesome, and so what if that church lady over there is offended when I talk about smooching boys, she'll get over it.  In short, the three of us had an excellent hangout dynamic and that made shit awesome.

We accidentally took the train to 191st, because we were so busy talking we missed our stop, which was great, because we got to see the totally rad murals at the 191st St. I.R.T. station!  When we got out it was lightly raining and pleasantly cool, so we didn't mind the ten block walk down to Rap Pizza:

In the process of getting to this shining oasis on the overcast corner of 181st and St. Nick, I almost walked in front of two cars, and almost dragged Matty and Cristy into traffic.  I couldn't think, my mind was clouded by visions of pizza.  Halfway across the street, not even on the sidewalk directly in front of the place, I was confronted by The Smell.  The smell of pizza so good, no matter what I'm doing, who I'm with, or how full I am, it calls to me like a siren song and I will run across traffic, embarrass myself in front of a crush, push my way through gangs of street toughs, just to get a slice and eat it while I walk.  The smell doesn't always accompany a perfect slice, but it never wafts from a bad slice.

After making sure none of the bunch had died or been wounded due to my irresponsible leadering, I went inside and ordered my slice.  It was $2.50, which was a little bit of a disappointment.  I had hoped Rap's slice would be $2.00 just because the place looked so damn great:

But such is life, right?  While aesthetics are important, we are here for the pizza.  My slice came and looked great:

The sauce on this slice was phenomenal.  On the sweet side, but in a really subtle and excellent way.  And the way the flavor of the sauce combined with the slightly sour taste of the cheese was incredible.  Insert some kind of metaphor about beautiful celebrities having an orgy in my mouth, or something.  The dough, though, was a little bit too floppy, and a little bit too floury tasting for me.  I want to stress the phrase 'a little bit' in both of those criticisms.  Because it really was by a hair.  Basically, this is not a slice that's gonna make you shit your pants, but it is kind of like the prototypical, exceptional but not amazing, way above average street slice.  A-.

This place would be a great element in a good cheap date.  Imagine this: we take the train up to 191, walk through the rad tunnel, admiring the murals.  Next we stroll around drinking surreptitious beers and make out on a bench in that park on 189th and Broadway.  I am so clever and charming and I know so much about the city.  Then we walk down to this adorable little hole in the wall, Rap Pizza, and get a slice, then go walk around on the George Washington Bridge for a while and like, spit in the river or something.  Afterwards we head to this great dive bar I know, where you buy the first round, since I got the pizza.  I'll ask for an expensive whiskey drink and then when it's my turn to buy a round, I'll get you a Coors Light despite the fact that you wanted a Tanqueray Greyhound.  The entire time we're hanging out I'll talk incessantly about my band, and how big my blog is getting.  I'll never ask about you, and whenever you figure out a way to get a couple words in, I'll find some reason to interrupt you and bring the conversation back to me again.  For some reason, against your better judgment, you'll invite me back to your house.  I'll hail us a cab that you'll end up paying for.  When we get to your place, you'll excuse yourself for a minute and I'll start drinking any of your booze I can find.  By the time we make out, I'll be so drunk I basically just slobber all over you and then fall asleep.  In the morning, when I wake up, I'll tell you that I "don't think it's going to work out."  In the future, if I ever see you out in public while I'm with my friends, I'll point at you and tell them we "totally did it."  Sadly for all of you, dear readers, I've got a bit too much on my plate to date anyone right now.  What with the band, this blog, really important political projects, and working two jobs, I've just got no time for romance.  C'est la vie, it's the world's loss, not mine.

Rap Pizza
1422 Saint Nicholas Ave # 2
New York, NY 10033-4051

Fivo Pizza: "Ooooh, that looks gooood"

That's what Kevin said when we got our slice. By the time we got to Fivo Pizza, we had eaten 7 slices already and were NOT in the mood for another, but since we were right there, we decided to just go for it. First things first, this place looked amazing:


No sign anywhere mentioning the name of the place. Just a simple facade and neon letters in the window. This pizzeria does not need to try to impress anyone. Because the slice is so damn good. Check it out:


I was just talking with a buddy the other day about the possible drawbacks of this whole venture. The week prior I went to nine places or something, and none of them had a totally amazing slice. I started thinking that maybe I had developed some notion in my head of what that perfect slice might be, and it was based more on childhood nostalgia than real life. Maybe I was on an impossible mission. The mythic, perfect pizza in my head didn't even exist in the real world, and all I could possibly do by continuing my journey would be to disappoint myself and possibly ruin all the potential Good Pizza in the world by trying to get it to measure up to some unreachable standard. I thought perhaps I was using the same mechanism that our culture uses to try and make women hate themselves as a weapon again one of my only true loves, pizza.

