[HN Gopher] NYC Slice
___________________________________________________________________
NYC Slice
Author : mbil
Score : 655 points
Date : 2023-01-11 19:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (elkue.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (elkue.com)
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| abruzzi wrote:
| I actually prefer my pizza with less sauce, or preferably white
| pizza (I know, sacrilege) either the garlic butter variant or the
| ricotta variant. I've never had pizza in NYC, but favorites have
| always been Rizzo's and Roman Delight in the northern Philly
| suburbs. Both great places that I've eaten at hundreds of times.
| I'm sure NYC has good pizza, but Philadelphia is no slouch.
| 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.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Like Jewish Delis, ethnic Italians are exiting the
| business and selling the local shops._
|
| that was the problem a generation ago. The new problem is
| that very few customers now know what good pizza should/could
| taste like, they're not very "Italian" any more either.
| tyingq wrote:
| Maybe regional, but most of the mom & pop pizza shop
| families around me are Albanian. The pizza is great.
| 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.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I struggle to imagine a savory food that can't be
| improved with more MSG and oregano.
| silisili wrote:
| I felt the same way. When I was in my early 20's, little
| caesers had $5 pizzas, so of course Dominos did $4
| pizzas. One topping, large. Believe it or not, both were
| decent. No, nothing compared to NY slices or what have
| you, but good enough.
|
| I tried Dominos after the 'realignment' and found it much
| worse than I remembered. But, it could be I hadn't eaten
| there in a few years prior...maybe it went from good, to
| bad, to ok in that timespan?
| 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
| [deleted]
| 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.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Imho, crust on pizza is like rice in sushi: greatness
| starts there.
|
| Sauce >> crust >> cheese >> toppings
| [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.
| splistud wrote:
| [dead]
| 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.
| alar44 wrote:
| It's absolutely inedible the next day as well. Next day
| cold pizza for breakfast is the shit, but Little Caesars
| turns into cardboard and slime.
| 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.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I'm not referring to that. I'm referring to things like
| "what's the best pho" or pizza or pupusa or ramen
|
| I do think as a chef learning haute cuisine is learning
| useful things about cooking and what makes some bread
| better than other bread, and what consistency a sauce
| should have and how to achieve it.
| 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
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Hey me too! I love Iain Banks, and geek out over some
| Stanislaw Lem but also enjoy the crappy book one of
| twelve kindle unlimited shitty space operas.
|
| Unedited tosh most of it but it does a job !
| alar44 wrote:
| No, the ideal place is knowing when pizza is bad and not
| getting bad pizza.
| 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
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I don't know. I make my own espresso drink every morning
| with locally roasted beans, but about twice a month I got
| to a cheap diner for breakfast and slurp down 3 cups of
| their black coffee with a smile on my face.
| 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.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Costco pizzas fill that niche for me. Ton of food for $10,
| somewhat better than Little Caesers, and until cost cutting
| measures during the pandemic, a very passable combo pizza.
| 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)?
| fsckboy wrote:
| this is not a direct answer to your question, but cheese
| quality varies more than tomato quality, and NYC pizza in the
| inexpensive tier already switched to it's-not-really-cheese a
| few decades ago, so there is little room for saving except by
| withholding. Possibly customers want the very visible cheese-
| like product more than they want the sauce so scrimping on
| the cheese would turn more customers away?
| [deleted]
| MisterTea wrote:
| > 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.
|
| 100% their pizza has changed from the 90's. There is a single
| location in Gettysburg that I ate at twice and LOVE it - Tommys
| Pizza on Steinwehr Ave. They even have the textured red plastic
| soda "glasses" that Pizza Hut used. Solid old school Pizza Hut.
| 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.
| kortilla wrote:
| "A grilled cheese recipe is just a recipe for toast with
| some differences."
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Yes and if you've had a Pizza Hut pan pizza it tastes just
| like a buttery focaccia bread smothered in cheese and
| sauce.
|
| The ATK recipe at 400 degrees works because you cook it on
| the very bottom rack right next to the heating element.
| Then when it's done you cook it longer on your range at
| medium heat to really crisp the crust--it's in a cast iron
| pan after all. You can get the crust as toasty as you want.
| 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
| alarge wrote:
| There is no way that New York style pizza can be compared
| to Focaccia. They have almost nothing in common. Now that
| Chicago thing, maybe. But as far as I'm concerned, that's
| not pizza.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| No one said this was NY style. The original comment was
| lamenting that Pizza Hut pan pizza doesn't taste as good
| as it did in the 80s and 90s. I pointed out recipes that
| directly mimic that classic pan pizza style. Pizza Hut is
| not and has never claimed to be New York style pizza.
| It's an entirely different style that's neither New York
| nor Chicago style. It's closest to Detroit style pizza.
| atonse wrote:
| Love it. Pizza Hut slices also worked well for eating
| with a fork and knife cuz they were thick and crunchy.
|
| Been meaning to try Kenji's pan pizza recipe. Thanks for
| jogging my memory.
| 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!
| ilyt wrote:
| Pizza by ingredients is just flour, water, salt, yeast.
| All the details and differences are in hydration and how
| it is mixed/kneaded/baked. It really is the definition of
| "the devil is in the details".
| trynewideas wrote:
| So does the Pizza Hut-alike recipe, but I didn't expect
| the actual recipe there to literally be a drier focaccia.
| graycat wrote:
| As at times I got told: "Cruel. So cruel. How could you be
| SOOOO cruel?"
|
| Ah, come ON: You no doubt know more about pizza than she
| does!
|
| Moreover it seems that it is common here at Hacker News for
| people to know a LOT about pizza making!
|
| But, for that poor woman, she is trying! Soooo, try to be
| kind!!!
| 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?
| JamesSwift wrote:
| I ended up getting 2 peels. Wooden to launch, steel to
| remove. Also use semolina or cornmeal on the peel and as
| soon as the dough hits the peel the clock starts so move
| fast. Always have the toppings ready to go before that
| point.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| If cooking on entirely flat surface, the parchment paper
| method described in other comments works well, though
| it's precarious with larger or heavier pies, need two
| people to avoid having the parchment paper spill out. If
| cooking in a cast iron pan, I just preheat the pan in the
| oven, and have all the ingredients set aside and dough
| prepared, and when the oven is ready, pull out the pan,
| put pan on stove top, lightly oil, and put dough in pan,
| and then put toppings on it fast and insert in oven. This
| works for the dough recipe I use, YMMV.
| 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
| yamtaddle wrote:
| This is an OK alternative to my peel-method posted below,
| but it can be tough not to let the toppings pile toward
| the center, since it tends to bow downward in the middle.
| I've done it before, it works alright.
| hnick wrote:
| I eventually settled on this too. My oven is a standard
| oven, not super hot, so we get enough heat through the
| paper from the stone before the top is done. But I do
| think a semi-deep cast iron pan pizza is ideal and
| foolproof for the home cook.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| More transfer medium than you think you should need.
| Experiment with the amount.
|
| If you don't know what I mean, I'm talking about coarse-
| ground cornmeal or farina, the latter of which is a very
| coarse-ground wheat flour sometimes used to make a kind
| of cereal-mush kinda like oatmeal or cream-of-wheat--but
| it's also outstanding for this job; coarse durham-wheat
| can do in a pinch, but it's too fine to really be good at
| it, plus it tends to be expensive while farina's usually
| cheap (and so's cornmeal, but avoid the fine stuff, you
| want the coarsest you can get).
|
| You put this on the peel before placing the stretched
| dough on it and adding toppings. Just spread it in a
| layer over the top of it. It helps keep it from sticking,
| which makes the transfer easier.
|
| I've found different peels require different amounts. I
| had a shitty looking peel that was somewhat-rough,
| unfinished wood and it didn't require much. It got ruined
| (I'll spare you the details, but, _kids_ ) and I replaced
| it with a cheap but fancier-looking one I found on
| amazon, that's dark-stained, smooth acacia or some shit.
