[HN Gopher] NYC Slice
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       NYC Slice
        
       Author : mbil
       Score  : 332 points
       Date   : 2023-01-11 19:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (elkue.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (elkue.com)
        
       | yamtaddle wrote:
       | > 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 pizza very similar to how I remember those
       | tasting. Thing is, those are like $15+ a pie now, _with a coupon
       | or special_. But you can still get larges for $8 or less (coupon
       | or special, which are available 100% of the time) at the major
       | chains--they 're just not the same pizza you were getting in the
       | 80s up to about the late 90s.
       | 
       | [EDIT] In fact, the 2020-on inflation is the first time I've seen
       | the big chains seriously give in on keeping price increases in
       | check. They've gone up like 20% in the last couple years.
        
         | Spooky23 wrote:
         | Agreed. A good pizza is $20 retail, $8-12 at home.
         | 
         | I think the pizza problem is two-fold. Like Jewish Delis,
         | ethnic Italians are exiting the business and selling the local
         | shops. Instead of working 60 hours a week in the shop, the kids
         | are mortgage brokers and IT guys.
         | 
         | The other issue is that manufactured pizza components are
         | better and cheaper. You can be a lower skill operator and still
         | churn out a mediocre product. So a shitty local shop is using a
         | similar premade dough and mediocre cheese that a chain is
         | using.
         | 
         | It's really obvious to see in NYC.
         | 
         | The same thing happened to bread.
        
         | LarryMullins wrote:
         | Counterpoint: A $10 large "brooklyn" pizza from Dominos today
         | is vastly better than any Pizza Hut or Dominos pizza ever was
         | in the 90s. Not as good as a pizza from a halfway decent
         | independent pizzeria, but half the price.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | ethbr0 wrote:
           | That's only because Dominos infamously, sometime during the
           | 2010s(?), ran a campaign that amounted to "Our current pizza
           | sucked, but we've got a new recipe that's better."
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | What's weird is I was around for that, was in college and
             | ate Domino's pretty regularly at the time, and everyone
             | seems to believe it _was indeed_ a lot better, but I
             | thought it was a ton worse than what they had before. Just
             | tasted like a lot more MSG and oregano.
        
             | LarryMullins wrote:
             | I think they were right. Their standard crust is still
             | trash that scrapes up my mouth, but the "brooklyn" crust is
             | passable.
        
             | dcow wrote:
             | Yeah I occasionally get caught in the trap of trying their
             | Brooklyn crust and every time I come to the conclusion that
             | it's a lackluster disappointing product that isn't in any
             | way different from any of their other pizzas in terms of
             | quality. I've maybe had dominoes 2 times in the last 5
             | years which is why I keep forgetting XD
        
               | boomboomsubban wrote:
               | As of ~15 years ago, after the "improvement," Brooklyn
               | style at Dominos is a medium pizza amount of dough spread
               | to a large and then they don't spray the garlic butter
               | stuff on at the end. Not very different.
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | They tricked me once. I was hoping for something akin to
               | Pizza Hut's short-lived early-'00s "Big New Yorker",
               | which wasn't really like NY pizza but was a lot better
               | than everything else PH was serving at the time. Nope,
               | just as bad as their regular pizza.
        
               | TylerE wrote:
               | The crust is what you see, but it's the sauce and cheese
               | you taste.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | DoneWithAllThat wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | mitchell_h wrote:
           | it's $5 for a single toping, walk in and walk out with hot-
           | ish pizza. Is it great? no. Does it have enough qualities
           | that make it good? yes.
        
             | izackp wrote:
             | They raised the price and added more pepperoni (less
             | cheese). :(
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | As the meme goes:
             | 
             | "$5, hot and ready."
             | 
             | "Is it good?"
             | 
             | "It's HOT and it's READY."
        
             | beowulfey wrote:
             | 7-Eleven Pizza used to be similar. In grad school I loved
             | grabbing two slices and an Arnold Palmer for like $3 or
             | whatever it was.
        
           | pastor_bob wrote:
           | Have you been to Cicis?
           | 
           | Literally all you can eat + pasta. Dirt cheap. If you're the
           | 'one-meal-a-day' type, is there a cheaper option?
        
             | jjeaff wrote:
             | I don't know what it is now, but Cici used to have $1.99
             | all you can eat pizza buffets on certain days of the week.
             | This would have been in the mid 90s. Unbelievably
             | (suspiciously?) cheap even for then.
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | Costco's pizza works out pretty damn well on a just-get-
             | some-calories-in-me-but-don't-make-me-cook basis, too, if
             | you want something you can carry out. Two days of calories
             | for $10.
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | * Must live in part of town with a Costco ;)
        
               | DoneWithAllThat wrote:
               | Yeah for sure, also a really good point.
        
             | readonlybarbie wrote:
             | [dead]
        
           | coredog64 wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | bluedino wrote:
             | All of my teenage hacking was fueled by leftover Little
             | Ceasers and Mt Dew
        
           | alar44 wrote:
           | Little Caesars is objectively terrible, sorry.
        
             | alexjplant wrote:
             | I'd never defend Little Caesar's as amazing pizza but it
             | does exactly what it's supposed to, i.e. hits the spot when
             | you're looking for primal satisfaction of a craving for a
             | greasy pile of dough and cheese. When I want "real" pizza I
             | walk down the street for something Neapolitan or NY-style
             | but if I'm hanging with a large group of friends and feel
             | like pigging out then I see nothing wrong with going all-in
             | for some Deep Deep Dish from LC.
        
             | kevinsundar wrote:
             | In my metro area they increased prices to $7. However,
             | quality has drastically improved. If you haven't tried em
             | recently they are very different than the old thin, taste
             | like nothing, Little Caesars pizzas.
        
               | Turing_Machine wrote:
               | Are they using real cheese nowadays (even bulk processed
               | cheese)? If so, perhaps they _have_ improved. The last
               | time I had one (which was admittedly a long time ago)
               | they were using some kind of  "imitation cheese-flavored
               | product" or something along those lines.
        
             | harrydehal wrote:
             | Even the late Anythony Bourdain could espouse on the
             | greatness of an "objectively terrible" Wafflehouse meal.
             | 
             | There's a time and place for everything, and even the
             | snobbiest of us food snobs can appreciate the time and
             | place for the likes of Little Ceasars, Costco Pizza,
             | Wafflehouse, et al.
        
               | freejazz wrote:
               | That doesn't mean he would have liked little ceasers. If
               | anything, it really seems like you don't understand his
               | point about the charm of waffle house.
        
               | Spooky23 wrote:
               | Little Ceasars is worse a in that it's a bad pizza that
               | gets worse over time. It sort of tastes like nothing
               | until it cools, at which point it tastes like cardboard.
        
               | javajosh wrote:
               | I also love Waffle House's food despite, maybe even
               | because, it's 'bad'. Their waffles are legit good; the
               | rest is coffee shop slop of the highest order.
               | Recommended. (Glad Bourdain had the guts to say this)
        
               | nobody9999 wrote:
               | Waffle House is open late and the food has lots of carbs
               | and fat.
               | 
               | Which means it's good drunk food available when the
               | drunks want to eat.
               | 
               | I live 1,000 miles away from the nearest one, but I sure
               | did love a late Saturday night at Waffle House when I
               | lived in the south.
               | 
               | Where I am now, a "109 spicy special,"[0] hot off the
               | grill, a single serving bag of nacho cheese Doritos and
               | Pepsi does the job too.
               | 
               | [0] https://bwog.com/2007/01/how-spicy-is-your-special/
        
               | fsckboy wrote:
               | I contend Anthony Bourdain didn't actually know good food
               | from bad. I have nothing against him, I enjoyed his show,
               | it was quite engaging, and I wanted him to dispense good
               | information--so I could use it--but his recommendations,
               | for instance in the NY City area, were awful. (he prided
               | himself on not describing the food he was trying, all he
               | ever would say it is, "that's good".)
               | 
               | His career as a chef was at a brasserie serving brasserie
               | fare which is basically like working at a French diner,
               | not necessarily anything that's going to educate your
               | palate.
               | 
               | Again, not criticizing him, I'm actually envious, I wish
               | I could be happy eating mediocre food, my life would be
               | much simpler.
        
               | pigsty wrote:
               | The elevation of haute cuisine as "good" and common folk
               | food as "mediocre" is strange to me.
               | 
               | Sometimes a cheap-ass $5 meal really does satisfy people
               | far more than a Michelin star restaurant. Humble bragging
               | about only being able to enjoy non-normie food sounds
               | silly and unrefined, really.
        
