Been living in New York for the past 20+ years. Sadly, inflation has diminished the quality and quantity of the average corner pizza shop's slice. Yes, the Artichoke Basil slice the author refers to is much more expensive, but it's also bigger than the average slice of pizza in NYC - and the quality of ingredients seems better. The $1 slice shops (now more like the $1.50 slice shops) live on low margin and high volum…
artichoke dough is way too thick. probably adds to the cost for no good reason, maybe because it's easier to bake consistently...
Native New Yorker here. Out of towners are obsessed with the BEST slice, but the true measure of NYC's 45 degree greatness is the decent quality following a Poisson distribution. My tip: just travel to any random spot in the five boroughs. First; you will be impressed how close you are to a pizza spot wherever you are. Second: you will be impressed with the slice, and with the variety of people who are good at making…
Out-of-towners are obsessed with the BEST, most obscure everything. It's one of the things I liked least about living in the city. Everything always felt like a competition about who knew the coolest places. It's comical that someone would travel more than a few minutes within NYC just to try a slice of pizza. Like if it's a nice neapolitan pie, sure. But just for a standard NYC-style slice? That's a waste of time. A…
When I came into this thread I immediately did a search for Prince knowing there would be a comment about it here.
I do like their slices but I am not leaving mid-town for that. I perfectly enjoy Upside Pizza slices.
For anyone who hasn't been to New York this is what a slice looked like at my local pizza place down the street: https://imgur.com/a/9wRM859 Delicious.
That looks like shit pizza. It's a freaking loaf of bread. The dough isn't supposed to bake like that...
Native New Yorker here. Out of towners are obsessed with the BEST slice, but the true measure of NYC's 45 degree greatness is the decent quality following a Poisson distribution. My tip: just travel to any random spot in the five boroughs. First; you will be impressed how close you are to a pizza spot wherever you are. Second: you will be impressed with the slice, and with the variety of people who are good at making…
I 100% agree, and I've only visited NYC a couple times. Each time I visit, I try to eat at least one slice of pizza and one bagel every day. The thing that blows me away is how generally good they are, no matter where I buy them. Of course I'll look at reviews, but I won't walk more than 5 blocks to get a slice. Never been disappointed. Same thing visiting Paris - you can hunt for the BEST croissant, but the remarkab…
One thing I've heard said about French food generally in the past is that there's an entire supply chain in France around French food in particular so you really tend not to get bad French staples at very many places--even if it's a random touristy place.
You can rinse and repeat in many places for various items. For example, when I was last in Germany, you'd get good sandwiches with good bread at any random train station in a system of any size. Try that in the US.
That’s not just NY. I suspect it’s basically all of the US.
Absolutely not. I've lived in a lot of places in the US, and almost none of them outside of a couple of major cities in New England had the equivalent of a NY slice. This has only changed somewhat recently (maybe past decade or so). Even still, it's not nearly as ubiquitous. It's kind of similar with bodegas, a lot of people will say "we have corner stores too" but that's not a bodega. It sounds snobbish sometimes bu…
Native New Yorker here. Out of towners are obsessed with the BEST slice, but the true measure of NYC's 45 degree greatness is the decent quality following a Poisson distribution. My tip: just travel to any random spot in the five boroughs. First; you will be impressed how close you are to a pizza spot wherever you are. Second: you will be impressed with the slice, and with the variety of people who are good at making…
That's what I used to tell people about San Francisco when I lived there twenty years ago -- the high end restaurants are great, but what's more impressive is that the average neighborhood eatery is more often than not really amazing, too.
Pizza Hut pan pizza is the easiest pizza to make yourself at home. You don't need a stand mixer, it's a no knead recipe (long overnight rise builds all the gluten). You don't need a fancy super hot oven, it just cooks at 400 degrees F in a cast iron skillet. Give this recipe a shot, it's unbelievably good and very accessible: https://www.seriouseats.com/foolproof-pan-pizza-recipe or https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-srf…
I make pizza at home. If you let the dough ferment cold for at least overnight, the results are pretty darned good. I usually do a 3 day ferment in the fridge.
I've done fancy dough plenty of times, but mostly just use lazy bread-machine dough these days. It's serviceable same-day—not as good as fancier preparations, but not as far off as one might think—and does also benefit from a night in the fridge, if one thinks to make it the day before. Just have to let it get back up to room temp before cooking, or it won't rise properly. Takes like five minutes of hands-on time, which is all just gathering and measuring the ingredients.
Out-of-towners are obsessed with the BEST, most obscure everything. It's one of the things I liked least about living in the city. Everything always felt like a competition about who knew the coolest places. It's comical that someone would travel more than a few minutes within NYC just to try a slice of pizza. Like if it's a nice neapolitan pie, sure. But just for a standard NYC-style slice? That's a waste of time. A…
When I came into this thread I immediately did a search for Prince knowing there would be a comment about it here. I do like their slices but I am not leaving mid-town for that. I perfectly enjoy Upside Pizza slices.
Prince st pizza is a joke, it's literally just a pepperoni gimmick and any serious NY'er isn't putting up with that crap, let alone waiting on a stupidly long line to eat it.
It's different in NY due to the ubiquity, downward pressure on price, and all-hour coverage. You can be nearly anywhere, at any time, and be fed in minutes. You often eat while standing and remaining social. The experience anchors itself in your mind as an instant, omnipresent solution to hunger. There's also probably something to the infinitely nuanced territorial aspect of which slice is better (the answer is Princ…
Less mentioned about NYC is the 24-hour egg and sausage breakfast sandwich, fresh off a griddle. This, more than pizza, was my staple when I went to college in New York.
I see you did not go to college on a tight budget.