Mezza Luna: "Uhhhh...."

As we were walking into Mezza Luna, Aron mentioned that he had eaten here before and it sucked. But regardless of that, I was ready to give them a chance because the pizzamen were so damn jovial. They just seemed to be enjoying their jobs so much and I felt like, in an atmosphere like that, the pizza had to be phenomenal. And the back of the room where the seating was had that certain dingy, unkempt atmosphere that I absolutely love, although in retrospect, something about the people eating's attitudes reminds me of that purgatory scene in Beetlejuice.


Turns out Aron was right and this pizza was fucking godawful. They must be using, like, the cheapest imaginable cheese in the world, because this slice is the most salty disgusting thing I have ever eaten. Smoked fish should be salted this much, maybe certain kinds of jerky, but not pizza! Pizza is not a salty food! There should be a reasonable amount of salt in the dough and the cheese should be a little salty, but not discernably, just enough so that you don't taste The Absence of Salt, one of the most horrifying and confounding flavors known to the human palate. To add insult to injury, my slice was not cooked enough and flopped around like a big, floppy, salty dong. And because of all the damn salt, I couldn't really tell you what the cheese or dough tasted like. This is up there with some of the worst pizza I've ever had in my life.

Rating:


Mezza Luna Pizzeria - $2.50
98 8th Ave (14th & 15th)
New York, NY 10011

Stella's Pizza: "This place ain't bad."

Stella's Pizza is alright. The place has a little bit too much fake-kitsch decor going on, but that doesn't really surprise me considering we're in the same neighborhood as the Trailer Park-themed bar. Also unsurprisingly, shit like that Trailer Park bar really gets my ire up on a very visceral level. The thought of the affluent urban elite drinking overpriced Schlitz in a bar that's themed like a "white trash" dive is offensive on so many levels. I hope that place becomes embroiled in scandal, the owners are forced into poverty and they have to contend with living the life they've been ironically selling to wealthy Manhattanites for however many years that shithole has been open. I know that in our Sick Fucking Society, most people are blissfully unaware of their privilege, but that just seems like a fucking blatant slap in the face to anyone who isn't a monied urbanite and that shit is so played. This place does not suffer from any of those problems and is actually quite pleasant to be in, if a little corny, so sorry for my digression, but sometimes I get mad.


This slice was totally decent! Not amazing, but not bad. If I am ever working in this neighborhood again and I need a quick slice, I will be going to Stella's. My slice was a barely lacking on texture, but Ryan's was cooked perfectly and made a discernible crunch when he bit into it. The sauce was alright, if a little bland, and the cheese was good enough, if not amazing. This is not going to win the pizza Olympics and I could nitpick about it all day, but all told, there is nothing to really complain about here!

Rating:


Stella's Pizza - $2.50
110 9th Ave (17th & 18th)
New York, NY 10011

Gotham Pizza: "No time for complaints, Robin."

Yesterday I went out eating pizza with my friend Aron and Ryan. Aron works at Second Chance Saloon, my favorite bar, and has played in like, ten million rad bands throughout history, although now he is in the totally awesome Beer & Cable. Ryan is an excellent photographer, as evidenced by his A Year of Days blog and he sometimes works on the Daily Show or films people getting surgery or other cool stuff like that.


Our first stop of the day was Gotham Pizza, which had weird fake flames filling in the cornball font that said their name on the awning and that immediately bummed me out. I guess I just thought it was like, unbearably corny or something.

And you know what else was unbearably corny? The slice! Seriously, there was so much fucking nasty burnt up cornmeal caking up the bottom it felt like crumbling asphalt. It reminded me of Pizza Mercato and reminded Aron of Two Boots. It was a seriously bummer zone. It bears noting a this point, that for some reason we had decided to each eat our own slice at as many places as we could, and that at this place, Ryan's slice fell completely apart. Like, he picked it up and it just mushed apart like a big nasty blob. While my slice didn't fall apart, it was still waaaay too soggy. They were all poorly cooked, the cheese was too melted and the sauce was too watery, albeit tasty, and there was no grease!

