Nonna's Pizza: "Don't do me like that."

The last time I ate at Nonna's Pizza was almost exactly a year ago, and it was also with Kever. It was on St Patrick's day 2010, after I had spent the afternoon at Kever's grandmoster's apartment ('sup Winny!) and then a bulk of the evening walking the streets with Kev drinking bottles of port like total scumbags. By the time we got to Nonna's we were wasted, and belligerent and very surprised that we weren't standing in front of Mama's, which used to be in the same spot.

"whaahappent?" I slurred to Kever.
"guessisanewplace."
"getaslice?"
Shoulder shrug.

So we did. And I recall finishing our port and opening a beer on the apex of the Williamsburg bridge, rhapsodizing about the supreme justice of a world where a pizza parlor named after my mother, would be renamed after my friend Rudi's grandmother but still serve up a wonderful slice.

 

And so as we approached Nonna's, I had high hopes for our eating experience. The first jarring moment came when I saw the building's facade. The fake brick awning and corny logo threw me for a loop. This place had none of the charm of Mama's and I could swear it didn't look like this last year. I walked in and saw the pizzaman busy assembling a turkey hero. Were my eyes fooling me? Why was this guy touching cold cuts? What is this, a deli? But no, that's just what they do here these days. I asked him about the awning and he said it had been like that for a year and a half at least. I guess I just didn't notice last time because I was two sheets to the wind.

I wanted to like this slice so badly! It's all I really wanted. But instead this slice just let me down. No sauce to speak of, not totally disappointing but nor especially good cheese, and crust with a decent enough crunch but no structural intergrity! Fuck! I am so mad just thinking about it!

 

A few bites in it just ruptured and split. It looked like when there is like, an earthquake in He-Man or that awesome old X-Men cartoon and the ground splits apart in jagged chunks and there is swirling pools of brackish lava desperately licking the walls of the precipice. That stuff is cool in cartoons, but not on my pizza.

And the whole place had this heinous steam punk vibe that was so stupid. Brick walls with new-old timey looking paintings and exposed pipes and there was no music and according to Kever, "all you can hear is that ominous howling sound. It give you the feel of the desolate relic of what this place once was. I'm waiting for a tumbleweed to go by."

Ultimately this shit was such a let down. Fuck. Another one bites the dust.

Rating:


Nonna's Pizza - $2.00
105 Clinton St (Delancey and Rivington)
New York, NY 10002

Mini Munchies Pizzeria: "A portal to Canada?"

Ensconced in a "shopping enclave" on Pitt Street, nestled between the projects under the Williamsburg Bridge, Mini Munchies Pizzeria is a strange and wild place. Mini Munchies looks more like a chinese takeaway than a pizzeria, with it's illuminated photographs behind the counter and it's strange, almost sinister menu imagery.

This man beguiles and terrifies me.

 Everything about this place is totally bizarre, not in the least, their pizza.

This slice befuddled and perplexed me. In the display case, it looked like the worst, least palatable crap slab, but once cooked, it had a certain charm, a certain je ne se qua, that I just can't deny. But it also had sesame seeds on the crust, something I can't recall having ever seen before! Kever, a notable world traveler, told me that sesame seed crust is a common occurrence in the farthest reaches of Great Canada, where my recent pizza companion Steve Dejected hails from! Too bad Steve wasn't with me to sample this slice and possibly verify Kevers's claims.

Seeds aside, this slice left me very conflicted, but I ultimately enjoyed it. It was a solid cruch, and the ratios were pretty good, although it was a little on the cheesy side. But the ingredients tasted surprisingly fresh and seemed to be of a remarkably high quality for such a dump! And the place wasn't without it's charms. Three different old guys came in and tried to sell me and Kever cologne, batteries and signed check for $47.00 that it was sworn to us we could cash and he'd give it to us for just ten bucks

Kever refused to eat the crust, as he has an aversion to sesame seeds, but I found it to be quite decently textured, if a little bland. Regardless of his crust qualms, upon taking his last bite Kever said, "This slice is made with love. I feel good after eating it." And I have to agree.

Rating:


Mini Munchies Pizzeria - $2.00
87 Pitt St (Stanton & Rivington)
New York, NY 10002

Hakki Pizza: "This guy is really demonstrating his style."

Right around the corner from Stanton Street Pizza is Hakki Pizza, which is a really weird place. When I first walked in, I thought I saw a picture of Freddy Madball blown up behind the counter.

