Luna Pizza: "Worst NYC Disasters by Century: 1668 - First Yellow Fever Outbreak; 1776 - Approx. 1/4 of City Burned to Ground; 1832 - Cholera Pandemic; 1977 - Blackout and Ensuing Riots; 2011 - This Slice of Pizza."

. Make sure and get your hazmat suit on before coming to Luna Pizza, because this slice is a mess! The place itself is charming and I REALLY wanted to like it. It's got a real family vibe, not that it's like A Family Restaurant (which I guess it kind of seems to be), but like it's run by people who are related to each other. I got the distinct impression that the guy who sold me my slice was the lady who rang me up's nephew. But the slice! The slice should be declared a superfund site.

This slice was forged in the molten center of the Earth! It looks like that one Dick Tracy villain with the melty face. Or like a Charles Burns drawing. And when I picked it up it totally fell apart!

Check out the aftermath of that precarious lift:

A slice of pizza should not do that! Greg said "tastes exactly like the Pizza In A Cup I used to make at the Pickle Barrel," a grease pit Greg used to cook at in Chattanooga, TN. I feel like they should've just put the sauce and cheese into a bowl and like, given me a piece of toast to dip into it. That would've been more functional and it would've had the same effect. The grease to cheese ratio on this slice was an exact 1:1 when it should be like, 1:50. And the sauce tasted like it would've been better suited for a seafood pasta dish, which wasn't necessarily the worst thing, but with all the other distressing elements just contributed to the ultimate sense of disappointment we all felt about this slice. The crust was fucking awesome, though.

Rating:

This slice coulda been like a 6 if I had been able to lift it up. Step your game up Luna!

Luna Pizza - $2.50
225 Park Row (at Worth)
New York, NY 10038

Multi Tastes Diner: "This will mostly be photographs."

Multi Tastes Diner is my new favorite place on Earth! It is a veritable heaven for the eclectic palate and a miserable hell for the indecisive. There are like, four or five hundred items on the menu! Pizza is item #320 and is $2.00, but there is also roti, oxtail, prawns and chicken szechuan style, burgers, chicken fingers, milkshakes, veal milanese, crab cakes, Alizé... fucking ALIZE. Let's drink some Alizé and eat some spring rolls and a beef wellington. FUUUCK! And they have a fishtank. And the place is full of fucking WEIRDOS!

The pizza was nothing special. There was this strange like, asteroid belt of weirdness in between the cheese and that crust that was "distinctly neither crust nor pizza," as Alex astutely observed. I said it made me think of the desert planet Arrakis in the Dune Novels, but Greg and Alex didn't have any idea what I was talking about because I guess sci-fi novels are not punk enough for them or something. I'm gonna go back and rewrite Dune and give all the characters dread mullets and denim vests and make it take place in Minneapolis and then maybe they'll pay attention!

 Anyway, like many of my reviews of awesome shitholes, I say come here definitely, but don't bother with the pizza. My guess is that the chinese food is probably the best, then the diner shit, then everything else. Either way, it's worth a stop if you are a connoisseur of strange places.

Rating:

Multi Tastes Diner - $2.00
23 St James Pl (at Madison)
New York, NY 10038

And I may as well mention, Slice Harvester will be taking a short break next week, because I am going to Miami to meet my girlfriend's family and not care about the NBA playoffs. Wish me luck! Updates will return on Monday the 16th. Thanks for you patience, dogs.

Gino's Pizza: "One small bite for man, one great belch for mankind."

Gino's Pizza is in this totally weird half-basement on a strip of stores that are all in totally weird half-basements. Because of this, all the awnings on this block of Catherine St seem really low, and walking to Gino's, Greg, Alex and I felt like giants, which was cool! If you are short and don't like it, walk around on this block for a bit and you'll feel huge! (Or 'yuge' as my father would say!) And if you decide to stop in for a bite at Gino's, which I wouldn't recommend but I also wouldn't necessarily advise against, you will notice the saddest pizza counter in all of New York City.

Luckily, as the sign said, that crummy assortment of "food" is actually all just "sample's" and it's not for sale. They apparently keep the real pizza, which is regular size despite what that tiny, solitary frisbee of a pie might lead you to believe, underneath the counter for some reason.

I showed this slice to Greg and Alex and asked them to tell me the first word that comes when looking at it. Alex was silent for a while, and then finally told me, "it's less of a word and more of a general uneasiness." Greg said, "it sort of reminds me of the surface of the moon." And this slice is somewhat terrifying and alien. The taste of this slice is defined more by an absence of flavor than any defining characteristic. It tastes like a lack. This is that mysterious substance known as anti-pizza. And it extended everywhere. The bulk of the slice had a slightly unpleasant sweetness and then NOTHING. The crust was all texture and no flavor. There was an overall frozen quality to this slice that wasn't altogether unpleasant. In fact, we all kind of liked it. At one point I took a bite and muttered, "at least it's inoffensive." And Alex replied, "yeah, I mean, I'm not mad." But it wasn't good either. It was just nothing.

