Mike Due Pizza: "I think John Carpenter made this slice."

Mike Due Pizza is another place that I have often puzzled over. There is something about the font on the facade of the building that I am just totally distrustful of. I can't really begin to explain why, but it is simply not a place that instills me with courage and faith in their ability to craft a decent pizza. The innards of the restaurant are similarly sterile, though somewhat less offensive. This just seems like one of many bland midtown eateries.


The slice they serve at Mike Due is about as boring and bland as the front of the establishment, though slightly more repugnant. Mike said that the slice tasted "like if they made a pudding flavor of microwave pizza. I thought it looked malnourished, and it reminded me of that insipid little bedridden jerk who never goes outside from The Secret Garden. He was such a little shit and I hate him so much! A brief aside, that guy is named Colin, and when I was a wee lad and my Masterpiece Theater loving mother took me to see the Secret Garden in the movie theaters I was FURIOUS because the first movie character I had ever seen with the same name as me was such a wretched little shit. I think that might've been how Mike felt about this slice.


The whole thing was just one big, bland blob. Like, it was almost impossible to distinguish the texture of the dough from the texture of the slice. The sauce clumped up like horror movie blood and was that same synthetic red, and the cheese was the cheapest crap around. The actual crust was billowing and dense, totally unappetizing and undercooked. This slice is really pretty damn awful.

Rating:


Mike Due Pizza - $2.50
388 3rd Ave (at 25th)
New York, NY 10016

Pastafina: "Third time's the charm? Kind of, I guess"

On the way over to Pastafina, Clancy and I met up with my friend Mike Taylor, to accompany us for the rest of the day's slices. I met Mike in Providence at Mikey Hotsauce and Caroline's house and then the next time I was in town he tattooed a raincloud on my belly with a banner around it that says, "Sooner Or Later It All Gets Real." Laying in his bedroom looking at his tapes against the wall I remember being really excited that he had a Mukilteo Faeries demo, because that Special Rites 7" was a really defining record for me as a kid. Afterwards I got a HORRIBLE slice on Broadway in Providence, and we sat in Mike's backyard where we drank 40s and he showed me his brick oven. At this point Slice Harvester wasn't even a twinkle in it's daddy's eye, so the pizza oriented aspects of our hangout were purely coincidental.

Mike lives in Brooklyn now, and he is an art handler and makes really rad comics. He is a lover of pizza, (dare I say a pizza obsessive?), so his accompanying me on a pizza mission was practically written in the stars. It was meant to be. When I told Clancy that Mike was meeting us for pizza, Clancy said, "don't tell him about the Palatka shirts I printed when I was in high school." Don't worry Clancy, your secret is safe with me.


You may remember my prior trips to the other two Pastafina locations, first with famous erotic poet Jake Birkenstock ("when I left this place, after Blake and I went our separate ways, I totally barfed all over the sidewalk"), and then with Jesse Jane and her friend Rebecca ("while we did ultimately almost finish this horrible thing out of masochism and curiosity, it was really, hands down one of the worst slices I've ever had in my life"). In short, those were two of the most atrocious slices of pizza I've ever eaten in my life. Each received a 1 slice rating, although I should probably downgrade them to a half or a zero, as I was presumably being too kind.


The slice I had with Mike and Clancy was the best Pastafina slice to date and it was still totally fucking wretched. It was gooey and flavorless. Like, it literally tasted like nothing and had the most appalling texture I've ever experienced. Mike said, "this pizza has an agnostic front. Like, you bite into the hard crust and then it's just gooey and unrecognizable." This is the dregs. Total crap. I always say that I don't mind giving out bad reviews because I don't think that they'll ever really substantially affect someone's business because people will always eat shitty slices out of convenience. But if part of Slice Harvester's last legacy is that a help shut down these three abominable hell holes masquerading as eateries, I will be proud, and I'll be able to know at the end of my life, whether the sum total of all my actions has been good or bad, I at least did one tangible thing to aid the flailing corpse of humanity in its last days.

Rating:


Pastafina - $2.50
388 3rd Ave (27th & 28th)
New York, NY 10016

La Pizzeria: "La Pizzeria es muy mal."

