Pie by the Pound: "How many disgusted faces do you think they have to look at every day?"

Last week I ate pizza with my esteemed friend and comrade John McLean. He is a great guy, so kind, so generous. He used to live in Brooklyn and we were in a band together called Crooked Boner. Sike! That's not what it was called at all, but that would be a good band name. Anyway, John McLean lives in Athens now, where he plays guitar in Dead Dog and he also does dishes at a "Pizza Restaurant" there, which has okay pizza for Georgia but everyone dips it in ranch dressing. And the fact that he lives "afar" is real sad because I miss him daily, but it's okay, because then when we see each other it's very triumphant. And so it was this Christmas. Three wise men brought me a Christmas miracle and that miracle was John coming into my job and getting a cheeseburger. And one of those wise men was Kever! And then we hung out so damn hard you would not believe it and the next day we ate pizza together.

Our first stop was this weird place called Pie by the Pound. It had this overwhelming Reform Jewish Teenager vibe to it, which I am very familiar with, having been to like 8,000 Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. I felt like if Israel went totally bananas and like made all the Jews go into a giant spaceship that was part spaceship, part contained, flying city, and part like, intergalactic cruise liner, and then like, in four generations when none of the people alive on the spaceship even remember Earth, one of them reads about pizza in one of the Olden Tomes of Olden Tymes and is like, "I'm gonna open up a pizzeria." And this is that pizzeria. I don't even think this pizza was kosher, so I'm not even sure why it felt so Jewish to me in there. Maybe it's because the place was decorated like a JCC rec. room.

So the thing with this place, and I should've taken a picture of the display (oh wait, here's one I found on the internet!), is that they have these giant ovular pies and then you order by weight. Not a bad idea, but the pizza sucks and the shit pictured above cost me $3.94 and wasn't even as big as a regular normal slice. And it suuuuuucked. And it was cooked in like, one of those giant toaster ovens like they have in a sleepaway camp cafeteria. And did I mention it sucked?

When we got our regular pizza the lady also gave us this thing to taste, which is that same regular pizza with cubed tomatoes, mozzarella and basil on top and said we should try it because it's "a little more interesting" or something. We ate this first and were just like "Oy vey! If this is the more interesting option I am loathe to taste their less interesting choices!" (Except John didn't say "oy vey" because as goyem he's not allowed to, he said "gosh darnit.") And did I mention that the regular pizza sucked? It tasted like when you chew all of the flavor out of a piece of Juicy Fruit and you are just still chewing on it anyway out of habit and then you suddenly notice that what you are chewing on doesn't taste like ANYTHING AT ALL. That's what it tasted like.

Rating:


Pie by the Pound - $????
124 4th Ave (12th & 13th)
New York, NY 10003

See you after New Year's.

No Slice Harvester for the next two weeks.

I am taking a vacation.

Cafe Amore Pizza: "Eat this if you are really hungry and hate yourself."

Cafe Amore is my worst nightmare pizzeria. Although unlike the other Cafe Amore this one had no gremlins or labyrinth. This place smelled so rancid and nasty. When I was in high school my tightest bud was this guy named Juan and he had an aversion to coleslaw. This aversion had its roots in the fact that his father, Juan, Sr. had told him as a young man that the way they make coleslaw is that the greasy dishwasher, coming off his shift, chews up cabbage and carrots, then spits it into his hand and rubs it around in his armpits, and then he puts it in a big vat and then they serve it to you. (This is patently untrue because the way they make coleslaw is that they put a rainbow through a cheesgrater, and then they plant carrot and cabbage seeds in the rainbow mulch, and then coleslaw trees grow and they take a little tap and stick it in the tree and turn the faucet and coleslaw comes out, like how they get maple syrup in cartoons.) Anyway, me and Juan used to speculate about what this guy looked and smelled like and Cafe Amore smelled like I always imagined he smelled.

This slice was a big, sloppy, floppy mess and totally sucked, although it was not as bad as it smelled. It had the weird, waxy, plastic-like coating that is the tell-tale sign of the cheapest cheese in history. The sauce tasted like dog barf and the dough was the texture of a moist fart. This slice was ENORMOUS, though. If you are a cowboy and are looking for something cheap and big to feed your horse, get a slice from Amore.

Rating:


Cafe Amore - $2.75
104 E 14th St (Park & Irving)
New York, NY 10003

Bravo Pizza: "The Final Nightmare."

Bravo Pizza! This is the sixth Bravo Pizza I have eaten at, and also the last of it's kind. Much like the film Freddy's Dead was supposed to be. Also like the Nightmare on Elm Street series, the first one is okay and charming and then they get cheesier and cheesier as you progress through them and the final one is just kind of an anti-climactic letdown. That's not even literally true. I mean, Bravo doesn't have an especially cheesy slice. I just really wanted to make a Nightmare on Elm Street analogy.