| It's _awful_. I need so much more medium on it to keep
| the pizza from sticking. I 've thought about roughing it
| up with sandpaper, see if that helps, but haven't tried
| it yet--if yours is smooth-finished and you want to be a
| pioneer, maybe try that. First pie I tried to cook with
| that thing was the first I'd ruined in _years_. Still mad
| about it :-)
|
| You _probably_ don 't need so much that you can't see any
| of the peel under it, though, even on one that bad. My
| better peel only required a light dusting, once I got my
| technique down.
|
| Point is, definitely use that stuff, and experiment with
| the amount of that you put on. The more you have to use,
| the more waste and the more mess, so there's good reason
| to dial in what you actually need and not just pile a ton
| on every time, but you need _some_ amount.
|
| As far as technique: shake it loose over the sink (so any
| cornmeal or flour that falls off goes there instead of
| the floor or whatever) right before transferring to the
| oven. Just hold it level and shake horizontally, forward
| and back or side to side, until the whole pie's loose and
| moves freely. If you have spots that stick really badly,
| uh, try to lift it up and put more medium under it? This
| has never worked well for me, I've just gotten good at
| making sure that doesn't happen, but _sometimes_ you can
| save it that way.
|
| Then, when transferring into the oven, you need to hold
| it at an angle shallow enough that gravity alone _will
| not_ do the work--too steep an angle, and it 'll pile up
| when it comes off. You'll need the same sort of shaking
| action here, but because it's tilted a _little_ it 'll
| also slide off as it goes. Start with the edge of the
| peel way at the back of your stone, maybe just an inch or
| so from the back edge of it, and move it forward as the
| pie comes off, else your placement will suck and, in the
| worst case, some of it won't be on the stone.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I've used Wondra flour in a pinch, maybe not as good as
| durum wheat but I am also just using parchment paper in a
| regular oven.
| graycat wrote:
| See my two posts on my home made pizzas in
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34081087
|
| with some more details in
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085805
|
| For your specific question: For one pizza for one, I
| start with the dough prepared as in the posts. The dough
| is in a covered plastic container, about 12 ounces to
| leave room in cases of the dough expanding. I dump the
| dough on a round sheet of Teflon. The sheet just nicely
| fits in the bottom of a common cast iron frying pan. I
| got the sheet from a long roll of such Teflon from
| Amazon, sold for drying fruit or some such. But it's
| Teflon so will withstand the heat of cooking -- it
| _should_ and in my experience of some years, does.
|
| So, now the round sheet of Teflon is on my cutting board
| and the pizza dough has been dumped onto the Teflon. Then
| with fingers, I press the dough to be round and nearly
| covering the Teflon. As in my posts, then I add tomato
| sauce, Mozzarella cheese, and slices of pepperoni
| sausage. Right, I have found no need for electric mixers,
| rolling pins, cooking spray, etc. Fingers work fine.
|
| Now for your question, how to move to the frying pan!!! I
| slide a spatula under the right part of the Teflon, and
| that serves to support about half of the sheet and the
| raw pizza. So, with a right hand finger on part of the
| Teflon to keep it on the spatula and two left hand
| fingers to support the left side of the Teflon, I carry
| the stack to the stove and the frying pan. So far, I've
| never dropped anything! But it would be a little safer to
| have the frying pan, so far just at room temperature,
| also on the cutting board so that the trip of the Teflon
| circle to the pan would be really short.
|
| WOW! Right! Just thought of something MUCH better! Have
| the room temperature frying pan on the cutting board or
| even just the countertop, put the Teflon sheet in the
| frying pan, and THEN add the toppings, dough, sauce,
| cheese, sausage, etc. Sooo, no _moving_ to the frying pan
| at all!!!! 100% no worries, no risk!!!
|
| When the pizza is done, I slide the spatula under the
| Teflon and carry it and the pizza to the cutting board.
| At this point, the pizza crust is a little stiff and
| easier to carry without _flopping_. And, again, so far I
| 've never had any trouble from this trip from the pan
| back to the cutting board and the action with a chef's
| knife. Since I'm no candidate for a champion of high
| coordination, I'm sure you can do this move just fine!
|
| Else, put some heat resistant pad on the cutting board
| and move the whole frying pan to that pad and, thus, have
| a very short distance to move the cooked pizza to the
| cutting board and knife action!!!
|
| A "heat resistant pad"? How about just a pot, about 2
| quarts, cool?
| porknubbins wrote:
| Eventually develop a whole methodology around launching
| pizza. Use a smooth floured wooden paddle. Know how much
| sauce a certain dough can hold before sticking. Avoid
| ingredients in sizes that tend to fall off. Test motion
| before putting in the oven, and if its sticking know that
| you can reflour under it piece by piece but attempting to
| launch a even slightly sticking pizza will always end in
| disaster.
| shigawire wrote:
| Cornmeal or semolina flour on the peel, a lot more than
| you think you need.
| silisili wrote:
| My problem with homemade pizza was how much it costs. As
| someone who likes lots of toppings (pepperoni, sausage,
| olives, you name it), a pizza was costing me over $20 to make
| at home. At which point I guess I'd fail to see the point
| since it's now costing more and taking a lot of time.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Yeah although pickled or canned stuff like mushrooms,
| olives, etc. work great and you can just stockpile them in
| your pantry when you see them on sale. I usually make my
| pizzas with sausage instead of pepperoni because I find
| ground sausage cheaper than pepperoni. If you find stuff on
| sale all the core ingredients like cheese, sauce, etc. can
| last in your freezer for a long time.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I buy the ingredients in bulk at a warehouse store and
| freeze the stuff that normally goes in refrigerator to
| prevent spoilage. Both meat toppings and cheese would
| mold if I left it in the refrigerator too long.
| 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.
| marcins wrote:
| I've pretty much come to this conclusion as well, but I
| do still often cook the pizzas on my 12" Ooni Karu
| woodfired mini-oven though.. you don't get the same level
| of "leopard skin" / micro-bubbles, but it's mostly there.
|
| If I have a bit more time, but still relatively lazy,
| I'll use the stand mixer, but proof in my oven for an
| hour or two, which has a proofing mode which is basically
| a low temperature steam oven for a nice warm humid
| environment.
| hnick wrote:
| I've seen at least one preparation hack the yeastiness by
| pouring a little beer into the same-day mix too.
| mprovost wrote:
| This is the downside to pizza at home. Step 1 is always "go
| back in time 3 days and make dough".
| JamesSwift wrote:
| For amazing flavor, yes. But the biggest upside to pizza
| at home is that it is almost literally impossible to make
| a bad pizza. You can definitely do same-day dough, or
| even just buy dough balls from the grocery. Its hard to
| shortcut letting yeast work their magic.
| 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...
|
| Edit: also, there are quite a few Twitter accounts that focus
| on content like this, though I wouldn't recommend spending much
| time on it.
| qvarting wrote:
| Similar account for kebab in Sweden
| https://www.instagram.com/kebabogram/ Waiting for the stats from
| there as well :)
| 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.
| wnolens wrote:
| There's so so many places honestly. I could rhyme off a half
| dozen more on this list that some new yorker would say is "the
| best".
|
| But coming from out of town your expectations are probably sky
| high. If pizza is high on your list, go for gold. It's a fun
| thing to do in the city. Also you need to treat both categories
| separately - slice, and whole pie. different game.
| 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.
| yunwal wrote:
| Forcella Pizza. Solid place, unfortunate to hear they
| closed.
| mgce wrote:
| Re: downtown Brooklyn: I think Norm's on Adams Street is
| quite good.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| had their white slice earlier today.
|
| falco of roberta's fame consulted on their opening. i
| recommend checking out any restaurant he's helped open (all
| over the world now).
| scoofy wrote:
| I really think another good thing about NYC pizza is that
| _they aren 't trying to make NYC pizza_. They're just trying
| to make the best pizza possible.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| they are - there are lots of slices that you'll basically
| only find in this area because there's a market and
| expectation for them
| 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..
| yunwal wrote:
| Never been to Razza, but Bread and Salt in Hoboken was among
| the best slices I've had
| 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.