               | blastro wrote:
               | I read this in Bourdain's voice.
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | To be fair, Waffle House completely overhauled their menu
               | ~2 years(?) ago.
               | 
               | Gone is the 90s yellow a la carte one. Gone even is the
               | replacement that at least kept the classics on the back.
               | 
               | Now it's $8+ meals, with token hashbrown options at the
               | bottom.
               | 
               | Used to be, you could get a perfectly serviceable meal
               | there for under-$6. E.g. double hashbrowns ($3) + single
               | hamburger ($1) + drink ($1.5).
               | 
               | Now the closest thing to the same meal is double the
               | price. Double hashbrown $5. Single hamburger doesn't
               | exist, and hamburgers start at $6.
        
               | geocrasher wrote:
               | In that vein, Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza is
               | _excellent_ for what you get. And who doesn 't put on a
               | LOT more cheese before cooking?
        
             | canadianfella wrote:
             | [dead]
        
             | RandallBrown wrote:
             | I genuinely feel bad for you. I really enjoy Little
             | Caesar's (and most pizza.)
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | The ideal place to be is knowing when pizza is bad, but
               | still being able to enjoy bad pizza.
               | 
               | That kinda goes for most things, really.
        
               | DonHopkins wrote:
               | I'm that way with my science fiction.
               | 
               | I'm bistellar: I love both Star Wars and Star Trek.
               | 
               | But I fully realize that Bladerunner is astronomically
               | better than either of them.
               | 
               | And none of those masterpiees keep me from fully enjoying
               | smutty trash like Space Truckers, or even any of Philip K
               | Dick's horrible random short stories.
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQOqLOErhZA
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Ifaeff0mA
        
             | ncallaway wrote:
             | You don't need to apologize to them. We should be saying
             | sorry to you.
             | 
             | Someone who gets enjoyment out of a $5 pizza is in an
             | objectively better position than someone who can only get
             | enjoyment out of a $10 pizza. Sorry!
        
               | LarryMullins wrote:
               | This is how I explain my refusal to learn anything about
               | the varieties and nuances of "good coffee". If I learned
               | to appreciate good coffee, would I still be able to enjoy
               | common dinner coffee? I fear not.
        
               | dghughes wrote:
               | It's a one-way street. You can love cheap poorly brewed
               | coffee but once you have tried better the cheap stuff
               | becomes undrinkable. Like going from a touch tone back to
               | a rotary dial phone. Impossible.
               | 
               | Until my early mid 20s I never like coffee at all. Then I
               | tried double cream and sugar coffee, then milky
               | cappuccinos, then massive syrupy sweet Starbucks.
               | 
               | After years of "acclimatizing" I thought I'd branch out.
               | I bought a grinder, fresh coffee beans, a scale, French
               | Press, 16:1 ratio. I went black and never went back.
               | 
               | Coffee made well from fresh beans freshly ground has a
               | sweetness a caramel like after-taste. Very little
               | bitterness (comes from brewing too long) and can surprise
               | even those who pile on milk and sugar or even salt to
               | mask its bitterness.
        
               | winphone1974 wrote:
               | All that fancy coffee prep still doesn't give you what a
               | good diner coffee delivers though: a warm hug after a
               | long night, or hanging with friends, or a big family
               | breakfast, or talking with a potential soul mate after a
               | first date... or countless other things I associate with
               | drinking coffee in a diner
        
               | prpl wrote:
               | Can you enjoy a Quarter pounder with cheese, and
               | appreciate some nice prime rib?
        
               | winphone1974 wrote:
               | I think you'd be ok, because good diner coffee is about a
               | lot of things, but typically not the actual coffee.
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | I'm fairly sure I have a well-above-average ability to
               | appreciate actually-good coffee and actually-good pizza--
               | but am also genuinely happy with the bad stuff, even
               | though I'm entirely aware it's bad (within reason--I've
               | had a couple gas station cups of coffee that weren't just
               | bad, but _wrong_ , and I wasn't able to finish them, and
               | instant coffee usually gets a polite "no thanks" from me,
               | but if Folger's or Kirkland Ground or whatever is what
               | you've got, I'll be _truly_ grateful to have it)
               | 
               | I'm not that way with wine and beer. I don't like bad
               | wine or beer at all. I will turn it down or just drink it
               | to be polite, not enjoying it a bit.
               | 
               | I think the difference is I _never_ liked bad wine or
               | beer, while I started out liking bad pizza and bad coffee
               | before I learned what the good stuff tasted like. So, you
               | might be safe.
               | 
               | [EDIT] Reflecting more on this, part of it may be that I
               | regard bad coffee and bad pizza as pretty much totally
               | different things from good varieties of the same--I just
               | happen to like both. I don't really consider one a
               | substitute for the other, I guess. Bad coffee is just
               | coffee-flavored... but I like coffee flavor! Good coffee
               | has _all kinds_ of flavors going on. If you 're
               | interested in getting into that, I recommend finding a
               | highly-regarded local roaster doing a tasting event--I
               | personally find it much easier to get into a new flavor-
               | related thing, such that I can start to understand it and
               | pick out various notes, if I can do side-by-side tastings
               | of various examples of the thing, all in a short span.
               | 
               | It's similar with beer and wine, I just happen not to
               | like "beer-flavored" or "wine-flavored", the way I _do_
               | like coffee-flavored coffee or find greasy bread smeared
               | with salty cheese and tomato sauce satisfying even if it
               | 's pretty awful--get me the nice stuff that has more
               | going on and I'm in heaven, though.
        
               | kylehotchkiss wrote:
               | One of my favorite coffee experiences was on an Amtrak.
               | The cup of coffee was $2. It was served on a Pepsi
               | branded paper tray thing. Carrying it up the narrow
               | staircase was fun. I enjoyed every sip. It tasted like
               | cream and sugar and the coffee my grandma used to make
               | out of a metal tin.
        
               | geocrasher wrote:
               | The trick is to learn to enjoy _all_ coffees for what
               | they are. I 'll take gas station murk in a pinch, and
               | I'll drink it black when no options are available. But I
               | also love coffees that are $10-15 per pound. But I
               | usually buy in the $7 range. It's about being content,
               | not being snobby, no matter how much you spend.
               | 
               | Edit: Agreeing with another commenter in this thread that
               | some coffees at gas stations are truly awful and are
               | immediately thrown away. Those aren't legit coffee
               | though, and don't count toward what I said above.
        
               | jcpst wrote:
               | This might be wise advice. I have spent a lot on gear,
               | and I buy bags that are typically around $30/lb, although
               | there are some great blends that can be picked up for
               | around $15/lb.
               | 
               | It has ruined the cheap (Robusta) coffee for me. There
               | are diners that make a great medium roast cup and use
               | Arabica beans.
               | 
               | But the good coffee sure is good, and it's fun to get
               | familiar with the varieties.
        
               | jrockway wrote:
               | You can enjoy anything if you try hard enough. I go to
               | great lengths to get the best coffee and prepare it in
               | the best way possible, but I'm still very happy to drink
               | an imperfect cup of coffee. Some of the worst coffee I
               | can imagine is whatever they serve on American Airlines
               | flights. It has such a weird flavor, I'm not even sure
               | it's actually coffee. With all of that in mind, I am
               | looking forward to drinking the next cup of airline
               | coffee that is offered to me ;) It's something different,
               | even if it's different in all the wrong ways.
        
             | blurri wrote:
             | It's $5 man. Also, that's just like your opinion man.
        
             | ttymck wrote:
             | The subjective nature of reality disagrees with you, sorry.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | Seconded, cannot relate. They're worth the $6 or whatever
             | but not a penny more. Better than most $6 frozen pizzas, I
             | suppose. They have that going for them.
             | 
             | They're also a good example of this, actually. They'd held
             | their $5 price point for a _long_ time but had gradually
             | been cutting toppings until they were comically bare. Then
             | they introduced a $6  "extra toppings" (or something, I
             | don't recall the way they phrased it) pie that just had the
             | same amount the normal ones used to.
             | 
             | Post-Covid I'm pretty sure the sad-pie price is up to $6,
             | and the actually-has-toppings edition is $7.
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | The big national brands did a big stealth price hike a few
         | years ago when they took away free delivery. So that $15 pie is
         | now about $25 or $26 by the time you add fees, taxes, and tip.
         | 
         | Checking through old emails from Papa Johns (Garbage pizza, but
         | sometimes you WANT garbage pizza.)
         | 
         | I know it was free delivery at somepoint, but it's hard to
         | pinpoint as prior to 2010 their emails didn't include a broken
         | out receipt, just a total.
         | 
         | But, in 2010 it was $1.99 then soon after went up to $2.50.
         | 
         | In 2019 that was bumped to $2.75.
         | 
         | No orders between late 2019 and early 2022.
         | 
         | Early 2022 it was $4.49, then shortly after $4.79, then bumped
         | to $4.99 in July, where it is as of my last order a few days
         | ago.
        
