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NYC Slice

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Re: NYC Slice

#181

Post by mpl »

tptacek wrote: post #94

I'm not a New Yorker, but a New York food person I follow has a small rant about how people obsess about the best NYC slice, but that the real point of NYC pizza is that it's available everywhere in the city, like that you are never far from a good NYC slice --- so that the idea of seeking out particular slices kind of misses the point. NYC'ers: how bad is that take? (None of this is to say that it's illegitimate for…

I think you're spot-on. Naturally, people from NY are going to have their favorite spots (just like everyone else, everywhere, for anything). Those preferences, though, come from many experiences over time. For an out-of-towner who isn't a NYC pizza connoisseur, practically any spot is going to give you a solid experience representative of the NYC pizza scene. The overall consistency of quality in the city is something that you just don't find in most places.

I'd go as for to say that looking for "the best" NYC pizza is not what you want to do (at least, not for your first NY pizza slice!). Experience just how good an average slice is; if you're not blown-away, at least it's not "the best" and the disappointment won't be as great.

One last point is that "the best" might refer to something very specific. Atop many "best pizza (in the US)" lists is Frank Pepe's in New Haven, CT. While their pizza is very good, nearly every writeup is specifically talking about their white clam pie.

Re: NYC Slice

#182

Post by neilv »

The best slice in the Boston area ("the city that always sleeps") was the one you could get at 2am. It had a loose connection to HN-style hackers.

Hi-Fi Pizza and Subs was a rare place that would serve the Central Square clubgoers around last call, as well as the people walking home in the cold from a late night at MIT.

There'd be a welcoming warm light from the somewhat gritty street, and a fast moving line. You'd get to the front of the line, say something like "slice of mushroom, please", they'd always say "2.10, please", you pay and take it, and step to the side, to quickly shake the container of grated parmesan. Then you walk the rest of the way home (or back to the lab), munching the slice, soul recharged by warm tasty cheese and crust.

(Sadly, Hi-Fi closed years ago. https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/cambridge-chronicle-tab/20... I was very cross when it was quickly replaced by a vegetarian food startup, and I'm vegetarian. A couple weeks ago, the even more MIT-beloved food place, Mary Chung (which I first heard of as a kid, in stories of MIT hackers), also shut down. https://www.boston.com/community/restaurants/mary-chung-rest... )

Re: NYC Slice

#183

Post by ahoho »

Grazester wrote: post #170
noduerme wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh, not so long ago you used to be able to get a decent bacon egg and cheese from a bodega for $3

Re: NYC Slice

#184

Post by yamtaddle »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #58
yamtaddle wrote: post #5

> but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered This is true of the big national chains, too. They've kept prices relatively stable for damn near 25 years, at this point, but quality has gotten far worse over that same time span. That mouth-watering Pizza Hut pie you remember from 1992 isn't all nostalgia—every now and then I find single-location or small-chain joints that make piz…

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've got about as good a home pizza game as one can have without a modded or specialty oven, and can confirm, cast iron pan pizza is the perfect place for a newbie to start. The transfer from peel to cook surface is the most likely thing to go catastrophically wrong for someone starting out—pan pizza eliminates that step. No special equipment needed whatsoever—no peel, no stone, don't even need farina or coarse cornmeal on-hand. You can just cut it with a chef's knife or a cleaver (those are better than those stupid round-blade spinning cutters, anyway, and they're not that much worse than the long rocking-blade variety). About the only way to ruin it beyond fixing is to forget about it in the oven. It's an almost fool-proof dish, and great for building confidence that you can make good pizza at home.

Re: NYC Slice

#185

Post by StanislavPetrov »

I agree with most of the comments in the thread about NYC, but would like to point out that there are some really great old school pizza places in Nassau County (Long Island, just east of NYC) that rival any NYC pizza place.

Re: NYC Slice

#186

Post by coredog64 »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #11
yamtaddle wrote: post #5

> but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered This is true of the big national chains, too. They've kept prices relatively stable for damn near 25 years, at this point, but quality has gotten far worse over that same time span. That mouth-watering Pizza Hut pie you remember from 1992 isn't all nostalgia—every now and then I find single-location or small-chain joints that make piz…

At the risk of sounding like an ad I’m kind of startled at how not-terrible Little Caesars is for the price. A lot of food and a completely reasonable tasting and baked pie for stupid cheap when compared to almost everything else.

Little Caesars used to be so much better. This was the time period when they were selling you two pizzas on a paper-wrapped flat for the price of one major chain pizza.

Not sure when they switched to extreme value focus.

Re: NYC Slice

#187

Post by john_cogs »

1980phipsi wrote: post #140
rcme wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Joe's was my local pizza place. Then I moved. It's still my local pizza place.

If I’m in the neighborhood and feel even slightly hungry, I’m stopping at Joe’s.

Re: NYC Slice

#188

Post by nemo44x »

valarauko wrote: post #64
hardwaregeek wrote: post #40

This is a fascinating list. No Mama's Too, no Prince St, no L'Industrie, no F&F. All of which are probably my top 4 for slices. Scarr's is there though, which rounds out my top 5. I don't eat a lot of pizza personally but I do love a good slice. What I love about New York isn't necessarily that we have the best pizza (although we do have places that are in the running for the best), but that the average quality is so…

> You don't get a lot of overly doughy, bad cheese, bad sauce BS unless you frequent dollar slice shops. I've eaten at plenty of dollar slice places and honestly find them adequate for the price. I think I've only ever had one terrible slice, ever - and it wasn't a dollar slice place. I was unsurprised when the place closed shortly after.

When you're drunk and just want something quick, hard to beat.

Re: NYC Slice

#189

Post by mprovost »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #133
qbasic_forever wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the downside to pizza at home. Step 1 is always "go back in time 3 days and make dough".

Re: NYC Slice

#190

Post by nemo44x »

_elkue wrote: post #111

Hello, I am the maker of the website. I'm sorry to hear it's crashing some browsers, I'll try to figure out what's happening. It's a clean install of wordpress so I'm confused what I did wrong. The reason there is an odd amount for dollar slice total is that one place had the nerve to charge me tax ($1.09). I concede that the quality at Joes has gone down over the years. I am closely noting the recommendations in thi…

Do you call it a "plain slice" for everyone else? Everyone I know in NYC calls it a "regular slice".
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