I've been passing by La Pizzeria for a while now and I've always wondered about what was going on there. There is a capitalization error on the awning, so it looks like it says "LA Pizzeria" and I've always ridden by on mi bicicleta and wondered why the hell a pizza place in Murray Hill would call their establishment LA Pizzeria. I feel like I have been both traveling and eating pizza for most of my life and I've never heard of LA having especially decent pizza or even a pizza style of their own. In other words, this place has always intrigued and appalled me.

I told Clancy as much as we walked here together, and when we got inside, we noticed that everywhere but the awning said "La Pizzeria" with proper capitalization. So it was just another crappy Spanish pizza place! At least there was nothing new for me to contend with here and at least "LA Style Pizza" still doesn't exist, at least until someone makes a slice that looks perfect from afar because the cheese has been injected with bee poison, but then when you get up close you realize that it doesn't actually move and is really unsettling.


This slice was bad. It tasted like it was from a bowling alley, or from a box in the freezer section at the super market or something. The cheese was horrible, like weird texture, weird taste, totally just this shitty dead zone plastic flavor vortex. The sauce was like if someone dyed corn syrup t00-bright red and put some v8 in it. The crust was that weird spongy gas station texture and it had that pattern on the bottom from when they cook it on one of those stupid round window screens. No good. I have been trying to find the words to describe the fact that even though pizza like this sucks, I still love it, and Clancy said it really succinctly when we were eating this slice. He told me, "the cool thing about pizza is that shitty pizza is just a different kind of food that is still good food." And he has a point. Unless we're talking about the pizza in Florida, which is across the board disgusting.

Rating:


La Pizzeria - $2.25
442 3rd Ave (30th & 31st)
New York, NY 10016

Pizza 33: "The beginning sucked, the middle was okay, the end kind of sucked."

Pizza 33 is not worth your time. The place is kind of yuppie looking inside, really sterile and Pier 1 furnished. The employees were really nice, though! Like, it looked like the kind of place where two dudes might get a sideways glance for trying to share one slice. Not the same kind of sideways glance you get from some of the mook pizzamen who are like, "you want me to cut that in half, then?" and I say, "no thanks," pretty nonchalantly, and then they're all "ooooooookay," and give me the high brow. There is like, really important Man Behavior that men are supposed to regulate in each other and that is their attempt at them trying to shame me because how could two dudes possibly share a slice of pizza together? But I will not be swayed!

Bah! Anyway, the way I expected to be made uncomfortable here was more of a snobby, looking down the nose, "these riff raff can't even afford their own pizza?" thing. But no, The dudes behind the counter were super nice! There was also this real bummer yuppie who looked like Kevin Spacey, wearing like, a pink polo shirt and some khaki shorts and a little sweater tied around his shoulders, just BERATING this woman he was with who looked like his mother. There is something a little wild about when people are willing to be totally aggro in public. This guy kept saying stuff like, "well if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, I'm gonna call it a duck!" and "we got bigger fish to fry!" in this really angry voice. It was totally shitty. If you are that guy, and you are reading this, you are a dickhead.


This pizza was REALLY orange and it tasted really orange. The first bites were too thin, didn't really have any sauce, and the cheese was cheapish, not horrible, but not good. Towards the middle the ratios got decent, like the crust thickened up a bit and there started being enough sauce, which was totally middle of the road. But then at the end it got thin again, and the crust was the texture of matzoh. Ultimately this slice just isn't worth it.

Rating:


Pizza 33 - $2.75
489 3rd Ave (@ 33rd)
New York, NY 10016

Bella Napoli: "Wow, okay!"

Last week two of my favorite men came to visit New York at the same time. One of them hails from some little shit island off the coast of Portland or something, lived in New York for ages and was one of my best friends until he moved to Pittsburgh to be unemployed and broke my heart. Sadly, he didn't make it out for pizza with me. Perhaps he is still in town and we can go tomorrow?

The other lad, who did make it out for a pizza excursion, is my friend Clancy, from Lawn Guyland, a huge shitty island off the coast of Queens. But he lives in Athens, GA now and plays drums in the awesome band Witches who I went on tour with in May or whenever that was. Me and Clancy never really knew each other when he was living in New York, but at either the first or the third Do Ya Hear We in Chattanooga, we spent one entire day making furtive eye contact on Heather's porch while we kept overhearing each other talk about Rancid or Murphy's Law, and then we spent the next however many days hanging out and becoming best friends. Clancy is amongst the solidest of dudes and anyone who says otherwise can take it up with my knowledge of Karate.