         | MuffinFlavored wrote:
         | > The biggest thing I have noticed is the decline in the amount
         | of sauce put on slices. I'm sure this is a cost-saving measure,
         | but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has
         | definitely suffered.
         | 
         | Isn't cheese more expensive than tomato sauce? Why would the
         | restaurants skimp on a cheaper ingredient (tomatoes) instead of
         | more expensive (cheese)?
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | The shrinkflation thing is getting out of hand. Not pizza, but
         | I like those Kaukauna brand almond covered cheese balls. They
         | replaced the 10 ounce product with a 6 ounce one, and then
         | charge 10% more for the smaller ball.
         | 
         | Too bad Liam didn't track the average weight of the slices. I
         | have a hunch that might have tracked down as well.
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | 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=-srfPL5CWZs
        
           | trynewideas wrote:
           | > 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
           | 
           | That recipe is just focaccia with about half the olive oil,
           | probably replaced by whatever runs off the toppings:
           | https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia
           | 
           | - no stand mixer
           | 
           | - no kneading
           | 
           | - overnight room-temperature rise
           | 
           | - 4:3 flour-water ratio
           | 
           | - dough is dimpled in the pan before baking
           | 
           | The Ligurian focaccia recipe brines it with salt water, which
           | you don't strictly have to do but helps considerably, and
           | bakes at 450F, which arguably so should any cast-iron pizza
           | because the crust won't crisp up as much at 400F.
        
             | webkike wrote:
             | Focaccia is basically pizza without the sauce so I'm not
             | sure if the clarification is helpful? Wikipedia claims that
             | some places even call focaccia pizza bianca
        
             | dnissley wrote:
             | Not sure if you were trying to object to the comparison,
             | but this comment made me realize just how similar Pizza Hut
             | pan pizza crust is to focaccia!
        
           | yamtaddle wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | fsckboy wrote:
             | by "peel" he means the "big spatula/snow shovel" on a long
             | stick you use to put the pizza in an oven, and take it out.
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | Important note: when home-cooking pizza, you can easily
               | fake the peel with a large cutting board (wooden! Plastic
               | may melt!) _only_ for the taking-out portion. It may
               | require a little more manual assistance, but it does the
               | job. It 's a much worse idea for putting the pie in,
               | though (you can probably make it work, but... I wouldn't
               | risk it)
               | 
               | This is handy if you don't want to own more than one
               | peel, but do want to be able to prep a second pizza on a
               | peel while the first one is cooking.
        
             | kakoni wrote:
             | > The transfer from peel to cook surface ... go
             | catastrophically wrong
             | 
             | Indeed, describes my attempts. Any tips how to succeed in
             | this?
        
               | version_five wrote:
               | I just make the pizza on parchment paper on the counter,
               | and then pick up the whole thing and transfer it, with
               | the paper, to the pizza stone in the oven
        
               | shigawire wrote:
               | Cornmeal or semolina flour on the peel, a lot more than
               | you think you need.
        
           | arrosenberg wrote:
           | For making small batches at home you never need a stand
           | mixer. Once you use the food processor, you will never go
           | back.
        
           | JustSomeNobody wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | 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.
        
             | mprovost wrote:
             | This is the downside to pizza at home. Step 1 is always "go
             | back in time 3 days and make dough".
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | My bread-machine dough takes 5 minutes of hand-on time
               | and is ready in two hours. It's not as good as if you let
               | it rest or do a fancier hand- or mixer-prep, but it
               | absolutely will not keep your pizza from being better
               | than any of the major chains (not that that's a high bar,
               | but still).
        
               | JustSomeNobody wrote:
               | You can get a nearly the same results in a couple hours
               | if you keep a sour dough starter in your fridge and use
               | the discard from that in your pizza dough. Add the
               | discard to your warm water along with the yeast to warm
               | it up.
        
               | etblg wrote:
               | Keep it in the freezer and that time comes down to
               | "defrost overnight 1 day in advance", or you can try
               | thawing it out under a tap or something.
               | 
               | Always nice having some frozen dough and sauce handy in
               | the freezer.
        
       | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | msoad wrote:
       | The obsession with "best NYC pizza" is funny to New Yorkers.
       | Pizza is usually not a food that you plan for it and go somewhere
       | far to have it. The best pizza is the one nearby. They're all
       | good. Just enjoy it and stop with the FOMO
        
       | moloch-hai wrote:
       | I have found that I need to pay $5 for a good slice, nowadays.
       | 
       | Most pizza even in NYC is not good, by my standards. I.e., I can
       | do better than those at home.
        
         | quickthrower2 wrote:
         | Per pizza ($40US) that is getting on for a high-end five-star
         | main meal where I live.
        
       | downer123 wrote:
       | Table 87 is a great slice.
        
         | itisit wrote:
         | Agree, but sauce can be a bit too sweet.
        
       | g42gregory wrote:
       | It looks like the price of pizza has been steadily increasing
       | while the quality going (somewhat?) down. I believe this fits the
       | definition of inflation. Do you remember a year (longer?) ago,
       | all major news sources were telling us that the inflation was
       | only temporary? I wonder why nobody put together a web service
       | that "gives us our memory back", so that we could make better
       | assessment of various news sources going forward and make better
       | decisions as a result?
        
         | tbihl wrote:
         | I have etched into my brain the one where our president showed
         | his seeming contempt for his countrymen by insinuating that we
         | could believe such a boldface lie about inflation.
         | 
         |  _"Talk of inflation,... the overwhelming consensus is that
         | it's going to pop up a little bit then go back down."_
         | 
         | https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1485791682532675590?s...
        
       | googlryas wrote:
       | Gotta get up to 101st and Broadway and try sal & Carmines. Little
       | hole in the wall but was my favorite NYC slice despite no one
       | ever talking about it.
        
         | ryanwaggoner wrote:
         | Yes!! I live a few blocks from there and it's one of the best
         | I've had in the city.
        
         | cccybernetic wrote:
         | Yeah, while not my favorite, Sal & Carmines is great. Only
         | other truly great slice joint on the UWS is Freddie's (which is
         | phenomenal). A new-ish place, Mama's Too on 106th, isn't too
         | bad either.
        
           | nobody9999 wrote:
           | Don't forget Koronet between 110 and 111.
           | 
           | Jumbo slices FTW!
        
             | valarauko wrote:
             | There's also a Koronet on Lex between 77th & 78th - my goto
             | whenever I'm in the area.
        
         | Involution wrote:
         | Spent my adolescence going to S&C's nearly day of summer
         | vacations. My closest childhood friend and I always grabbed two
         | slices and sat at the table directly behind the column. Even
         | though the original proprietors have passed on, the cheese
         | slices are still world-class. The flavor of nostalgia probably
         | enriches the sauce and cheese, but Sal and Camrine's remains
         | the slept-on great slice in Manhattan.
        
           | googlryas wrote:
           | Yeah unfortunately sal passed on maybe 7 years ago? But his
           | grandson now operates it and was working under sal for quite
           | a while before sal passed, and I didn't really notice a
           | difference in the quality of a slice after the grandson took
           | over. Unfortunately I moved to Colorado a few years ago and
           | it's impossible to get even a mediocre slice here, let alone
           | my favorite of all time
        
       | DevX101 wrote:
       | A fun project could be to quantify how much less pepperoni
       | toppings, NY pizzerias have been putting on pizza. Train a CV
       | model to detect what a slice is, what a pepperoni topping is.
       | Then feed it public pictures of NY pizza over the past 10 years.
       | An interesting result would be something like "NY pizzerias have
       | been putting 16% less pepperoni on pizza". This would totally get
       | news traffic and generate some buzz, and be a practical example
       | of non-price inflation.
        
         | jablongo wrote:
         | shrinkflation
        
       | charlus wrote:
       | I'm visiting NYC for the first time in May - first thing I
       | researched was pizza, so really appreciate this work. Thank you.
        
         | RandallBrown wrote:
         | What's great about pizza in New York is the spontaneity. After
         | a night out there will always be somewhere nearby with a pretty
         | good slice of pizza. The best pizza I had while living in New
         | York isn't any better than the best pizza I've had in Seattle
         | but the _average_ slice was much better.
        
       | djcannabiz wrote:
       | The CSV is here if anyone wants to take a look
       | 
       | https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kwc7V/4/dataset.csv
        
       | tptacek wrote:
       | 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 New Yorkers to
       | have opinions about whether the NYC slices they happen to be
       | near, or were near before, are better than the others --- in the
       | same sense as there are Italian Beef rivalries in Chicago.)
        
         | pastor_bob wrote:
         | True for the most part. It is arguable that brick oven or coal
         | oven slices taste different and better. Also, 'premium' slices
         | like Lucali's might offer superior ingredients (particularly
         | the cheese)
        
         | mpl wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | bcobb wrote:
         | This is 100% correct.
        