 

When I got closer up, I noticed that the other guy was Keanu Reeves, and I thought, "wow, Keanu is like a whole head taller than Freddy?! That means dude has gotta be like, ten feet tall!" But then I realized it wasn't Freddy Madball at all, it was some other guy who didn't even look like Freddy Madball one tiny bit except from really far away in that one picture and even then it was just the prominent nose. And then I realized that I had been so captivated with getting closer to the Madball poster that I hadn't looked around the place at all. Every square inch of the place, barring the floor, was plastered with pictures of the same guy with celebrities and doing crazy tricks, or hung with plaques, certificates and medals he had won in various pizza-related contests for acrobatically throwing pies. All of the awards were made out to Hakki Akdeniz, the Freddy Madball "lookalike," who was actually standing behind the counter serving slices when Kever and I walked in.

Sadly, while Hakki may be an expert at juggling flaming pies, he is not such an expert at making pizza sauce. This slice was great in every way except the sauce! The cheese had a great elasticity. The crust was delicious, thin without being frail, and expertly crisp. There was exactly as much grease as I would ever want on a slice. The sauce, though. There was too much of it, and it tasted like ketchup, which working in restaurants for years has made me realize is the most vile substance in all of human creation. I don't want my slice to taste anything like ketchup! Kever pretended he didn't know what I was talking about for a while when I initially brought up my umbrage with the sauce. He took bites and mugged like he was really enjoying them. I could see right through him and called him on it, and he broke down, "but I LIKE Hakki! I'm rooting for him!"

And I am too. Hakki and his pizza shop have a certain scrappy charm. And I think if his sauce was better, he'd have a perfect slice! Which is why I'm issuing this challenge: Hakki, make better sauce and send me an email. I will come back to your place and rate your slice again. If you think you are making the best sauce you possibly can, let me make the sauce. I will bring you a quart of tomato sauce, and you can make a pie with it, and we can eat it together, next to a pie with your shitty sauce, and you can try and tell me my sauce isn't better. And I'm not even like, a sauce expert. I just know I can make sauce that doesn't taste like ketchup. And I know that I really want to like Hakki Pizza, because it is so fucking charming and this guy obviously wakes, sleeps and breathes pizza, but it just isn't there yet.

Rating:

Hakki Pizza - $2.00

170 Rivington St (Clinton & Attorney)

New York, NY 10002

Stanton Street Pizza: "I want it back again, the spirit that WE ONCE HAD!"

Stanton Street Pizza is right next to NYHC Tattoo. Neither Kever nor I could remember having ever seen it in our lives. I'm not sure how long it's been there, but they did a good job of not making it look super new. Sometimes new places look new and that makes me wary. Plus there is that whole weird trend in pizzeria decor where they make it look like a shitty Olive Garden or something. They were playing vaguely weird New Wave here, and the pizza guy was super sweet.

 

This slice was pretty good! It had good ratios and quality ingredients. It was solid and strong, but delicate, like a male ballerina. And the crust was totally delish! This slice some slight problems. First of all, the sauce was just a hair too sweet, although not to a point that it was offensive. Furthermore, the dough tasted a little yeasty. But these problems were both so minute that Kever and me mostly just enjoyed our experience eating it. As he popped the last bite of crust into his mouth, Kever said, "They planned all the way to the end with this one."

Rating:


Stanton Street Pizza - $2.00
127 Stanton St (Essex and Norfolk)
New York, NY 10002

New Roma Pizza: "Awful pizza, wonderfully bad vibes."

 

New Roma Pizza! I have moderately-disliked to hated this place for going on 14 years now. Back then I used to come here because they had a $1.00 slice when everyone else was $1.50. In those days my commitment was to Cheaper Things, rather than Better Things. That extra 50¢ left me 49¢ away from getting ANOTHER Hurricane 40oz! Who can pass that up. I met my old buddy Kever outside New Roma on a rainy Friday morning, and as we ordered our slice, we reminisced some about past days. As we sat down in the window, Kever said to me, "I hate the future."
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's this slice I'm about to eat, maybe it's the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus McSnack Wrap advertisement I'm looking at across the street while I drink my Vitamin Water Formula 50, but something's making me hate the future."
And if the triumvirate of dreary weather, fastfood monoculture, gangsta rap nutritional drinks didn't put Kever over the edge into the existential hellzone, then the shitty slab they serve as a slice at New Roma certainly did.

I think this pizza has been waiting under the counter at New Roma since the first time I walked in there in 1997. This slice tasted so old and was nasty! It barely held together, had a layer of totally raw dough, pretty much no sauce, and the cheese tasted like chemicals. Fuck! This is awful. As we were sitting there, the guy behind the counter shouted to some dude, "yo vinny, you lookin' to get fuckin' deported, bro? I know people. I'll have ya ass thrown outta here so fast..." As Vinny got up and lumbered towards the register, me and Kever took our cue to leave. Hopefully this is the last time I will ever make the mistake of eating at New Roma.

Rating:


New Roma - $2.25
116 Delancey St (at Essex)
New York, NY 10002