I originally went to Bella Napoli with the Chattanoogans, where I had a totally weird experience and hated being in the place, although the pizza was really good. I will be the first to admit that maybe I was just in a funny mood, and the universe seemed to think I should give Bella Napoli another shot because I somehow forgot to photograph both the restaurant and the slice! There was no documentation! I had to go back!

So I returned with Clancy. The first time around, the place had this really weird fancy restaurant vibe and I felt uncomfortable in there. Maybe that's partially because I was there with like, 7 people total and we only ordered one slice of pizza. New rule: I am no longer being accommodating to my friends who want to bring along an entourage. 4 people, including me, is the maximum on any pizza expedition from here on out. I get too distracted and stressed out if there's more and the reviews suffer! I have noticed that almost every time I've forgotten to photograph a place or a slice, I've been with some unwieldily large gang of buffoons. Nevermore!

Oy! Anyway, when me and Clancy came back here, the experience was totally different. The demeanor of the employees was totally sweet and Clancy ended up ordering his own slice last minute because mine looked so good and we were both so hungry.


This slice was superb. Like, really really good. Clancy said, "I wanna bring this slice to my friend who thinks that California pizza is the best in the world and show him how wrong he is." The first bite of this slice was amazing. I mostly tasted delicious dough and high quality cheese, and then like some kind of delayed reaction the sauce kicked in and kicked my ass. The sauce tasted fresh and delicious, and the slice was cooked so that it mingled with the cheese in a really great way. The crust was phenomenal and was obviously made by a Master Crustographer. The cheese had a strong flavor and aroma and was generally just super fucking good. Bella Napoli is far superior to it's cousin Ciao! Bella Napoli on 7th Ave, but I will definitely try that place again if I am in that hood because this slice was so good.

The slice that I ate at this pizzeria was definitely like, a 7 or 7.5, but because of my undeniably weird first experience, and because Clancy's slice was too cheesy, I'm giving the place a 6.5, which is still a high rating that I rarely bestow on any pizzeria.

Rating:

Bella Napoli - $2.25
130 Madison Ave (30th & 31st)
New York, NY 10016

Not about pizza, but about the band The John Candy's.

Here is a really bad picture of the cover of the John Candy's tape.

I have been kind of blue the past couple of days, and it has been a big bummer, but just now taking a shower, I listened to the whole John Candy's demo for the first time in ages and remembered why I love being alive. This band existed in Autumn 2006, and was mostly the result of Good Kid Paulie, who I just got done writing about eating pizza with, living in the big room on the first floor at the Fort (RIP) with the entire Mexican punk band Polka Madre.

The band featured Paulie playing guitar, Marina and Raymundo from PM playing accordion and drums, respectively, Carolina (from Bad Blood) playing bass for the first time ever, and the famous Joe Porter, who any Slice Harvester Quarterly readers know as SHQ's premier illustrator, singing. The songs are really good. There's an urgency that comes from a bedroom punk band, but the musicians had enough collective experience to put a decent song together. For me the real icing on the cake is Joe Porter's vocals. The way the melodies he writes interact with the guitar and accordion is phenomenal, and the lyrics make me feel heartsick and wistful.

I recorded this on a 4-track in Paulie and Polka Madre's bedroom on a rainy November day. It also marks the day I learned that Chuck had moved here to stay from Chattanooga and vowed to make him my best friend. I'll tell you that story when he finally comes to eat pizza with me. The point is, any problems you have with the sound, take them up with me, take them up with the 3 or 4 Ballantine 40s I drank that day, take them up with anyone but the band. They were just trying to get their shit on tape before Marina and Raymundo had to leave for tour.

Joe is in a new band right now called Marvin Berry & the New Sound. They have a 7" out, but I don't know how you're supposed to get one without Joe Porter just handing it to you outside BBC's 31st birthday party.

Anyway, here is a link to download that John Candy's tape: http://www.mediafire.com/?9ywavil985fdrfh

If anyone in the band has problems with me posting that, tough cookies, I recorded it.