         | EduardLev wrote:
         | I don't think it's necessarily a bad take, but I would
         | disagree. It's kind of like any sports debate where you argue
         | about who is the best or greatest of all time. You're splitting
         | hairs, but it's still a fun debate.
         | 
         | Also even at the level of your local places, after eating the
         | amount of pizza you do in New York you can tell small
         | differences in quality such that you will seek out specific
         | places in a certain radius.
        
         | mgce wrote:
         | I find that more true for bagels than pizza. Some bagel places
         | are better than others but I don't find much value in crossing
         | the city vs. just going to the best place in your neighborhood.
         | 
         | But pizza's a totally different story for me. First off there's
         | no single "real" point - people like what they like and there's
         | no reason people have to have the same kinds of interest.
         | 
         | I have always and will continue to always travel large
         | distances through NYC to enjoy the pizza places I like. There
         | are clear differences - both in style and quality.
         | 
         | When I'm in a pinch and want pizza, sure. I won't go far. But I
         | personally find the difference between your average place down
         | the block and a sought out destination huge. And if I have the
         | time and energy I'd much rather experience my preferred places.
        
         | cainxinth wrote:
         | > ...the real point of NYC pizza is that it's available
         | everywhere in the city
         | 
         | I have fam on the Upper East Side and it's not an area with a
         | lot of pizzerias (and definitely not many slice joints). There
         | is a ton of great pizza in the city (and the surrounding Jersey
         | burbs), but you do have to travel a bit for it sometimes even
         | if you live in the city.
        
         | mzg wrote:
         | Honestly, a solid take! It's more of an optimization problem --
         | find the best balance of quality, proximity, and price, and
         | you've got your favorite slice shop. If you're at a friend's or
         | a loved one's, that solution changes, and you begin to
         | associate the flavor of that slice with them and their home.
         | Sometimes it's worth it to make a trip out to one of the pizza
         | Meccas--Lucali, Joe's on Carmine, L&B Spumoni Gardens, etc.--
         | but more often than not, you're set with your local slice.
         | 
         | Unless you live in Downtown Brooklyn, where there is no good
         | pizza. Then you're just fucked.
        
           | niek_pas wrote:
           | > Unless you live in Downtown Brooklyn, where there is no
           | good pizza. Then you're just fucked
           | 
           | There used to be a place in the Atlantic center food court
           | that deep-fried their pizza base. It was unconventional, but
           | pretty great. Unfortunately it closed somewhere last year I
           | think.
        
           | mgce wrote:
           | Re: downtown Brooklyn: I think Norm's on Adams Street is
           | quite good.
        
           | pzone wrote:
           | I do not get the love for L&B Spumoni Gardens!
           | 
           | My reaction to tasting their food was similar to this:
           | https://youtube.com/shorts/ra72I-5t5D0
           | 
           | Downtown Brooklyn has Norm's and Juliana's. Sadly the whole
           | area is kind of devoid of commercial activity and
           | restaurants.
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | This is why the current restaurant reviews all suck. What I
         | want is:
         | 
         | IMO what do most people do when talking about restaurants,
         | especially in a group? Someone brings up restaurant X and THEN
         | they say "I usually get dish X, but sometimes Y and Z." and
         | then someone ELSE says "nah, don't get X there, go to
         | restaurant A to get that. But I do like the Z they make there",
         | and then someone ELSE has a different opinion like "oh you like
         | X at A, have you tried X at C?".
         | 
         | The thing that's funny is that everyone has these opinions, and
         | often they are pretty strong. Everyone is a critic.
         | 
         | And yet here we are after SquareWhatever and Google reviews and
         | 20 years of faceyspaces and food instragram porn and we still
         | can't get a decent response to some google thing like "best
         | thai duck curry" (my benchmark dish for a thai restaurant,
         | sorry cute ducks, but you are delicious in red curry sauce).
         | 
         | So why isn't there a site that reward people ranking their "top
         | 5 places to get X dish" or top 5 places for cuisine style X",
         | and then you can ask your social network "where should I get
         | duck curry"?
         | 
         | And it tells you something like:
         | 
         | 1) Thai Bistro Bubba (liked by 10 friends: molly peter jason)
         | 2) Sing My Thai (like by 8 friends: blahg blah blah)
         | 
         | Maybe not even need people to have a ranking. Just track who
         | leaves a good review about dish X on restaurant R. Cross ref
         | the style.
         | 
         | Gamification of common dishes/styles shouldn't be that hard.
         | People LIKE reviewing food, and telling people about it.
         | 
         | The economic tiers are a bit hard to do though.
         | 
         | And my frustration with a lot of reviews is that people seem to
         | care about ambience and service a lot more than I do. Ambience
         | is like 5% of an eating experience to me. Service? Well as long
         | as the service is average with respect to demand and staffing,
         | who cares, so maybe 10%. Other 85%? How it tastes (... with
         | respect to how much it cost).
         | 
         | Square was close, but their gamification turned into badges.
         | 
         | And all restaurants are basically 3.5 to 4.5 on google. And
         | places that I KNOW are far different in quality vary by maybe
         | .1 to .2, if it's accurate.
         | 
         | The real tragedy is that the rapacious companies like UberEats
         | and the like that are a pox on the takeout industry have all
         | this info, and they probably won't release it. They have the
         | orders, so they have the popularity, and tons of stuff like who
         | will pay the most to have it delivered the most far.
         | 
         | Anyway, and I would LOVE a filter like "remove chain
         | restaurants" or "show only better than chains". I would love to
         | know if my friends or a trusted group of people had a floor for
         | burritos to not bother if it's worse than Chipotle, which is
         | not an astronomically high bar, but it is a good universal
         | measurement.
         | 
         | Like this guy's data should not be in some one-off site. I've
         | also see an chicago burrito site.
         | 
         | And as others have shown, I don't want a ranking of THE BEST in
         | a city. I want a ranking of "pretty darn good" and a group to
         | choose from.
         | 
         | Restaurants have it so hard. They kind of plop down and hope
         | people come to them, but the people don't know what a
         | restaurant does well. They do "Italian". great. Restaurants
         | might do X better than Y, but the knowledge of that is so
         | limited and fragmented. Open some sub-markets for specific
         | dishes, and it might raise the overall quality of that, kind of
         | like what has happened to the NYC slice of pizza, which is so
         | universal over such a large number of people in an area, that
         | it rose to an art that is well distributed and practiced.
         | 
         | I want that for a LOT of other dishes. Of course it should
         | exist for the burrito, the hamburger. And especially for red
         | duck curry.
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | There is this in Chicago. It's called LTHForum. It's a PHPBB,
           | not a startup with an app. It's a big enough deal that
           | restaurants that get the LTH seal of approval frame it.
        
         | hattmall wrote:
         | Obsessing about the best of any food item is annoying. Food is
         | far too subjective. It's also generally dumb to think one city
         | has a monopoly on a particular food item. I get that there's
         | some obvious regional varieties like gulf shrimp and NYC water.
        
         | asah wrote:
         | meh both are true. The thing is, pizza and bagels and halal
         | course through NYC veins like croissants and baguette in Paris.
         | So there's gonna be discount-pizza and convenience-pizza, but
         | also expensive and artisanal pizza. Often in the same block!
         | 
         | Uniquely to NYC:
         | 
         | - millions of NYers rarely or never cook - melting pot of
         | cultures, driving authenticity and the second generation
         | driving fusion - NYC has a wide range of incomes, driving
         | everything from amazing illegal corner tamales to $1000/pp
         | "experiences" and everything in between - NYC is a destination
         | and people work to live - elsewhere you save-up to move to NYC.
         | You don't "save-up" in NYC to go something else, you just move
         | and stop blowing your money on rent, food, etc. - the food-
         | heavy neighborhoods have an unbelievable number of restaurants.
         | You can cite statistics and even walk the streets, but it's not
         | until you see Google Maps that it really hits you. Let's say
         | you live in LES/EV, you can easily have 500 restaurants in
         | walking distance, with turnover so fast that you can't even eat
         | in all of them, let alone other neighborhoods.
        
       | tomcam wrote:
       | > I did not rate the slices to avoid controversy and bribes.
       | 
       | Whew
        
       | itissid wrote:
       | Guys, The best pizza in NY is in NJ
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/dining/razza-pizza-review...
       | 
       | Dunno why it is not included in this list..
        
         | null_shift wrote:
         | The best pizza in NY is in New Haven.
        
       | dr_ wrote:
       | If you ever get a chance, try to grab a pie from Chrissy's Pizza
       | (no store, made in a home oven in BK, have to follow on insta for
       | when pies can be ordered). For slices, NY Suprema good as well
       | 
       | And some of the best slices can be found across the river in NJ -
       | just travel up Bloomfield Avenue into the Caldwells and there are
       | great slice shops all over.
        
       | _elkue wrote:
       | 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 this thread, and I am very relieved
       | to no longer have to eat bad pizza just to add it to the map.
        