| rexf wrote:
| The site consistently crashes in Firefox v108.0.2 (64-bit) on
| macOS Monterey v12.6.
| brandall10 wrote:
| Surprised to see Joe's on Carmine but not Pizza Suprema on your
| list.
|
| Having stayed in NYC the last few months, the former produced a
| couple of the worst non-dollar slices I've eaten, yet the
| latter was just as insanely good as it was when I stayed there
| in 2013 (top spot on Slice Harvester). These two are not in the
| same universe.
| ipnon wrote:
| I am glad to see you like Sunnyside Pizza too. I have had
| dreams about that place.
| yunwal wrote:
| Visit crown heights pizza. I've likely had a solid half of the
| pizza places in Brooklyn, and it's among my favorites and
| seemingly never mentioned, I suppose because it's relatively
| new and has a boring name.
| texodus wrote:
| Hey, I hosted the source data in a BI tool I work on,
| Perspective - it provides a lot of the same functionality and I
| recreated a few of the views from your site as an example. Repo
| is here - hope you don't mind I thought you may find it useful!
|
| https://prospectiveco.github.io/nyc_slice/
|
| https://github.com/ProspectiveCo/nyc_slice (source)
| https://github.com/finos/perspective (component)
| 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
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| when you order, it's called "a slice".
| astrojams wrote:
| I grew up in NY and lived in NYC and I still call it a plain
| slice.
| jagthebeetle wrote:
| I'm from NYC and call it "plain" or "cheese." "Regular" makes
| me think too hard as to whether the "New York thing" is to
| say "regular" or "plain." It's also a lot of syllables.
|
| A similar phenomenon occurs with waiting "in [a/the] line" vs
| "on [a/the] line." I think I say either, but I'm "supposed
| to" say "on line."
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| Hi! Thanks for this insightful article.
|
| I was curious about the data analysis tool you used, and I
| looked at their pricing page [1], to find that they're charging
| $200 to $300 per month for individual use. Is that correct? or
| are there other options I'm missing?
|
| [1] https://carto.com/pricing/
| 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
| probablynish wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. I probably should start with the fan
| favorites. I'll check those out when I'm next in new york!
| napolux wrote:
| Same quality decline is happening in Italy. We're seeing also a
| polarization, at least in the north, where I live.
|
| On one side "very bad pizza, low/avg price", on the other side
| "very good pizza, higher prices".
|
| All the middle, average pizza places with reasonable prices are
| going out of business or moving to the the bad side.
| quirk wrote:
| Mario's on Dekalb is truly great, glad to see it made his list of
| the best. Three Luigi's on Grand is even better though!
| 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
| yunwal wrote:
| Williamsburg is what fidi used to be. No hipsters in sight
| really
| 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... )
| audiodude wrote:
| I moved to SF from Boston in 2012. I haven't completely kept up
| with which iconic spots have closed since then, because it's
| heartbreaking like this.
| 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." :)
| jeffclark wrote:
| I'm sad to learn that Mary Chung's is gone. There was little
| better than a double order of extra spicy suanla chaoshou with
| a can of coke on a cold day.
| larrybud wrote:
| Back in the early 2000's I read an interview with Ben Affleck
| where he said his favorite pizza was HIFi! Sadly I can't find
| the article via an internet search; it was in some inflight
| magazine I was flipping through to kill time.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| Maybe this is what you're looking for? https://books.google.c
| om/books?id=XoV4uWro6ugC&pg=PA27&dq=hi...
| tamade wrote:
| Best slice is Noch's in harvard sq
| 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.
| yunwal wrote:
| You're dismissing a very legitimate quality difference in
| inner vs outer boroughs. There's like 3 or 4 notable
| places in outer Brooklyn (s/o krispy pizza) that can
| compete with the dozens of incredible slices in inner
| Brooklyn.
|
| I've spent less time in Queens, but it seems Queens
| really does have a lot of great food outside of the
| hotspots.
| freejazz wrote:
| Here's my take... if the pizza place isn't covered in
| little league baseball team portraits and autographed
| photos from the 90s and earlier, I don't want to hear
| about it. And who suddenly made it a contest about where
| there's more better pizza? And since when did Brooklyn
| become an inner borough? oh since you moved here and
| decided you needed to find the 'best slice'? Here's a
| suggestion, go find a new yorker and ask them to take you
| to their favorite pizza place where they grew up. Go do
| that, and then tell me how fucking amazing _inner
| brooklyn_ is. The point isn 't that L'Industrie isn't
| good. The point is that if all you do is go to popular
| pizza places, because that's what's popular, you don't
| really get what's awesome about NYC pizza. I'm glad you
| enjoy the food. But what makes NYC Pizza what it is, is
| the fact that everyone knows a good spot where they are
| from. It's all over the city, but folks like you gotta
| make lists.
|
| Oh, and you heard that Queens has good food too? Wow,
| we've got Pete Wells over here! Share more secrets.
| yunwal wrote:
| > And who suddenly made it a contest about where there's
| more better pizza?
|
| But this is a thread about pizza. It's a guy who tried
| 400 slices of pizza. You think he only tried 400 slices
| because his kids played on a little league team? So
| that's my take. In no way am I saying Williamsburg is
| objectively better than Bay Ridge in all aspects of life
| (if anything I'd say the opposite I'd probably never live
| in Williamsburg), which for some reason you took from my
| post. I'm saying the pizza tastes better to a person who
| doesn't have an emotional attachment to some other place.
|
| > It's all over the city, but folks like you gotta make
| lists.
|
| You seem very confused about the post you're commenting
| on. It's a list. I mean, it's a map, but for all intents
| and purposes it's a list. It doesn't capture anything
| that you seem to care about when it comes to slice shops.
| It actually only seems to note price which is perhaps the
| shallowest metric out there.
|
| Also yeah, Ill go ahead and say elmhurst has better food
| than Bensonhurst just to see what your reaction is lol.
| freejazz wrote:
| It is a thread about pizza, I'm not sure how that
| implicitly becomes a pizza-ranking contest, but I think
| you are making my point for me. Do you think I only went
| to those places because I had kids that played little
| league sponsored by the pizza place? So confused by your
| assertion. You are trying to turn everything into an
| ordinated list because you lack meaning in your life, and
| I'm sorry for you about that.
|
| >"Also yeah, Ill go ahead and say elmhurst has better
| food than Bensonhurst just to see what your reaction is
| lol."
|
| I really don't care!
| 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.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| emmy squared is a franchise now, they have them all over
| dc, ny etc.
|
| i have never been to their WB location, but the original
| one on clinton was very good. their burger is also amazing.
| mama's too is very similar to prince street right? it looks
| good but is a bit out of the way.
| 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.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| i live near it also, i remember going in when it was the
| little shop and you could just get a slice without the
| loudspeakers. the pizza has gotten a bit better since then
| too, and they didnt serve sandwitches back then
| 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.
| [deleted]
| 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.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Bleecker Street Pizza has the best pizza in NYC.
| m0llusk wrote:
| This thread is making me hungry.
| koliber wrote:
| Why are dollar slices excluded? I can make a couple of guesses,
| but would love to hear the author's reason(s).