Big "whatever" on this one.

Rating:


Gotham Pizza - $2.50
144 9th Ave (18th & 19th)
New York, NY 10011

Rocky's II: "I'm a little nervous for when I go eat pizza at Rocky's V and my protege sucker punches me in an alley."

It was kind of a totally weird, bridge and tunnel crowd inhabiting Rocky's II, but that's not necessarily their fault, right? Of course not. Despite being crowded up with NJ Beefcakes, there was an ample and tastefully decorated back room where me, Clancy and Mike could sit and talk about feminist horror films or anything else our wussy hearts desired, out of earshot of the crowd of musclehead goons in salmon pink polo shirts in the front.


The pizza here was interesting. It tasted a little bit like a salami--smokey, thick and meaty. Mike said some places sneak meat into their sauces as a cheat, the old meat cheat, but I don't know if I believe him. Either way, this slice was not really my thing, but you could tell it was TOTALLY someone's thing. Like, it wasn't haphazardly put together using sloppy style and sub-par ingredients. It was definitely cared for and made with love, although not to my liking. Does that make sense? I think I've used this analogy before, but it's like if one of your friends played in a band that sounded like Red Hot Chili Peppers. And she is like, totally stoked on her sick slap bass skillz, and you know she is super invested and it's hella honest, but you just can't like it no matter what. That's how I feel about this pizza. And Mike Taylor summed it up really good when he took a bite, chewed slowly, ruminated for a minute and then said, "it's not repulsive, it's mysterious." But let's get Jessica Fletcher up in here to tell us what's going on, because I don't really want to eat this pizza again, though I'm sure someone does.

Rating:


Rocky's II - $2.50
607 2nd Ave (33rd & 34th)
New York, NY 10016

USA Pizza: "The Pizza of America"

USA Pizza was a funny place. It was kind of subterranean, as in, it was down some steps, and it was cavernous. It had a great vibe, barring the fact that there was a TV on playing Family Guy, a show which I have never seen an episode of that didn't contain a rape joke, but I will pretend it was an accident, as there was another television playing Univision. Based on the awning, which just said, "PIZZA RESTAURANT," we were unsure of what the name of this establishment was until we got inside and saw the menu.


I am pretty much your standard grown-folks anarcho-punk and think America kind of sucks. Although I think that with a much more nuanced perspective than I did when I was fifteen and I was writing poetry about Mike Eisner and Phil Knight building and climbing a ladder to the heavens, that was LITERALLY constructed out of the bodies of Third World Laborers, in which I wrote the word AmeriKKKa no less than two dozen times. My perspective now is more appreciative of the privilege I am afforded by living here while still being totally critical of the cost of that privilege in actual human lives elsewhere. I digress. The point is, even though I am a godless commie jew anarchist who hates Freedom and wants to turn your children gay, I still really appreciate something about this pizzeria just being called "USA." And I am especially charmed by their slogan, "The Pizza of America," because it was obviously thought up by a non-native English speaker. In one of the many paradoxes of my personality, while I find patriotic sentiments by Red Blooded, True Blue, Lily White Americans totally distasteful, I am absolutely delighted by joyous expressions of appreciation from recent immigrants. What can I say, I think I am just totally into seeing people be happy.


I was really ready to be equally charmed by this slice of pizza, but sadly, it wasn't the greatest. It was cooked well, and the dough and crust were excellent--tasty and crunchy. But the sauce and cheese fell just shy of the mark. The cheese was decent quality, but there was either too much of it or too little of it on the slice, like when you get a pie to go and it's blazing hot and the cheese slides around all over the place. Except this slice had been stationary in the pizzeria all day, so I don't know what that was about. And the sauce was a little bit too watery and insubstantial, but it didn't taste bad. Ultimately this place is maybe not worth a trip but if you're walking by and in the mood for a slice, it's not necessarily a bad option, and at $2.00, it's definitely priced compellingly.

Rating:


USA Pizza - $2.00
530 2nd Ave (29th & 30th)
New York, NY 10016