         | ipnon wrote:
         | I am glad to see you like Sunnyside Pizza too. I have had
         | dreams about that place.
        
         | nemo44x wrote:
         | Do you call it a "plain slice" for everyone else? Everyone I
         | know in NYC calls it a "regular slice".
        
           | _elkue wrote:
           | I've always called it a plain slice but I've heard
           | regular/cheese/plain used interchangeably
        
           | astrojams wrote:
           | I grew up in NY and lived in NYC and I still call it a plain
           | slice.
        
       | probablynish wrote:
       | Reading Zvi's taxonomy of pizzas (
       | https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/restaurant-guide-2-p... )
       | was when I realized that NY style pizza is the type I love.
       | Bookmarking this list to go through on a future trip to NYC!
        
         | pzone wrote:
         | This list is a bit idiosyncratic like one guy's personal
         | tastes. A lot of far away inconvenient locations. Personally I
         | would suggest going to the fan favorites like scarr's and
         | L'Industrie instead. Bleecker Street is in the intersection of
         | these strategies
        
       | cactusplant7374 wrote:
       | Any learnings beyond the dollar value?
        
       | morley wrote:
       | Notably absent from this list is L'Industrie in Williamsburg!
        
         | nobody9999 wrote:
         | >Notably absent from this list is L'Industrie in Williamsburg!
         | 
         | As an old guy, I try to avoid Hipster doofus land^W^W^W
         | Williamsburg as much as possible.
         | 
         | YMMV
        
           | hacker_newz wrote:
           | You're about a decade behind in neighborhood stereotypes
           | there boomer.
        
             | freejazz wrote:
             | True, we should ignore williamsburg because it's basically
             | just hoboken now
        
             | nobody9999 wrote:
             | I'm not a boomer, but fuck you very much for saying so.
             | 
             | I say that not to be mean, but "boomer" has become a slur
             | and I prefer not to be insulted _unless_ it 's actually
             | accurate.
             | 
             | I have been in Hipster doofus land[0] in the past few years
             | and most of what I experienced reinforced my stance.
             | 
             | I will continue to try to avoid it.
             | 
             | [0] I'd love to say I made that nickname up, but I didn't.
             | Works for me though.
             | 
             | Edit: Touched on the source of a wonderful moniker.
        
               | elteto wrote:
               | You complain about being called boomer while
               | simultaneously reducing an entire neighborhood to
               | "hipster doofus land". That's some real boomer stuff.
        
               | nobody9999 wrote:
               | One is an objective thing (boomers are those born between
               | 1945 and 1962) and the other is subjective (Williamsburg,
               | Billyburg, Hipster Doofus Land) labeling.
               | 
               | The first isn't the case (I was born _after_ 1962) and
               | the second is a matter of opinion.[0]
               | 
               | But please. Do continue to pile on. I don't want to take
               | away one of your few pleasures in life.
               | 
               | Toodles!
               | 
               | [0] Here's another one for you: If you can't put New
               | York, NY after your address, you don't live in New
               | York.[1] Have at that one too, friend.
               | 
               | [1] As a NYC native, I note that I've lived in every
               | borough except Stagnant Island (for obvious reasons) over
               | the past 50+ years. As such (no Dunning-Kruger[2] effect
               | necessary, can you make such a statement?), I am entitled
               | to make such pronouncements.
               | 
               | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_
               | effect
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | 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... )
        
         | sometalk wrote:
         | Man, I loved Hi-Fi. Don't get me wrong, I love Clover, but Hi-
         | Fi was special. Their mozzarella sticks used to have south
         | asian spices sprinkled, and to me it was the the best of the
         | east and the west. So many late nights were thawed by that
         | place.
         | 
         | FWIW, I think Mary Chung wanted to retire and be done with it.
        
           | neilv wrote:
           | One time, I was picking up rare takeout at Mary Chung, and I
           | somewhat excitedly asked the older woman at the register,
           | "Are you Mary Chung?" She smiled and said, "Yes, we are." :)
        
       | dkdbejwi383 wrote:
       | Curious how the dollar slices added up to a non-whole dollar
       | amount. The name would imply that a dollar slice is $1. Is $.99
       | also considered a dollar slice?
        
         | cammikebrown wrote:
         | Only with last year's inflation did dollar slices become more
         | expensive. They were $1 for a long, long time.
        
           | staringback wrote:
           | Still $1 if you know where to go
        
         | jb1991 wrote:
         | Most prices in the states are a nice round number minus one.
        
         | trynewideas wrote:
         | Only three of the 464 slices actually cost $1:
         | 
         | Rony's Fresh Pizza, Sep 15th 2022, 6:23:16 pm
         | 
         | Papa John's Pizza, Jun 14th 2021, 1:22:59 pm
         | 
         | Pizza Market, May 21st 2021, 6:00:57 pm
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | cammikebrown wrote:
       | Looks like the correlation between the cost of a slice and a
       | subway fare has decoupled.
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Principle
        
       | hardwaregeek wrote:
       | 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 damn high. You
       | don't get a lot of overly doughy, bad cheese, bad sauce BS unless
       | you frequent dollar slice shops.
        
         | freejazz wrote:
         | Those are all tourist spots. The list in the link is way better
         | because it consists of outer borough spots.
        
           | mgce wrote:
           | They're perfectly legitimate spots. F&F is superior to nearly
           | any place in the city, L'Industrie is fine. The others are
           | also fine. Yes they're touristy, but so what?
           | 
           | Outer-borough superiority is a myth. Most local outer-borough
           | places are simply bad. This includes all the usual suspect
           | neighborhoods: Belmont, Pelham Bay, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst,
           | most of Staten Island, etc. The good places are the exception
           | in the outer boroughs, just as they are in Manhattan.
           | 
           | The link's list looks decent to me but it's not because of
           | the geography.
        
             | freejazz wrote:
             | I didn't say they were illegitimate. They are certainly
             | pizza spots. Acting like it's not a good list because the
             | poster didn't go to the top 5 most famous tourist traps for
             | pizza is just indicating more on your part.
             | 
             | >"Outer-borough superiority is a myth. Most local outer-
             | borough places are simply bad. This includes all the usual
             | suspect neighborhoods: Belmont, Pelham Bay, Bay Ridge,
             | Bensonhurst, most of Staten Island, etc. The good places
             | are the exception in the outer boroughs, just as they are
             | in Manhattan."
             | 
             | I didn't say all the places in the outer-boroughs were
             | inherently better. I said a list where the individual
             | actually went to the outer-boroughs is more qualified in my
             | opinion. I don't really care what someone thinks about
             | pizza if they just went to the top 5 places that they saw
             | on instagram. I also don't really care about your opinion
             | on pizza too. Oh you went to pelham bay and didn't get a
             | good slice at the joint you chose? Seems more like a you
             | problem. Maybe make some friends, talk to the locals. I
             | grew up in an outer-borough and I know the good spots in my
             | neighborhood and the bad. Seems like you have difficulty
             | navigating these things. Sorry about that.
        
         | misiti3780 wrote:
         | No Fini and No Razza (NJ)
         | 
         | L'Industrie is the best ny slice in NYC (possibly the world?)
         | as of 2023 IMO
        
           | singhrac wrote:
           | I lived above L'Industrie for a year in 2018-2019, and I
           | would say that it's very, very good. However, it's possible
           | that Emmy Squared is just as good (can highly recommend
           | Mama's Too as GP mentioned).
           | 
           | I'm almost reluctant to share these recommendations online
           | because then those places will become even more crowded, but
           | maybe they will instead expand their businesses and bring
           | their business even closer to me now. One can hope.
        
           | mtalantikite wrote:
           | I live close to l'industrie and am both happy for massimo and
           | bummed for myself that it's gotten so popular. I miss being
           | able to get a slice without waiting in line for a super long
           | time, but I agree, maybe the top slice in the city.
        
         | trynewideas wrote:
         | They got two from Papa John's and one from Wegmans! The quality
         | bar is all over the place.
        
         | el_nahual wrote:
         | Mama's Too has delicious toppings but is overall an oily mess
         | (Detroit style?).
         | 
         | Mama's Pizza two blocks away on Amsterdam & 107th is run by the
         | parents of the guy that runs Mama's Too and is a traditional
         | NYC slice, and delicious.
        
           | hardwaregeek wrote:
           | I really love the plain round slice. The square can be a
           | little greasy (but I see it as more a once in a while treat)
           | but the round is a perfect modern neopolitan/new york hybrid.
        
         | lelandfe wrote:
         | Prince is on there! It's a remarkable slice but the lines are
         | frequently insane.
         | 
         | L'Industrie is damn good. Highly recommend Action Bronson's
         | Fuck That's Delicious episode there:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOQUUyCRtiE
        
           | kepoly wrote:
           | Chefs night out on munchies just did a good episode with them
           | too https://youtu.be/boqYh-mrVW0
        
         | valarauko wrote:
         | > 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.
        