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| is the new lucali slice any good?
| yunwal wrote:
| Great but still not worth the hype
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| oh i've been frequenting lucali for ages and it is worth the
| trouble for me, especially the calzone. i'm nearby and it's
| not hard to time it or chill at a cafe or bar. not many good
| no corkage byob places of that caliber either.
| wnolens wrote:
| gah i'm so far it would require a day off work spent
| entirely to get it.
|
| i'm still doing it someday though.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| when i was still selling my time to employers i would
| just wfh and camp out at a nearby cafe latter part of the
| day with view of the line
| acalzycalzy wrote:
| Some guy did this way before him
| MisterTea wrote:
| Native from Ozone Park, still living here. I'm excited but not
| surprised to see Ozone Pizza AND New Park on that list. This
| neighborhood along with Howard Beach to the south was mostly
| Italian immigrants and their descendants so good Italian food
| was/is a staple. Of course it was full of mobsters and is the
| Goodfellas neighborhood; parts were even filmed around here for
| authenticity, check out Nier's Tavern. Into the late 90's and
| early 00's you could still walk into a local joint like Ozone or
| Romeo's and sometimes in the corner would be a table of well
| dressed older gentlemen speaking Italian. And no one sat near
| them because you knew not to.
|
| New Park is a local landmark and its been around for decades, my
| father ate there as a kid. They have this unique old school slice
| with lightly sweet sauce and the bottom is salted giving a
| wonderful balance of flavor to the ingredients. They don't make
| frilly slices so no buffalo or vegetable slices, just standard
| toppings. It's big with JFK workers and cops so the place is busy
| and volume is high and they tend to under-cook the pizzas so ask
| for it well done. And even if its under cooked and slightly
| doughy its still damn good.
|
| Ozone Pizza is not only good but cheap. I can order a pie,
| usually half mushroom/eggplant and half pepperoni, with an order
| of garlic twists that comes with this amazing marinara sauce for
| $23 and change. Delivered. Domino's cant compete in price or
| quality. They also have a really good buffalo slice based on a
| white slice. Before I stopped eating a little too rich I used to
| walk over and grab a buffalo slice and a beef patty with cheese n
| pepperoni (another NYC staple not many know of - take a fresh
| Jamaican beef patty, slice it open, cover with mozzarella and top
| with pepperoni then bake. see also beef patty on a roll with
| cheese - perfect drunk food)
|
| Not on the list but I'm also a fan of Dani's House of Pizza in
| Kew Gardens. I love their signature pesto slice which is usually
| sold out. A few times my brother and I would get sick of waiting
| for a pesto slice so we'd order ahead and pick up a full pesto
| pie. Their regular slice is very good with a sweet sauce. During
| the summer I sometimes walk or cycle up to forest park, walk
| around until I'm hungry then go to Dani's for a pesto and regular
| slice. I usually sit on a bench at the LIRR station around the
| corner and dig in.
| brailsafe wrote:
| That's a lot of pepperoni over only 9 years. Have never visited
| New York, but I'm sure the pizza is fine enough. But is it as
| good as a any neopolitan pizza you can get in any PNW city?
| Anyone?
|
| Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland have pretty good, though
| expensive pizza.
| staticfish wrote:
| Sorry, I live in Seattle and it's not even on the same league
| as even the worst East Coast Pizza.
| talos wrote:
| RIP http://www.sliceharvester.com/
| johnjungles wrote:
| It's the water lol
| hot_gril wrote:
| Excludes the dollar slices, but oddly enough I prefer those over
| the more expensive ones. I think it's cause they're less oily. Do
| they have fake cheese or something?
| hparadiz wrote:
| Everyone is obsessed with NYC but these types of slices can be
| found in all the major east coast cities and is definitely one
| thing I miss about Philly. I'm in LA now and you'd think with how
| many Italians there are around here there'd be a higher standard
| but nope.
| yunwal wrote:
| Philly and New Haven are basically the only 2 other cities that
| have solid "pizza cultures". If you go to Baltimore, DC, or
| Boston you can't get anything close to an NY slice without
| traveling significantly out of your way. Even then, the
| ubiquity of the NYC slice shop can't be matched
| hparadiz wrote:
| You'd be surprised. My absolute favorite pizza in the entire
| world is from a small family owned pizza place in the suburbs
| of Philly.
|
| This spot.
|
| https://g.co/kgs/MYr2E9
|
| In Philly my favorite is
|
| https://g.co/kgs/1RkGda
|
| Also the Jersey shore has a ton of spots.
| yunwal wrote:
| Yeah an important clarification is New York is really only
| dominant in slice shops. Great restaurant pizza exists
| almost everywhere now.
|
| I'll have to check out your Philly recs.
| hnick wrote:
| Well, and I can't personally confirm this, they say NYC water
| is somehow better for making the dough in this style of pizza.
| cute_boi wrote:
| Well, NYC got the best water quality :)
| hparadiz wrote:
| That's a myth.
|
| There's a pretty good NYC style pizza place in Maui and it
| tastes exactly the same.
| 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!
| saxelsen wrote:
| In Copenhagen (and maybe Berlin) it's doner kebab
| rcme wrote:
| Berlin has so many great cheap foods: doner, schwarma,
| falafel, and currywurst, to name a few.
| balderdash wrote:
| Don't forget the the pre-drinks or dinner slice!
| 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?
| rcme wrote:
| 100g of salted mozzarella has 300 calories, saturated fat,
| and sodium. Ultimately, pizza is basically 3 ingredients:
| bread, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. Most people don't
| consider those individual ingredients particularly unhealthy.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Most people don't consider those individual ingredients
| particularly unhealthy.
|
| What does it matter which ingredients people do and do not
| consider healthy?
|
| It is objectively known that the quantities of bread and
| mozzarella consumed by most people relative to their
| lifestyle is unhealthy.
| rcme wrote:
| The GP specifically mentioned the calories and
| nutritional value of pizza. Personally, I think eating
| 100g of mozzarella for lunch is fine.
| llanowarelves wrote:
| A good point but it's less about daily diet (sure, some
| people might), more about it being a go-to treat, for "cheat
| days" (days set aside to "cheat" during your diet), parties,
| sports games, work or school special occasions, etc.
| 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.
| rcme wrote:
| Mozzarella is like 22% protein by weight.
| refurb wrote:
| Disagree.
|
| Glycemic index is vastly different when it's combined
| with protein and fat.
|
| It's not going to have a lot vitamins, but it's pretty
| balanced in terms of the carb/protein/fat
|
| You'd do worse eating a plate of white rice with soy
| sauce.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| The starch in dough is broken up into glucose, which is
| absolutely fine: nobody gets sick from eating starch. It
| would be better with some fiber, so your intestinal
| bacteria could have some of it.
|
| The problem with sugar is that it is half fructose, and
| fructose is processed on the same pathway as alcohol, in
| the liver, and causes the same illnesses as alcohol. It
| is much better, if you must eat it, to eat enough fiber
| with it that your intestinal bacteria get much of it
| instead.
|
| If you don't keep your intestinal bacteria well-fed, they
| are obliged to eat you instead.
| kortilla wrote:
| > slice of cheese pizza is pretty void of nutrition.
|
| Unless you're excluding the cheese, this is way off
| 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.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I generally like pizza, but more interested in rich and
| sophisticated toppings, not just dough and cheese. Normally I
| have pizza about once in a month (except when I am vacationing
| in Italy, of course). If what you are saying is close to
| reality, I think I have an answer to US obesity problem.
| 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]
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > 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.
|
| https://www.gawker.com/the-pizza-belt-the-most-important-
| piz...
|
| This has a (in)formal name, The Pizza Belt.
|
| Also I totally agree, North East or bust pizza-wise.
| 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.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah this is how this conversation typically goes "but
| we've got good pizza from X, Y, Z restaurant" -- is not
| the same as just walking to the corner and paying $2 for
| a big cheese slice -- the NY slice is essentially a
| street food, like street tacos are in some states along
| the mexican border
| yunwal wrote:
| I've spent time in New Haven and NYC and... not even
| close. Sure there's good slices in New Haven, but there
| are also pizza deserts, and a lot of them. New Haven does
| compete with NYC on restaurant-style pizza though.
| avisser wrote:
| Most of the good places in New Haven (Pepe's, Sally's,
| ...) didn't even do slices. New Haven style requires a
| fresh, whole pie.
| acchow wrote:
| In Californian cities, we mostly eat tacos instead of pizza.
| balderdash wrote:
| You'd be surprised how hard it is to find pizza by the slice
| in many cities in the US
| 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.
| kevinwang wrote:
| Sadly I feel this way about fast food chains and not pizza or
| tacos or anything cool (suburbs of California)
| 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).
| g_sch wrote:
| At most non-fancy corner stores they're still under $4.
| Usually under $3 if you just want egg & cheese. And
| they're always made to order - ketchup, mayo,
| salt/pepper, hot sauce, on a roll or bagel, 50 cents
| extra for a tomato. I know New Yorkers can be a little
| insufferable about their bodegas, but I've lived in a few
| other major cities and none of them have provided me with
| this much access to a cheap breakfast.