Now, I swear I took a picture of this slice, but I can't seem to find it inside my camera, so I guess I didn't. For the record, it looked just like this, except with a big glob of broccoli rabe stuck to it.

This slice was way undercooked, too saucy, and too greasy. The sauce tasted like crap and the whole thing was soggy. What a mess! The dough was good, though. It was chewy in that way that good pies are chewy when you get them delivered and they've been steaming in the box. Like, there's something totally comforting about that and I liked it. But overall and otherwise this slice is gross.

Rating:


Bravo Pizza - $2.75
115 E 14th St (Park and Irving)
New York, NY 10003

Stromboli Pizzeria: "Alright stop, collaborate and listen: Slice is back with my brand new contentions."

I'm not sure if this Stromboli Pizzeria is related to the Stromboli by St. Marks Place, which I haven't been to in years, though it had sucked consistently for at least a decade the last time I was there, so I'm sure it still does. And this place sucks too! Booo!

  

This slice was shaped like Vanilla Ice's hair. While I usually find oddly shaped slices charming, this one was so skewed it was impossible to fold, which made eating it more of a chore than I desired. God forbid if I had tried to eat this piece of shit on the go! It was also really small for $2.75. And the taste! Where do I begin with this taste?

This slice was too saucy, too salty, and too cornmeal-y. Just like how I remember the pleasantly decent slice at Pizza Mercato being however many years ago. The sauce was disgustingly herbed up, which was overcompensating for the fact that it was basically just a bunch of nasty, cheap tomato paste. The crust was thick and dense like factory smoke off the Jersey Turnpike. There was no crunch and too much salt.

Rating:

Stromboli Pizzeria - $2.75

112 University Pl. (12th & 13th)

New York, NY 10003

Pizza Mercato: "A pleasant surprise from an old standby."

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I went pizza eating alone. It was actually a really nice time, and I think I'm going to do it more often. In this hustley-bustley city, I rarely, if ever, spend some quality time by myself, unless I'm on my bicycle, and then I'm usually commuting to or from somewhere, even then I'm oftentimes riding with someone else. But walking around the city alone on a chilly winter day gave me lots of room to think and assess, especially immersing myself in the panic of last-minute holiday shoppers and end-of-semester students.

It's fitting that my first stop on this lonesome day was Pizza Mercato, as I have eaten many a lonely slice there. It was a favorite of the punks, if we managed to venture East of Broadway, because of the incredible two-slice deal. Back then it was two slices and a small soda for $3.00. The price has gone up to $3.95, but that's still a hell of a deal. I haven't been there in 4 or 5 years, probably, but I remember the pizza being an awful mess. Too brittle, covered in cornmeal, dry as a bone, just like the other Pizza Mercato that I already reviewed!  But still, two slices and a rootbeer for $3.00 was hard to pass up, especially after the average slice price went up to $2.00 and Mercato's deal stuck. What a bargain!

Maybe the management read my review of their other joint, and this change is recent, but in the years since I have been here, the pizza has improved from Tolerable to Barely Good. This slice was not super cornmealy and it had great ratios. It was cooked to have a decent crunch, there was enough elasticity in the cheese, and a perfect amount of grease! Still, there was something lingeringly lackluster about the whole thing, but I couldn't figure out what it was until I got to the final bites, where the cheese had run its course and there was only crust and sauce. It was the sauce. The sauce, which I couldn't taste for the bulk of the slice (thank goodness), tasted totally paste-y! Yuck! Pee-yew! Gezundheit!

Rating:

Pizza Mercato - $2.25
11 Waverly Pl (at Mercer)
New York, NY 10003

Pizza Booth: "Dangerously Bold."

Pizza Booth purports to serve "Cajun Pizza," which I didn't even know was a thing, although I know that's what Two Boots calls their crap. It is weirdly quiet and clean in there, and they have really bizarre handpainted tiles with pictures of sexual vegetables and cows and shit on them.

The slice here is so orange! When it first came out I was like, "I don't see what's so Cajun about this, looks like regular shitty pizza to me." And then I took a bite and brother, let me tell you, it was perplexing. This slice tastes just like spicy Doritos. Like, JUST LIKE THEM. And vinegar. I think what makes it Cajun is that they crumble Doritos into the sauce and then pour vinegar into it. It had a decent crunch, though, and it was cooked well, but it just didn't taste like pizza to me.

Rating:



Pizza Booth - $2.50
165 Bleeker St (Sullivan and Thompson)
New York, NY 10014