           | nemo44x wrote:
           | When you're drunk and just want something quick, hard to
           | beat.
        
             | valarauko wrote:
             | As someone who lives in the outer edge of an Outer Borough,
             | my experience is somewhat different - most slice places
             | close fairly early (10 pm on average in my area, slightly
             | later on weekends) and long before bars do. As a
             | consequence, my go-to when out and about is a chopped
             | cheese from the local deli/bodega.
        
       | logicallee wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | freejazz wrote:
         | That looks like shit pizza. It's a freaking loaf of bread. The
         | dough isn't supposed to bake like that...
        
         | wefarrell wrote:
         | That's not really a typical NYC slice to be honest. The crust
         | looks nonexistent, the dough is thicker and it doesn't look as
         | cheesy.
        
           | logicallee wrote:
           | True but it was delicious.
        
         | barbazoo wrote:
         | I'd take a veggie one but damn that looks good.
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | > This calculation excludes dollar slices.
       | 
       | So, they only counted data from places where the price has gone
       | up and concluded that...the price has gone up.
        
         | none_to_remain wrote:
         | A dollar slice and a regular slice are related things but
         | definitely different categories
        
         | freejazz wrote:
         | Dollar slices aren't actual pizza, it's a pizza-like product
        
         | czinck wrote:
         | Dollar slices aren't just a slice of pizza for a dollar,
         | they're a different business model focusing on just sheer
         | volume. Joe's has at least 3 employees (cashier, guy taking
         | your order and reheating the slice, and guy making the pizzas),
         | plus prep people in the back, and 4+ different pies, and 20+
         | seats. The dollar place I go to has 2 guys, they don't reheat
         | it, any toppings are just added onto your slice not actually
         | cooked into the pie, no seats. I'm ignoring differences in
         | quality/quantity of ingredients because I've had some great
         | dollar slices, but also some abysmal ones.
         | 
         | That said, a lot of dollar slices are now $1.50.
        
         | pastor_bob wrote:
         | Dollar slice is a dollar for a reason. Barely any cheese or
         | sauce.
        
       | StanislavPetrov wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | bluedino wrote:
       | Since the pandemic, large pizzas have all gone up to $11 from the
       | chains, so I have just started buying $4/5 frozen pizzas (coupon
       | or on sale), or the $6 take home and bake pizza from the grocery
       | store deli.
        
       | wahnfrieden wrote:
       | is the new lucali slice any good?
        
       | rcme wrote:
       | Many who grow up in the NY area grow up on pizza. In childhood,
       | it's often eaten as a quick meal that doesn't require cooking. In
       | adolescence, pizza is one of the only foods you can afford to eat
       | out with your friends after school. In college, there's nothing
       | like a drunken slice of pizza at 1 am. It's hard to overstate
       | what a satisfying comfort food pizza is. There's truly nothing
       | like it.
        
         | jnsie wrote:
         | I agree and would compare it to chips (French Fries) from a
         | chipper in western europe. Grew up on the stuff and a bag of
         | chips was affordable after school, was cheap when in college,
         | and food from a chipper is a relatively cheap and delicious
         | dinner option. I live in the US now and it's funny that I've
         | not come across chips as a standalone meal, except in Irish/UK
         | expat communities.
        
           | ido wrote:
           | Or sausages in central Europe!
        
         | MuffinFlavored wrote:
         | > Many who grow up in the NY area grow up on pizza.
         | 
         | Average pizza slice that we're discussing is according to
         | https://www.nutritionix.com/i/nutritionix/new-york-style-piz...
         | 500+ calories, lots of saturated fat, lots of sodium.
         | 
         | How healthy is it to grow up on pizza?
        
           | kaesar14 wrote:
           | Grow up on can mean a lot of things here, I and many other
           | New Yorkers would take it to mean the food that has the most
           | significance in our memories. Its not about eating this stuff
           | every day, it's about the food we cherish.
        
           | lotsofpulp wrote:
           | >How healthy is it to grow up on pizza?
           | 
           | See USA statistics for obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and
           | heart disease.
        
             | moloch-hai wrote:
             | That you can blame on sugar in everything. Even what was
             | blamed on saturated fat turns out to be caused by sugar and
             | trans fat ("hydrogenated vegetable oil", now more-or-less
             | banned, with certain disgraceful exceptions).
             | 
             | Pizza is relatively benign.
        
               | lotsofpulp wrote:
               | The dough is all carbs, which causes the same problem as
               | sugar, and I am sure many places use sugar in their
               | sauce. Unless you are doing a lot of cardio, a slice of
               | cheese pizza is pretty void of nutrition.
        
         | astrojams wrote:
         | As a person who also grew up in NY, the slice was part of my
         | childhood. I'd walk home from middle school and then high
         | school and pass the local pizzeria where I could pick up a
         | slice, Italian ice, and play coin operated video games. Galaga,
         | Donkey Kong, and Pacman. I miss those carefree days where the
         | world was simpler and the pizza tasted better.
        
         | dieselgate wrote:
         | I, personally, occasionally miss choking on the super stringy
         | cheese of bowling alley pizza of elementary school era birthday
         | parties. Do not miss drunken pizza of college as much.. Now
         | it's just mostly costco frozen 5-pack
        
         | kasey_junk wrote:
         | That's not just NY. I suspect it's basically all of the US.
        
           | micromacrofoot wrote:
           | 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 but there are a lot of actual
           | differences.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | null_shift wrote:
             | New Haven CT has the best pizza in the US (and arguably the
             | world)
        
               | avisser wrote:
               | Yeah, this guy needs to visit Wooster St stat.
               | 
               | Also, my fave place after living in New Haven for a year
               | was technically in West Haven (Zuppardi's) but that's
               | splitting hairs.
        
           | acchow wrote:
           | In Californian cities, we mostly eat tacos instead of pizza.
        
           | yamtaddle wrote:
           | The Ninja Turtles got this picky-eater-as-a-child fella to
           | give it a fair shake. Was my undisputed favorite type of food
           | for like 15 years straight (when I started trying more things
           | and discovered Middle Eastern and Indian food).
           | 
           | And that's out in a part of the country with mostly-bad pizza
           | options. Nothing half as good as a so-so NY slice, certainly.
        
           | adamdusty wrote:
           | In the southwest it's tacos instead of pizza, in my
           | experience.
        
           | cammikebrown wrote:
           | Nowhere in the US is a slice as consistently affordable and
           | ubiquitous as NYC.
        
           | o_____________o wrote:
           | 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
           | Prince Street).
        
             | noduerme wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | Grazester wrote:
               | I see you did not go to college on a tight budget.
        
               | noduerme wrote:
               | Egg and bacon / egg and sausage were like $2 when I was
               | there in the 90s. And they were about twice the diameter
               | of the ones you get at McDonalds. I don't know what it
               | costs now, maybe this is something like avocado toast
               | that's become anomalously expensive, but calorie for
               | calorie it was as cheap or cheaper than pizza back then.
               | They could be bought from most bodegas that had a stove,
               | as the peer points out. (The LA equivalent of this type
               | of bodega was the "roach coach" - distinguished from
               | modern food trucks by (a) an apparent lack of formal
               | licensing, (b) presence of construction workers eating
               | there, and (c) charging about 30% the price for the same
               | items. The breakfast burrito, however, had not yet
               | migrated to the East Coast).
        
               | count wrote:
               | $2 vs. a $1 slice...is twice the expense :)
        
               | noduerme wrote:
               | > but calorie for calorie
        
               | ahoho wrote:
               | Eh, not so long ago you used to be able to get a decent
               | bacon egg and cheese from a bodega for $3
        
               | Spooky23 wrote:
               | What? I had a place that was $3 with a soda!
        
       | terran57 wrote:
       | 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 volume. I can attest that it's
       | great when you're in a hurry and just want to get something in
       | your system. For quality pizza slices, well, you're just going to
       | have to pay $3-$5 for a slice nowadays ($1 or more for toppings).
        
         | wahnfrieden wrote:
         | artichoke dough is way too thick. probably adds to the cost for
         | no good reason, maybe because it's easier to bake
         | consistently...
        