|
| It's true though, good breakfast burritos are still hard
| to come by here.
| noduerme wrote:
| Thanks for the delicious reminder of how good those are!
| Nice to hear they're still competitive with pizza prices!
| I only eat once a day, since before college, so breakfast
| foods were like a sort of yearned-for delicacy in my
| world, especially at 3am in Brooklyn. That or cheap
| dumplings if I was anywhere near Chinatown. Hot corn
| muffin from the street vendor out my door if I was
| absolutely hung over and needed something in the
| morning...
|
| Back on the west coast, the price of a breakfast burrito
| at my local cart has almost doubled since covid, and the
| burrito got smaller. My conclusion is that burritos are a
| scam. The contents of the classic round breakfast
| sandwich are much harder to fake.
| 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
| selimthegrim wrote:
| What are chopped cheeses going for these days?
| yunwal wrote:
| Still under $5 if you're getting them on a Kaiser roll
| (as opposed to a sub)
| noduerme wrote:
| Kaiser rolls are really the shit. It should be noted to
| the class warrior above... you used to be able to sit
| down in a lot of sit-down restaurants on the Lower East
| Side, and get a basket of _free kaiser rolls and butter_
| before you even ordered food. A foreign concept, I know!
| You could eat em and scram if you were of the mind to.
| That was when people had more class than to get a little
| nudge of self congratulations from judging each other 's
| pocketbook based on which cheap fast food they ate,
| hoping for a popular online mob to agree with their
| stupidly ill informed opinion. But this will all fall on
| deaf ears, so, hallelujah there's still cheap breakfast
| sandwiches, and let the culture warriors who never
| experienced human civilization stick it up their ass.
| yunwal wrote:
| Wtf are you talking about my guy. Subs are larger and
| carry more meat, so the sandwiches cost more. There's no
| quality judgement in that statement (also weird to think
| of a sub roll as like some kind of luxury). It's like
| saying a small coffee at Starbucks costs less than a
| large.
|
| Starting to think maybe you've never been in a deli!
| Spooky23 wrote:
| What? I had a place that was $3 with a soda!
| ronty88 wrote:
| Not all heroes wear capes. This made my day.
| wnolens wrote:
| Yes, as a NYC resident I love a good convo about pizza. This
| thread made me very happy to see everyone appreciating pizza
| graycat wrote:
| Pizza costs? Two old posts on topic and possibly of value, one
| pizza for one for about $1 per pizza:
|
| Pizza is one of my standard food items, and I explained how I
| make pizza in
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34081087
|
| with some more details in
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085805
|
| Those two, old posts might be of some value for people interested
| in pizza. For costs, I estimate the cost of ingredients for my
| pizza for one person at about $1 per pizza, that is, a lot less
| than single slices in NYC.
| dsubburam wrote:
| No luck if you're vegan looking for a slice? (Searched all
| comments for "vegan").
| 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...
| yunwal wrote:
| Artichoke pizza is serviceable drunk food, but really not very
| good outside of that context.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Yeah an Artichoke artichoke slice costs like $7 I think in Park
| Slope rn but it's a lot more filling than the $5.50 white slice
| I got last night from a mom and pop shop a block away.
| 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]
| yunwal wrote:
| It's pricy drunk and high food. I would never seek it out sober
| but they disperse oil throughout the slice in a way that's
| really satisfying if you're under the influence.
| 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?
| scoofy wrote:
| Oh, you can indeed find canned San Marzano's anywhere, though
| many (if not most) sold in the US are fake (but probably the
| same species): https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/san-marzano-
| tomatoes-probabl...
|
| My point is that along the west coast, passionate pizzerias
| have more direct access to tomato growers, and might just be
| using fresh tomatoes rather than canned tomatoes. It's pretty
| safe to say that along the east coast, most tomatoes are
| going to be canned, so they'll be easier to spot.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| the popular one now is bianco dinapoli from CA. you can find
| them everywhere including canada.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I finally got to try Frank Pepe's a while back, having never
| visited New England before at all, so it was also my
| introduction to New Haven style, period.
|
| I'd previously thought the idea of a "tomato pie"--just sauce
| with a little parmesan, no other cheese, no toppings really--
| seemed kinda crazy. Like, I was willing to try it, since that's
| one of a couple "classic" pies in the style, and it's well-
| regarded, so I figured I must be wrong, but I couldn't reckon
| how that'd work out well.
|
| It all came down to the quality of the sauce, and mostly to the
| quality of the tomatoes. And boy was I wrong. That sauce was
| absolutely enough to hold up an entire pizza (almost) on its
| own. I mean, _damn_. I 've made some excellent sauces from
| home-grown San Marzanos (I know, I know, I don't have the
| volcanic soil or whatever, but they were _good_ ) but this was
| next-level. So much complexity when, as far as I could tell,
| there was hardly anything in the sauce other than the tomatoes.
| 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.
| neycoda 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."
|
| Yes, that's generally what happens with a _stupid_ "cost-saving
| measure", whicb our culture defends to the hilt for some reason.
|
| There's ways to cut costs without compromising quality, called a
| _smart_ cost-saving measure, but our culture isn't about quality
| anymore, is it? It's all about saving/making money, but money
| doesn't taste very good, does it? I'd rather spend a little more
| for a quality piece of pizza than save money eating something
| that tastes more like cardboard than before.
| anonu wrote:
| I wonder if there's a $1 slice anywhere in NYC. Might be really
| small
| elijaht wrote:
| It's incredibly easy to find a dollar slice in NYC
| wnolens wrote:
| There are many, it's practically it's own category of slice.
| There's definitely a quality hit, but still a great value. And
| they churn through them so much that you're quite likely to get
| one fresh out of the oven - which in my opinion beats a better
| slice that's been sitting there for a few hours.
|
| The $1 slice nearest chelsea flea market is the best I've had.
| bcohen123 wrote:
| There are dozens, all over the city!
| shaunsingh wrote:
| Not sure if I'm missing anything in your comment, but the study
| purposely excludes dollar slices. You can find _a lot_ of 1$
| slices in nyc, and they usually taste pretty good!
| 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.
| _elkue wrote:
| I did include a dollar slice from Papa Johns in Brooklyn. It
| was not good, and I'm not sure if it's even still offered
| mbStavola wrote:
| Speaking of Bay Ridge pizzerias circa 2009, there was a place
| on the corner of Bay Ridge Ave and Colonial called Lil Nino's
| (?) which served the absolute worst slices I've ever had. They
| essentially just plated up what was obviously frozen, microwave
| pizza.
|
| Their whole game plan seemed to be to appeal to the high school
| students in the area based on their location and the fact that
| they had a couple of Xbox 360s and TVs you could use. It was
| cool at first, but most of us just went back to picking up a
| couple of slices at Rocky and Nicky's across the street and
| going home to play Modern Warfare. I'm not sure they lasted
| more than six months to be honest.
| 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.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| If you ask an Italian, neither is NYC's
| moloch-hai wrote:
| It is anyway _possible_ to find pizza in NYC. If rare.
| There is distressingly much Chicago whatever it is,
| besides.
|
| The best pizza I ever had was off a cart in Perugia,
| Umbria, in the '90s. It had potato slices, parmesan
| spears, green olive oil, and crunchy salt. You may doubt,
| but it was very much pizza. The crust makes the pizza.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Potato pizza is relatively rare, but definitely pizza.
| 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]
| standardUser wrote:
| It's difficult to notice inflation living in NYC because
| everything is just expensive. If a coffee or a slice of pizza or
| a bagel goes up by 20%, that's less than a buck on average, and
| prices among those products already vary by a lot more than buck.
| So it's never going to be a shocking increase. Or even
| noticeable. Combine that with the resignation that most New
| Yorkers have to the fact that shit is just expensive, and it's
| hard to really feel an impact from all this inflation that the
| media has been blaring about for a year. Am I spending slightly
| more day-to-day than I did a year or two ago? Probably, but I'd
| be hard-pressed to prove it. I guess it's more obvious if you
| make a chart!