But then I ate this slice. And GODDAMN! Everything was perfect. Salty enough, sweet enough, tangy enough. The textures were unbelievable. Perfect crunch on the bottom, halfway congealed cheese on top, a squirt of sauce in the middle but nothing too drippy. I didn't want to eat any more pizza when I got to Fivo, and by the time I was done I almost ordered a second slice. I will definitely come back to this place.

Fivo Pizza
804 W 187th St
New York, NY 10033-1218

Washington Heights Mediocre Slice Redux

Grandma's Pizza - $2.50
If my grandma were alive to read what I'm about to say she'd plotz, but I don't think Jews can make good pizza, although, granted, this is the first Kosher slice I've had yet. I read somewhere that Kosher pizza will never be good because the Kosher cheese doesn't have the same fat content and the tomatoes aren't good. At least we invented pizza bagels.

My review of this slice will be one sentence long but will sum up everything: it tastes like burnt Elio's.

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Charlie's Pizza - $2.00
The crust looks amazing and this slice has great ratios. Otherwise, forget it because the sauce is waaay too sweet, the dough is so dry I felt like a guy in a cowboy movie stuck in the desert for a week with a mouth full of sand, and the crust, though excellently textured, was a major Flavor Vacuum. Worse than not tasting like anything, it tasted like less than nothing. Like a black hole. Kevin said this slice tasted like "diet pizza."


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Broadway Pizza - $2.00
Undercooked slice with too much cheese. The dough was rubbery and dense. Kevin pointed out that it was the same texture as the cheese. Blegh.


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George's Pizza - $2.00
I almost want to go back here because the guy behind the counter was such a sweetheart. The slice here was the best of this bunch, which isn't saying much. The dough was incredible. Totally perfect. Biting into the crust was like biting into a soft pretzel or a bagel. However, the cheese looked like it had been sitting out all day, which tastes crappy, and tells me they're not really moving slices. To top it off there was like, no sauce on the damn thing. If I lived in this neighborhood I would try this place again a couple more times. It seems like they could've just been having a bad day.



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My kid sister just emailed me this excerpt from Fortress of Solitude:
When I was a boy I used to love pizza, and whenever my father took me to the pizzeria I'd order two slices. And I'd sit and he'd watch me wolfing down the first slice with my eyes on the second. I wasn't even tasting that first slice. And one day my father said to me, 'Son, you need to learn that while you're eating the first slice of pizza, eat the first slice of pizza. Because right now you're eating the second slice before you've finished the first.'

West 190 Pizza/Arcade Pizzeria: "Check out that cop's eyebrows."

This place looks like a perfect pizzeria. In my ideal New York, which is equal parts Last Poets, Last Exit To Brooklyn and last decade's Ninja Turtles movie, every pizza place would look like some variation of West 190 Pizza:



That Lemonade and Fruit Punch have probably been spinning in those machines since my Grandma Sylvia came through Ellis Island, fleeing the bad pizza and mediocre knishes of Nazi-occupied Poland. Notice the grease stains on that old newspaper-clipping documenting some spurious, pro-pizza, health science of yesteryear. A pizza shop should be a little messy and chaotic, not streamlined and well-groomed like that cop's eyebrows.

Despite the fact that there was nary a seat in the entire establishment, the guy behind the counter asked me if I'd like my pizza to stay or to go. "To stay," of course, and I handed the guy my $2.00. The slice was WAAAAY too hot to eat when I got it, which is a great sign that the slice will be adequately crispy. After a torturous waiting period staring at what looked like an awesome slice, I took a tentative first bite and slapped my forehead, because the slice was still definitely too hot, AND I had forgotten to take a picture of it before biting in. It just looked that good. So here is a picture of my soiled slice:


The thing that I noticed as soon as I picked the slice up was how greasy and soggy it was. The whole slice hung flaccid in my hands, and the cheese sagged loose over the bread like the skin on an old man's legs. But here's the thing: sometimes it's just time for a soggy, greasy slice. If it's done right, it can really hit the spot. But when the pizza is already mediocre and it also suffers from texture deficiencies, that's when things get rough. Despite being a soggy mess, this slice looked and smelled great.

And the first half of the slice was great, albeit a little too sweet. The textures and ratios were perfect. The floppiness I had initially noted when picking the slice up was a result of the soggy foundation being unable to support the firm and crisp apex. Because aside from the slightly overwhelming sweetness, the beginning of the slice was AMAZING. And while the middle was somewhat lackluster, the very end of the slice was this amazing, greasy, gooey mess that I couldn't help but love. It was like how I imagine Pizza In A Cup, which apparently nearly exists as I read recently that someone's selling Pizza In A Cone.

All in all, I wouldn't rush back there, but it was a decent enough slice for $2.oo and the atmosphere and people watching we excellent. I give this place a solid B.

Arcade Pizza
1611 Saint Nicholas Avenue
New York, NY 10040