       | greenhearth wrote:
       | Artichoke is gross. How do people like it, I will never
       | understand.
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | It's open super late and when you're drunk after going to a
         | nearby club at 2:30am it hits the spot like few other slices do
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | scoofy wrote:
       | I used to live above Best Pizza (Williamsburg) and lived there
       | when they opened. In my opinion, the best heuristic for good
       | pizza is just the quality of tomatoes they use. San Marzano or
       | Roma for the east coast, but on the west coast you have a ton of
       | local options. I'm not saying you can't have good pizza from
       | processed tomato sauce, I'm just saying that a place that cares
       | about the quality of tomatoes also cares about the quality of
       | their pizza.
       | 
       | A lot of quick order places will just have the cans visible. A
       | great way to experiment with pizza is to just experiment with
       | local tomatoes. I never wanted to become a pizza snob, but living
       | on top of one of the most quality pizza joints in town and
       | knowing the guys there and their favorite spots... well... now i
       | am.
       | 
       | Here's a basic recipe from Frank. Anyone can make extremely high
       | quality pizza at home by following his advice:
       | https://youtu.be/whnvQBhXh3A
       | 
       | The funniest thing that happened there was probably when this
       | interested guy was asking 'the locals' how we liked it, and what
       | was popular... we found out a week later that he was very
       | probably this NYT food reviewer:
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/reviews/09under.ht...
        
         | areyousure wrote:
         | Why can't you buy the same canned San Marzano tomatoes
         | anywhere?
        
         | wahnfrieden wrote:
         | the other nyc frank has good pizza advice on his instagram
         | sometimes, on youtube anyway you can see his limone at least
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPVwdEmkco
         | 
         | i also lived around the corner from best pizza from their first
         | year and frequented there. (though my true love was saltie.)
         | sometimes frank experimented with the dough/bake method and
         | asked what i thought, friendly people. i love their sicilian.
         | rip bill
        
           | scoofy wrote:
           | >rip bill
           | 
           | Uff... yea. I think Bill and I might have been the two
           | biggest bike nerds in the neighborhood. I always wanted to
           | join him on RAGBRAI. Sadly, I waited too long.
        
       | Grazester wrote:
       | There was a Papa John's in Bay Ridge that sold $1 slices in 2009.
       | It was just a cheese slice but I enjoyed it.
       | 
       | I do not enjoy Costco pizza and I enjoy more pizzas than I
       | probably should.
        
       | eugenekolo wrote:
       | Anecdotally, I've felt the same way. Didn't properly record it..
       | but, slices these days in NYC (and outside) are definitely
       | lacking in sauce lately. Some places even feel like they're
       | cutting on salt and oil too.
       | 
       | I will add that the quality also highly depends on when you go.
       | Generally, the busier it is, the worse the quality.
       | 
       | The author states that Joe's is one of the better ones, but I
       | think the quality has gone down too. I was there in 2014, 2017,
       | and 2022. Digging up my photos to review the sauce amounts, but I
       | felt 2022 was very lackluster to previous memories.
        
       | sacnoradhq wrote:
       | Cheese is the most expensive ingredient, and labor the most
       | expensive cost of delivery.
       | 
       | Do NYC "dollar" slices skimp on cheese in quantity and/or
       | quality?
        
         | moloch-hai wrote:
         | On everything.
        
       | skizm wrote:
       | Maybe unpopular opinion: NJ has better pizza on average, although
       | you can find better pizza in NYC if you're looking for something
       | specific. Just my opinion obviously.
        
         | boring_twenties wrote:
         | Yep, because all the Italians moved there.
        
         | shostack wrote:
         | Chicagoan here. It's cute to watch y'all compare that thing you
         | refer to as pizza.
        
           | Turing_Machine wrote:
           | Not a native Chicagoan here, but lived in the area for quite
           | a while.
           | 
           | Chicago has not one but _three_ distinct styles of pizza, the
           | deep-dish which many think of as  "Chicago style", the thin-
           | crust with a relatively thin (compared to deep-dish, anyway)
           | layer of sauce, cheese, and meats, and the square-cut tavern
           | style.
           | 
           | All three are superior to anything the East Coast has to
           | offer, IMO.
        
             | wa2flq wrote:
             | The deep-dish is really a cheese pie and has nothing to do
             | with pizza. The thin crust has the texture of the local
             | newspapers. Square cut is only found in taverns and has
             | been cooking all day in such.
             | 
             | The good NYC pizzas are heaven compared to anything Chicago
             | offers.
        
             | moloch-hai wrote:
             | But are not, when you get right down to it, pizza at all.
        
         | 535188B17C93743 wrote:
         | this seems like a relatively popular opinion around new york to
         | people who actually live in the city.
        
       | geephroh wrote:
       | This represents what social media should really be about. I
       | salute you, Liam.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | enjo wrote:
       | I can't turn up my spreadsheet just this second but I did
       | something similar when I worked in Manhattan. I did 54 slices. My
       | big takeway was that I really don't like Joes and that I will die
       | on the hill that Pizzeria Suprema, despite being touristy , is
       | the best slice that I've had in Manhattan.
        
       | sebastian_z wrote:
       | I have nice memories of Koronet. When studying late at night you
       | could get a jumbo slice that substituted for a whole meal.
        
       | billiam wrote:
       | 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 it.
        
         | rcme wrote:
         | 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. All the places that typically top
         | people's list, like Joe's Pizza, Prince St. Pizza, Bleecker
         | St., etc., are all very mid. You can get an equally good slice
         | as those big names in almost any neighborhood.
        
           | Grazester wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | freejazz wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | pzone wrote:
               | It didn't always have the lines. Especially post pandemic
               | the calculus is different. Still a damn good slice worth
               | trying at least once.
        
               | freejazz wrote:
               | I tried it because I worked around there and it was
               | before it went viral. There's no need to travel across
               | the city to try a "slice". When I'm in a neighborhood
               | that has a good spot, I'll stop through. There's nothing
               | about Prince st that requires it being tried unless you
               | want to participate in the trend. It's just a basic pizza
               | place that went viral because they put a stupid amount of
               | cupping pepperoni on their slices. It's really got
               | nothing to do with what I'd call my conception or
               | experience of pizza as a lifelong New Yorker.
        
               | aqme28 wrote:
               | It's a great pepperoni, but there's no way I'd queue to
               | eat one.
        
           | pzone wrote:
           | I disagree. Here in Prospect Heights the pizza is a solid
           | notch below than Prince St or Bleecker St and I think it is
           | worth making a pit stop to get a slice at those places.
           | Restaurants like L'Industrie are worth a whole trip on their
           | own to visit.
        
           | 1980phipsi wrote:
           | Joe's was my local pizza place. Then I moved. It's still my
           | local pizza place.
        
             | john_cogs wrote:
             | If I'm in the neighborhood and feel even slightly hungry,
             | I'm stopping at Joe's.
        
           | mgce wrote:
           | I travel well outside my neighborhood for standard slices
           | regularly and I've never felt it's a waste of time.
           | 
           | But maybe an out-of-towner feeling they need to find the
           | perfect slice is a different perspective than mine as a
           | local. I know what I want out of the places I seek out and
           | I'm comfortable with whatever extra time investment that
           | requires.
        
         | dclowd9901 wrote:
         | They're not hunting for the "best slice" because they want the
         | best slice -- they just want a story to tell. Most people can't
         | tell the difference between good and ok food.
        
         | ericcholis wrote:
         | Similarly, you could do the same thing on the other end of the
         | state in Buffalo, NY. Hard to find a truly disappointing slice.
         | What you will find, however, is a variety in "style" of pizza.
         | They all live somewhere in the neighborhood of 80/20 NY/Chicago
         | style. Easy to find a nice thin slice, but plenty of thicker
         | doughier options. Never so far as a full deep-dish.
        
           | ethbr0 wrote:
           | Cleveland had some really cool hybrid pizza. Rascal House!
        
           | Spooky23 wrote:
           | Of course in Buffalo you'd skip the slice and go to Duff's.
        
             | busterarm wrote:
             | Only Buffalonians are proud of Duff's and Mighty Taco.
             | Everyone else thinks they suck. Jim's Steak Out I will give
             | you though.
             | 
             | Buffalo HAS GOOD PIZZA! It's called Santora's.
        
         | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
         | I would not make such a claim. Outside of lunchtime it's hard
         | to find a shop with a decent slice that hasn't been sitting for
         | too long. Even then, lots are mediocre some, if not all of the
         | time. You will find yourself constantly browsing the case for
         | the least crappy pizza because the one you really want isn't
         | going to be good.
        
         | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
         | That's because most of us have good pizza joints back home too,
         | and we want to find out whether NY's famous pizza outdoes the
         | places we like at home. We're usually only visiting for a short
         | time and can't try six different pizza places unless we're
         | going to eat nothing but pizza on our trip. And the best place
         | often isn't the famous place. So it's worth it to us to put in
         | the effort to search, while a local might not care as much
         | where they get their pizza.
        
         | DonHopkins wrote:
         | And I love all the fresh bagel shops too!
        
         | robbyking wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | craftkiller wrote:
         | > First; you will be impressed how close you are to a pizza
         | spot wherever you are. Second: you will be impressed with the
         | slice
         | 
         | Unless you're in Bed Stuy. Most of the pizza here isn't worth
         | the cardboard it comes in.
        
           | edavison1 wrote:
           | This is absolute Seraghina slander. Maybe it's not Ops
           | quality, but definitely better than Barboncino and one of the
           | greats in the Roberta's-style lineage.
        