| nxm wrote:
| Also a function of your salary... you don't feel that marginal
| increase, but many non-tech sector folks living on a budget
| definitely do
| standardUser wrote:
| I am just always broke. But yes, families are likely
| purchasing many of the same items at the same locations each
| week and can both see and feel the difference. But the vast
| majority of people I know in NY are single or childless and
| they seem, like me, to consider their paycheck forfeit to the
| city and it's infinite offerings.
| 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.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| I think this whole thing would have been a lot better/more useful
| if they rated them
| 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.
| wildzzz wrote:
| I've been to NYC once as a kid but I don't think we ever got
| pizza. I've had "NYC Style" elsewhere but it's always whatever.
| I had some business way out in Long Island and on the way back
| to JFK, I wanted to stop and finally grab one slice of some
| real NY pizza. Weirdly there were no good pizza places near
| where I was working so I had missed out until the drive back to
| the airport. I stopped at New Park Pizza, waited in line,
| ordered at the window, and ate the best damn pizza I've ever
| had. It was hot as hell but everything about it was perfect. Up
| until today, I actually couldn't remember what the place was
| called but could remember it was next to a CVS and near JFK. I
| found it on Maps and was pretty happy to see it listed on the
| list in the link.
| [deleted]
| 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.
| rcme wrote:
| I don't know the pizza in the area that well, but I
| remember Luigi's in Clinton Hill being pretty good. Have
| you tried it?
| twoodfin wrote:
| L'Industrie was on my Google Maps list of "places I heard
| about in the dark days of 2020 and will visit post-
| apocalypse".
|
| I think it was the first of those that I did manage to hit,
| and absolutely lived up to the hype. Probably the best
| individual slice I've ever had.
|
| (Also really enjoy Prince St., haven't tried Bleecker St.
| to date.)
| akgerber wrote:
| Prince Street genuinely is very good, especially the
| square pies. It's just a pain in the ass now that the
| lines have gotten long.
| 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.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| True. If you're on vacation you want something to ground
| your day's activity and a story to tell the peeps back
| home.
| stephencanon wrote:
| If you're in NYC and you want the _best_ pizza, step 1 is to
| take the train to New Haven.
| rcme wrote:
| Everyone loves the pizza from where they grew up.
| stephencanon wrote:
| That's true, but the "holy trinity" are regarded by an
| awful lot of people not from New Haven (like me) as being
| among the best pizza anywhere.
| djbusby wrote:
| Narrowed down to three places, but all real close, so you
| can try them all on the same trip.
| localhost3000 wrote:
| *apizza
| cloverich wrote:
| Frankly because in many (not all) places (and especially true
| the further back you go) -- there's very few good ...
| anything. When I first moved to Austin TX in 99 I remember
| being really puzzled by how bad all the food was. Like nearly
| everything was mediocre. Very slowly better places popped up
| and everyone talked about them. The one exception was BBQ,
| and to that end yes -- the "best" was Franklins but frankly
| it was nearly all very good.
|
| But overtime, other good stuff started to pop up, and
| eventually there were enough good places that "the best"
| became less interesting. Still, Austin is far away from NYC,
| and of the few times I visited Europe (Italy specifically)
| nearly everywhere in the US is a bit behind. IMHO that's
| largely b/c of how new everything is. Overtime as areas
| become more established, things get passed down and around,
| the quality of everything goes up. And in some places,
| there's so much good stuff that yeah it makes no sense to
| talk about best anymore. But for many places the difference
| between the best and the rest is the decision point of "is it
| worth going at all?".
| 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.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Everyone has an opinion about good food and ok food. None of
| them are wrong.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Exactly my point: how can there be a "best" slice?
| rakamotog wrote:
| This seems to be a pattern across regions, across foods! I have
| said the same of Hyderabad and Biryani. But none the less, when
| someone asks for a recommendation, I give a 70th or 80th
| percentile near their stay. Better than them randomly walking
| to a 20th percentile place because it was well lit.
| balderdash wrote:
| Agree, one thing though is some places you want the fresh slice
| out of the oven, other places you want the reheated slice (as
| they undercook the pizza with the expectation that it will be
| reheated later, and may even have to specify you want it "well
| done")
| jshaqaw wrote:
| You sir understand our great city.
| geethree wrote:
| In my experience, the same applies to kebaps in Berlin as well.
| 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.
|
| P.S. As far as sandwich shops go though, Reykjavik's
| Nonnabiti (RIP) was the G.O.A.T.
| 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 know and like. 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!
| yourapostasy wrote:
| I would love to find "food safe heritage bagels" anywhere in
| the world, which would not be comfortable to the average
| modern palate today, so I've read.
|
| These would be turn of the 20th century New York Jewish style
| bagels, made back then by bagel unions entirely by hand
| because the dough was too stiff for common kneading machines
| at that time (not quite sure how that squares with the giant
| industrial machines of the day, maybe the missing detail is
| the common bakery kneading machines were not up to the task
| though a hyper-expensive custom machine could be
| commissioned). These were so infamously toughly chewy they
| were hyperbolically touted as teeth breaking and taking an
| indecent amount of time to digest. "Food safe" because bagel
| bakery conditions at the turn of the 20th century are
| unacceptable these days.
|
| Or maybe I've been bamboozled by food editors hunting for
| clicks.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Average New York pizza quality is highly over rated. If you go
| to any random spot you are likely to get bad pizza. I think
| this has changed over time. Often there is better pizza in New
| Jersey.
|
| This is not a joke. I strongly disagree with advising people to
| try random NYC pizza places. My theory is a lot of the good
| pizza makers moved out of the city to the suburbs or lower cost
| cities.
| mgce wrote:
| I agree wholeheartedly. Thanks for having the courage to
| state this.
|
| I think the reasons are straightforward: 1: The supply chain
| has evolved. Affordable ingredients are mass produced and low
| quality and a pizza place needs a strong motive to choose
| better ingredients. 2: family pride has not passed to current
| generations. And as you say most of those families have
| migrated out to the suburbs.
|
| To be fair, I still think the bar is much lower outside the
| NY area. So visitors may legitimately love places we cringe
| at. And more power to them, frankly.
|
| I think the decline extends to the suburbs too. Would love to
| get some of your New Jersey recs.
| 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.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Absolutely! I share the same.
|
| Part of that is the fine dining though. Fine dining is its
| own culture, and just like other Bay Area industries, once
| you get some good chefs in the city, they'll train people who
| open their own restaurants. Then the quality expectations go
| up among residents... and everything ends up better, even
| "down market".
| akgerber wrote:
| The other advantage California has is how fresh & delicious
| the produce is, year-round.
| jghn wrote:
| I have found it to be the opposite. If I walk into whatever
| random pizza shop happens to be nearby I'm always taken aback
| out how often it's ... ok.
|
| There's a lot of good pizza to be found but even more if it is
| just ok. Mind you I mean ok in the literal sense, and don't
| mean it's bad. But a lot of people make it seem like every
| street corner has amazing pizza. But that's just not true
| heavyset_go wrote:
| There's a lot of bad pizza in NYC, as well. Really depends on
| the establishment and customer expectations.
|
| If someone is planning to visit there with the belief that they
| can throw a stone and immediately hit a great pizza place,
| they'll probably be disappointed.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| There are also bad Italian restaurants, bagel places, coffee
| shops, Chinese food, etc.
|
| It bothers me that someone would say they are all good. There
| is no need to hype up NYC. You can get very high quality
| food, but not just by randomly going into a place.
| ineedasername wrote:
| For pizza this seems to have a halo effect as well. It you drop
| into a non-franchise pizzeria anywhere within roughly 50 miles
| of NYC then chances are you'll have a pretty good NYC-style
| slice, and a reasonable chance of a slice that can stand next
| to most slices in NYC and still be proud of itself (if a bit
| awestruck by the company it finds itself in).
|
| I've seen a bit of this in areas of the country that have seen
| some emigration from NYC outwards: NC, FL. Maybe less so as you
| go west, unless some here have encountered them?