Rating:


Gino's Pizza - $2.00
81 Catherine St (Moore & Cherry)
New York, NY 10038

Frank & Tommy Pizza & Restaurant: "I am into it because I love hot dogs!"

I recently had the pleasure, (and what a pleasure it was!), of eating pizza with my friends Greg Harvester and Alex Turner, who were in town with Greg's awesome band Neon Piss for a couple of days. If you like dark, weird, super urgent punk songs that kind of remind you of everything rad about 81 hardcore and the Wipers at the same time, do yourself a favor and follow that link. 'Bullet in the Back' is my jam, dogs. Alex is a really rad guy who I have partied with on the left side, the right side and the dead center of the country. I don't know him super well but he always seems to be travelling with people I really love, and it's a real pleasure every time I unexpectedly run into him. Greg Harvester used to be in a band called Rice Harvester, and did a zine of the same name. He is also inadvertently responsible for the name of this here website. A few years ago, I had just got home early from travelling and my apartment was still sublet. I had nothing to do nowhere to go-oh, and I ended up in this crummy hallway with a ton of people I know waiting for Greg's band Black Rainbow to play a show, when Greg came out a drew a picture of a little dude on the wall wearing a hat like Raiden from Mortal Kombat, and wrote "Rice Harvester" beneath it. As soon as he left, I took out a sharpie and drew a dollar sign on the dude's shirt and added a P, transforming the text into "Price Harvester." Soon everyone hanging out was making mock versions of Greg's tag, there was a crusty picking at a friend's dreads that said, "Lice Harvester," a picture of Jesus leading peope to heaven that said "Christ, Harbinger," and then my pal Mike Leslie drew one that was almost identical to Greg's, except instead of the rice paper hat, the little dude was wearing an upside down piece of pizza on his head and he wrote "Slice Harvester" and like a week later I stole the name for my website! Since then me and Greg have shared a handful of pretend-litigious emails, because he is fake suing me, but I don't think we've seen each other face to face in almost two years, so it was really nice to have him come out and eat pizza with me because in a lot of ways he is like, this project's Uncle or something.

 

Our first stop, after walking through Police Plaza and feeling like we were in a dystopian future sci-fi movie, was Frank & Tommy Pizza & Restaurant, a nice greasy little hole in the wall on Madison St. It was filled with totally grimy people and there were tons of folks hanging out not eating anything, just lurkin' and starin', and the whole place smelled like hot dogs, which bummed out Alex and Greg because they are vegetarians, but I was into it because I love hot dogs. Buh buh buh buh buh buh buh.

This slice didn't look like anything too great but it was totally good! Here's the what-what (as opposed to the what? what? what? what? what? what? wha-what?!, which is here): This slice had good cheese, dare I say, great cheese. It tasted like actually dairy as opposed to dairy-ish substance. The sauce was nondescript and understated in a really good way, and it had an excellent crunch. There was a visible layer of totally raw dough at the top of the slice that seemed thicker than it should've been, but I didn't taste it or feel it in my mouth. All told, this slice was quite alright! It wasn't super mindblowing never have another slice again AWESOME, but it was good and solid and I will eat here on other occasions if I ever find myself in this neighborhood.

Rating:


Frank & Tommy Pizza & Restaurant - $2.25
205 Madison St (at Essex)
New York, NY 10002

Little Italy Pizza & Deli: "There but for the grace of God, go I."

Little Italy Pizzeria & Deli probably doesn't actually count for Slice Harvester, as it is clearly a Pizza Deli and I definitely don't really go to those. But shit man, by the time we got here me and Morbles had only eaten two out of 8 slices because every other place was either some fancy brick oven sit down joint, or had been closed and turned into a manicure shop. What was I supposed to do? We had to eat here.

This slice was exactly what you'd expect. Too thin, kinda floppy, and the sauce tasted like either metal or chemicals. Kevin liked it okay, but he is from either Kansas or Missouri so what the hell does he know about pizza? The metallic/chemical flavor was slight, but it was still there, and it was unsettling. I think maybe this slice gave me botchulism? I don't know, man. The crust was alright but this slice sorta stunk.

Rating:


Little Italy Pizzeria & Deli - $2.75
183 Varick (King & Charlton)
New York, NY 10014