             | pzone wrote:
             | One good place in a whole neighborhood doesn't change this!
             | New York is plagued with bad pizza in the outer residential
             | areas. The median pizza place in Bed-Stuy is not good.
        
         | LarryMullins wrote:
         | Like out-of-towners asking which cheese steak shop in Philly is
         | the best. The best is whichever corner shop is closest to you.
         | If you're local and eat cheese steaks often, you don't drive
         | all the way across the city to get such a lunch. You walk one
         | or two blocks whichever shop you're near. But visitors want to
         | experience the best, not experience it as a local would.
        
         | skrtskrt wrote:
         | exactly how it works with Los Angeles taco trucks
         | 
         | if you're lucky you have 3-5 in a few block radius, and the
         | "best taco truck in LA" is your favorite out of those
        
         | aqme28 wrote:
         | True with traveling generally. The best Thai food I had wasn't
         | at the "best Thai food" place in Bangkok, it was on a
         | streetcorner. The best kebab I've had in Berlin wasn't at
         | Ruya's, it's my local guy.
        
         | awhitty wrote:
         | 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 remarkable thing is that nearly everywhere
         | you shop, you'll find a really, really good one. I live near
         | Arsicault in SF, and though they might make the BEST croissant
         | in the US (and I will probably live a shorter life due to the
         | number of them I put in my body every week), I'd trade that for
         | a really good croissant on every corner.
         | 
         | I think it reflects having shared cultural values around the
         | food and a knowledge in the community of what makes the food
         | great both in terms of inputs and outputs, and I hope we never
         | stop valuing good pizza!!
        
           | pnf wrote:
           | I've spent a lot of time in Paris and NYC but have found it
           | very hard to find a randomly good croissant; less so a
           | randomly good slice. I've tried many of the foodie favorites
           | for both and been largely unimpressed. There have a few truly
           | excellent. Maybe they ruined me for others.
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | 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.
        
           | oreilles wrote:
           | Finding a decent croissant is fairly easy in Paris, but if
           | you've ever tasted an actually _good_ croissant, buttery but
           | not sickening, airy but not empty, crispy but not dry, you
           | know how incredibly difficult to find those are.
        
           | cammikebrown wrote:
           | Arsicault is also about three times the price of a croissant
           | in Paris
        
             | lifeisstillgood wrote:
             | Everything in SF is about three times the price of Paris
             | ...
        
           | TechnicolorByte wrote:
           | While we're on the topic, any recommended pizza places in SF?
        
           | neilv wrote:
           | Has any NYC bagel aficionado living in Boston tried
           | Bagelsaurus? (In Porter Square, on Mass. Ave.)
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xup2Lcd4Ers
        
             | pzone wrote:
             | I used to live near Bagelsaurus and it is better than any
             | bagel I can get in my Brooklyn neighborhood now.
             | 
             | Dragon Pizza there similarly high quality.
        
             | bradleyjg wrote:
             | Not Boston's but I've had a ton of "you have to try this
             | one bagel shop in town, it's just like New York!"
             | 
             | Generally speaking they've been decent enough bagels, but
             | the shops don't have the turnover to be able to ask "what's
             | hot?" and get a reasonable answer.
             | 
             | Also, the appetizing game tends to be pretty weak.
             | Occasionally a shop will fly in Acme, which is admittedly
             | impressive, but it tends to only be nova. I'm hard pressed
             | to find herring in cream sauce, whitefish salad, or belly
             | lox outside of the tristate area.
        
             | obrajesse wrote:
             | Have they relented on only offering cold-smoked salmon yet?
        
         | thaumasiotes wrote:
         | > Native New Yorker here. Out of towners are obsessed with the
         | BEST slice
         | 
         | I visited New York and ate at a pizza place+ that advertised,
         | if I recall correctly, their second-best rating according to
         | someone who had made it their mission to sample and rate every
         | pizza place in New York. (It couldn't have been this guy, since
         | he says he started in 2014.)
         | 
         | The pizza was subpar. Why would I be interested in what someone
         | in New York thinks makes a good pizza? I want pizza that _I_
         | like, not pizza that some random guy from a different pizza
         | culture likes.
         | 
         | + Not for the rating; I ate there because it was next to my
         | hotel.
        
       | tz18 wrote:
       | Pizza is 3USD a slice in NY?!??!?!?
        
         | valarauko wrote:
         | Yup, that's pretty par for the course at most places that sell
         | by the slice. Dollar slice places now mostly charge $1.25-$1.50
         | for a plain cheese slice.
        
         | ProAm wrote:
         | Are you saying that is expensive or inexpensive? Avg's to 18
         | bucks a pie, which for cheese seems about right for NYC
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | barbazoo wrote:
       | That one slice in Boston though
        
       | Justsignedup wrote:
       | fascinating. this site crashes firefox.
        
         | usefulcat wrote:
         | Works fine here, FF 108.0.2 on MacOS 12.6.1, Apple silicon
        
         | mattmoose21 wrote:
         | same here.
        
         | babypuncher wrote:
         | I'm having no trouble with Firefox 108 on Fedora
        
         | jffry wrote:
         | I can't remember the last time I saw Firefox hard crash to
         | desktop like this, instead of the individual content tab dying.
         | Impressive!
        
         | ksherlock wrote:
         | and MacOS Safari.
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | latest firefox running on windows 10.
         | 
         | I have a bunch of addons and some of them block scripts. No
         | crash.
        
         | acdha wrote:
         | Do you have some kind of extension like an ad blocker? It's
         | fine in Firefox and Safari on a clean install so I'm wondering
         | whether there might be some issues related to how large the
         | page is or possibly a video driver problem.
        
           | MajimasEyepatch wrote:
           | It crashes for me on macOS. I have a couple of password
           | manager extensions and React Developer Tools installed. I
           | would not be surprised if it's LastPass.
           | 
           | Edit: Interestingly, Chrome flashes a couple of times too
           | when I scroll down to the section of the page with the Carto
           | map plugin. I can see when I inspect the DOM that there's
           | supposed to be an iframe there, but it looks Chrome is just
           | killing the iframe rather than crashing to desktop.
           | 
           | Safari hangs but does not crash when it gets to Carto. So
           | something is screwy with that map plugin.
        
       | ptaffs wrote:
       | Blogger and now author about the experience did something
       | similar, reviewing pizza slices in NY, 2009-2011
       | http://www.sliceharvester.com/
       | https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Slice-Harvester/Colin...
        
         | wefarrell wrote:
         | I found my favorite pizza places through him, I really liked
         | his taste. Unfortunately a lot of the places on that list have
         | either closed down or changed.
        
       | wallstprog wrote:
       | There's not much that Staten Island has to brag about, but pizza
       | is one of those things, and SI is very much under-represented
       | here.
        
       | babypuncher wrote:
       | I find the perceived sensitivity to food pricing, especially in
       | high income areas like NYC, interesting.
       | 
       | The author points out that in 8 years, the average cost of a
       | slice of pizza has hardly moved, but the amount of sauce on them
       | has been reduced as a cost cutting measure.
       | 
       | Would a pizza place really see reduced traffic if they kept the
       | same recipe and raised their price another $0.55 to compensate
       | for inflation?
        
         | pandama wrote:
         | High income but also high competition.
        
           | babypuncher wrote:
           | I get that it's high competition, but once the price
           | difference between two slices of pizza is a few coins it
           | stops being a deciding factor for me.
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | I stopped eating out almost entirely because throughout the
         | 2010s, I feel like the probability of receiving an acceptable
         | quality meal kept declining.
         | 
         | I would much rather pay $25 (or more) per meal that is good 99%
         | of the time than pay $15 for a meal that is good 80% or 60% or
         | 40% of the time.
         | 
         | Obviously, I am sure restaurant operators know their business,
         | and maybe it just is not economical for prepared food to be
         | good 99% of the time at a price that sufficient sales can be
         | made.
        
       | skrebbel wrote:
       | I love how even in a city like NYC, there's a restaurant called
       | "Pizza Italia". I mean it doesn't get more small-towny than that
       | does it?
        
       | chubot wrote:
       | I lived in Manhattan for the last year, and lived within train
       | distance as a child, and it's pretty striking how much changing
       | economics affect what you can get.
       | 
       | Notice that all the slices are plain CHEESE or some variant of it
       | (you can get it with no sauce, or no cheese too!)
       | 
       | I can't get a mushroom or veggie slice anymore at so many places?
       | Feels like a recipe for malnutrition and weight gain.
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | Nowhere on that page do I see "inflation-adjusted" price.
       | 
       | That could be _overall_ inflation, which would cover rent, wages,
       | utilities, taxes, etc.
       | 
       | The prices of tomatoes, flour, mozzarella, etc. would be even
       | more relevant.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-11 23:00 UTC)