| 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.
| bgribble wrote:
| Seraghina is great, the sourdough crust is sooo good. I
| like Speedy Romeo a lot too but I think it's on the wrong
| side of Classon to officially be Bed-Stuy.
| arolihas wrote:
| I like Valentine's as well.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Billy Joel sings about walking through Bed Stuy alone as akin
| riding his motorcycle in the rain. Taking his life in his
| hands. It still amazes me that well off people live there
| now.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I may have been unlucky but the only slice I've had in NYC was
| mediocre mush compared to places around the Hudson Valley.
| 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.
| audiodude wrote:
| Ditto burritos in SF!
| colordrops wrote:
| San Diego as well...
| Larrikin wrote:
| Random cheesesteaks in Philly are far better than random
| cheesesteaks in any other city, but I would never recommend a
| tourist to go to a random spot over one of the highly rated
| places. You'll just feel it was good but over hyped. It's a
| waste of time for someone who is there temporarily and
| doesn't live in the city.
|
| If you go to a place like Joe's you'll understand why the
| food became famous in the first place and how much better
| cheesesteaks are in Philly.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I was in Philly a few years ago for a day trip and tried
| two different cheesesteaks. Both were fine, but they're not
| places I would ever seek out again.
|
| I've definitely had better delicious hot steak sandwiches
| with cheese and toppings in other places. Maybe I was
| expecting something different, or maybe you've got a point?
|
| Guess I'll have to get to Joe's if I am in Philly again!
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Honestly, Joe's is just a random place. If you're near
| there don't even bother with cheesesteaks. There's so
| many great places to eat along that corridor, whether you
| want a sandwich (like at Costinello's or Liberty
| Kitchen), Falafel at Goldie's, something fancier/more
| substantial at Elwood, Suraya, Middle Child, Cheu, etc.
| Or just want to eat at a bar, there's JB's, Kraftwerk and
| more, with great new places popping up all the time. This
| is true in most neighborhoods.
|
| The steak shops on South Street (Jim's when it reopens
| and Ishkibibble's) are probably the best places to eat in
| a touristy area where there's nothing else better around.
| Campo's or Sonny's in Olde City are good too if you can't
| get a table at a real restaurant or just want something
| quick.
| hiidrew wrote:
| so many great places in this post. i'd also add angelo's.
| that's been my favorite steak since moving to the city
| (but also want to try d'alessandros, have heard good
| things)
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Everyone has an opinion and mine is to walk across the
| street from Dalessandro's and go to Chubby's instead :)
|
| I'm just not a fan of how finely they chop the meat at
| Dalassandro's.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| To be honest I've never found cheesesteaks to be
| exceptional, the best of them are just pretty good, cheap,
| convenient and satisfying. I tell people that if they want
| a _really good_ sandwich in Philly, they should go to DiNic
| 's for one of his pulled or roast pork sandwiches. It's in
| Reading Terminal Market, which is a pretty nice place to
| take visitors anyway.
| alberth wrote:
| Neither Pat's nor Geno's is the correct answer. Just say'n.
| bluedays wrote:
| There's definitely the best, and when I was local I would
| definitely go out of my way for a good cheesesteak. Just not
| every time.
| 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
| yunwal wrote:
| This is how I feel about bagels in NYC, but with pizza, and
| particularly slice shops (as opposed to restaurant style pizza)
| I do think the best slices in NYC are in a different class from
| any other American city
|
| L'industrie really does live up to the hype
| willnonya wrote:
| Not a New Yorker but been there many times. My impression of
| NYC lizzy is that like anywhere you might find a surprise gem
| but for rhe most part NYC Pizza falls somewhere between school
| lunchroom and mall pizza.
|
| If you want to brag about anything you have a much better case
| with bagels.
| 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.
| [deleted]
| 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.
| wildzzz wrote:
| I really like croissants but haven't ever been to Paris. My
| last trip abroad was to Portugal and it was crazy how some
| sandwich shop at the train station had croissants that tasted
| better than any specialty bakeshop I've ever been to in the
| US.
| 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.
| lisper wrote:
| Coffee in Italy.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Fish & sushi in Portugal;
|
| Coffee in Portugal;
|
| Wine in Portugal;
|
| Traditional food in Portugal;
|
| Artisanal pastries in Portugal;
|
| (no "supremacist" views, just pointing out - love good
| food & epicurism in any country/place I can find it.
| cheers!)
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Last time I was in Germany, they had a lot of food just
| sitting out in the open with flies regularly hanging out on
| it
|
| It _looked_ tasty except for the flies, but I don 't think
| I'm ever going to trust something in Europe that wasn't
| covered up before it was handed to me
| sbilstein wrote:
| Oh yes! Extend that to fish and you get Tokyo where you
| have to work your ass off to get mediocre sushi.
| theptip wrote:
| Not to mention they have typically been making the regional
| food for centuries, if not millennia. The selection can be
| more limited in the EU, but the quality is incredible, and
| at a very low price point compared to US.
|
| You can get cheese and wine made in the US ~ as good as
| French, but it's 5x as expensive.
| botverse wrote:
| I don't know about the cheese but I disagree with you
| about the wine. For example Californian wine is
| excellent, and you get a much higher quality for the
| money than with French wine for anything below $150.
| French wine is in much higher demand so all the lowest
| quality is sold too, instead of being made vinegar or
| discarded, becoming the entry level. French wine is
| subjected to strict rules that don't allow them correct
| them like the Californian do, like adding a bit of water
| here or there... etc. In places where you have to import
| both the quality difference for the money is evident,
| within the us is abysmal
| theptip wrote:
| You need to sample the price/quality in France, not on
| goods exported elsewhere - that's the key point of this
| observation. French products are often expensive abroad,
| but dirt-cheap locally.
|
| The top-quartile 5-10 EUR bottle of wine at the
| hypermarche is way better than anything in the <$20 price
| range made in the US. A $15 lump of cheese would be a few
| EUR in France at quality-parity.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| California wine can be excellent but is overpriced, and I
| am a native Californian raised on California wine. French
| wine has impressively consistent quality at low price
| points. You can't easily buy good cheap French wine in
| California I've discovered, but you can in other parts of
| the country. There are certain _types_ of wine that
| California does better, but France does much better for
| the price generally. This was not the case a few decades
| ago, but global competition crushed the price of French
| wine and opened the global wine trade. France has so many
| regions that produce excellent wine without the brand
| premium of Bordeaux, Burgundy, et al.
|
| Because I no longer live in California, there is
| excellent distribution of French wine where I live. Now I
| can buy myriad discerning $15 bottles of French wine that
| frankly are much better than what you can typically buy
| from California for the same price point in the US.
| California wines are overpriced for the quality. I'd
| prefer that were not the case but that's the reality in
| my experience.
|
| At any price point, French wine is lower risk than
| California wine. Their reputation for wine is deserved.
| necovek wrote:
| Argentina and steaks too. (Sorry, cows)
| mike50 wrote:
| In the NYC metro area we actually have a great supply chain
| for bread, it's New Jersey.
| [deleted]
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > so you really tend not to get bad French staples at very
| many places--even if it's a random touristy place.
|
| French here! I'm usually not that picky with croissants,
| but much more with other patisseries, such as eclairs. It's
| a bit harder to find good patisseries, and the quality
| doesn't always correlate with the price. Even in what looks
| like legit "patisseries artisanales", you can find eclairs
| which are basically frozen industrial stuff and sell for
| 3.50+ euros, which I think is a scam.
|
| That being said, yes, I think you can normally find decent
| bread, croissants and patisseries (and cheese) pretty much
| everywhere in France.
|
| On a side note, I lived in London and I noticed that
| Sainsbury made good bread and croissants, for much cheaper
| than the fancy "French" bakeries.
| mc32 wrote:
| Maybe I'm wrong but I had the impression that in France
| pastry shops had legit pastry chefs who had to go through
| apprenticeships whereas in America for example, pastry
| shops give a baker a recipe to follow and that's pretty
| much it (for the ones that bake in-house I mean)
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > France pastry shops had legit pastry chefs who had to
| go through apprenticeships
|
| It depends. Nowadays it's not always the case. To reduce
| costs, apparently quite a lot of shops sell industrial
| pastries. For bread, there's a label apparent on the shop
| that certifies whether the bread is made in house
| ("artisan boulanger"), but it's not true for pastries.
| It's hard to say exactly what is made in-house without
| asking.
| meesles wrote:
| It varies. Your neighborhood bakery/pastry shop may have
| a baker that learned from their parent(s). Or it could be
| a higher-end shop with a trained patisserie chef. Or it
| could be a 'front' bakery that receives their daily
| shipment from a regional factory that makes them by hand
| or by machine.
| magixx wrote:
| For simpler items like croissants, IMO the recipe and
| following directions is all that matters. I've made a
| decent amount of semi complex desserts from recipe
| authors I trust and they turned out great. Sure, there
| are some minor physical skills you learn and knowledge
| you gain, but for baking I find that as long as you
| follow good recipes precisely you can get great results.
| This does fall apart when you start talking about
| decorating desserts as that is definitely more art/skill
| than science.
| ajb wrote:
| In the 80s some bright spark realised that the smell of
| baking bread makes people hungry and buy more food, so
| now most large-enough UK supermarkets bake in-store.
| pushkine wrote:
| I believe nowadays they have automatic sprays for bakery
| smells, I saw a documentary about it like 10 years ago
| 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
| ...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I live in a cheap flyover country city and our "good"
| croissants are also about 3x Parisian prices... but
| aren't good.
| TechnicolorByte wrote:
| While we're on the topic, any recommended pizza places in SF?
| sheepybloke wrote:
| Doppio Zero on Hayes by Davis Symphony was quite good,
| although a bit fancier. Amici's East Coast Pizzeria on
| Lombard in Marina was also very tasty. Also, it's not as
| fun, but Mountain Mikes is also great, inexpensive pizza,
| like in your Papa Johns range but better overall.
| Nihilartikel wrote:
| Arizmendi bakery has rotating toppings but is a ceaselessly
| classy slice.
| jhatax wrote:
| North Beach has some good spots. My go to after a night
| of drinking is Golden Boy.
| nlh wrote:
| Just want to say you took the words out of my mouth on this
| one. I was given the exact same advice re: Parisian
| croissants, and I feel exactly the same way about Arsicault
| in SF. I'd I've never had a better one in the US, let alone
| SF.
|
| Note to others: Arsicault is worth the visit if you're in SF!
| Also don't be a sucker and wait in line for an hour on a
| Saturday morning. Just go at like 11am on a Tuesday and walk
| right in.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| My neighbors still remember my shrieks of rage when I read
| Arsicault got rated.
| neycoda wrote:
| It's not about quality when they're reducing sauce to save
| money, as stated in the article. The slices may still be
| better than in any other state, but the focus has shifted
| from quality to price.
| 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.
| marrone12 wrote:
| Better than bagel pub??
| bnralt wrote:
| There are a number of foods that are supposedly only
| being amazing within a certain geographic location, but
| the best ones I've had were far outside if that location.
|
| The best shrimp poboy I had was in Tampa; nothing I could
| find in New Orleans even came close. There was a New York
| style pizza place in Shanghai which people that went back
| to America would talk about missing (better than any
| pizza I've had in NYC). An Italian person I knew visited
| D.C. and when they got back to Rome they kept talking
| about how much they missed the pizza place in Washington.
|
| For bagels, best I've ever had is probably a split
| between New Jersey (not _far_ from NYC) and Montreal.
| guythedudebro wrote:
| Was the pizza place in Washington 2Amys?
| bnralt wrote:
| That's the one.
| TylerE wrote:
| Best pizza I've ever had. Franks in New Haven is close,
| but just not that crazy about thin crust.
|
| (Ironically, some of the worst "real" pizza I've had was
| at the Atlanta restaurant owned by someone whose "How to
| make real pizza" page gets posted here every year or two.
| Yea, it had a nice char but everything about it was just
| bland bland bland)
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > There was a New York style pizza place in Shanghai
| which people that went back to America would talk about
| missing (better than any pizza I've had in NYC).
|
| Homeslice or Joe's?
| tamade wrote:
| Homeslice in Shanghai is fantastic
| emptysea wrote:
| If you're in the Boston area go to Bagel world (technically
| not in Boston, but a little north of it)
|
| edit: for crossiants and other treats, A.J. King is my fav
| -- they supply a lot of the Boston cafes
|
| Kane's for donuts
| mkeeter wrote:
| The line is consistently out the door, so they have to be
| doing _something_ right!
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Or maybe they're just doing their service _wrong_. Who is
| to say?
| 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.
| SamBam wrote:
| Those last three can always be found at Mammelah's in
| Cambridge, if you're in town.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Great name for a bagel shop.
| obrajesse wrote:
| Have they relented on only offering cold-smoked salmon yet?
| [deleted]
| 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.
| busterarm wrote:
| Ray's Pizza on St Mark's Place consistently rates in the top
| 3 of many B&T food bloggers rating New York Pizza. It also
| has some of the worst pizza I've ever eaten in my entire life
| and a tremendous rat problem.
|
| Those ratings are bunk.
|
| Sacco Pizza on 9th Avenue & 55th St is an underrated gem and
| a family business since 1972.
| yunwal wrote:
| I'd love to see which reviewer rates Ray's pizza that high
| in recent years. I thought it was just famous for being on
| Saint Marks and appealing to drunks
| standardUser wrote:
| I have to strongly disagree. It is kind of fun and amazing how
| many pizza places there are around every corner. The problem
| is, most of them are sub par. In fact, I feel bad for people
| visiting who just walk into a random slice place because odds
| are it won't be very good. The great thing about NY pizza is
| that it very good and very plentiful. But the crappy slice
| joints are even _more_ plentiful.
| gnarcoregrizz wrote:
| I agree. There are so many crappy pizza places in NY,
| especially in Manhattan. It's a risk trying some random
| place. NJ has better and more consistent pizza and bagels.
| That said, I don't even try to get pizza elsewhere, I've had
| some really extra gross greasy pizza in other states. For
| some reason, I've never been to a mountain town that can get
| it right.
| mapasj wrote:
| Agree. I grew up in NJ and lived a few years in NYC. NYC
| has a lot of variation in what is called NY style pizza. A
| lot of it is bad. In NJ, the NY style pizza is a lot more
| consistent and overall better than NYC. Living in NYC I was
| always puzzled how there could exist such bad pizza there.
| Mostly I'm talking about Manhattan. Maybe it's bad to me
| and not others, and has to do with NYC having so many
| residents that grew up elsewhere, bringing their own varied
| tastes in pizza?
| cyberlurker wrote:
| I'm so relieved to see others recognizing this and it's
| not just me.
|
| My theory is NYC had better average pizza in the past but
| people move out of the city over time. They probably move
| to lower cost areas. Many pizza makers in NJ are
| originally from NYC. The pizza is better in NJ on
| average.
| tz18 wrote:
| Pizza is 3USD a slice in NY?!??!?!?
| wnolens wrote:
| on the cheap side (for a decent one). You can get 2.50-2.75 in
| some spots. And of course there's a the $1 slice (for a quality
| sacrifice)
| 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
| skipkey wrote:
| Seems ridiculously cheap to me. here in Phoenix, there are 2
| restaurants near me that do by the slice, both around $5.
| Most restaurants don't offer it.
|
| I have only spent a month or so in NYC working a decade back,
| and at the time every thing was more expensive than home
| except pizza. I think every region probably has its cheap
| food for the working class. Here it's tacos, there it was
| cheap slices.
| ProAm wrote:
| How big are the slices near you? Im assuming large-ish like
| a NYC slice, where 6 slices will make the pie. If you are
| paying $5.00 for a slice of cheese pizza in Phoenix, that
| means a whole cheese pizza would cost $30 USD? That is
| insanity. Granted I think it would be cheaper if you bought
| a whole pie, but for dough, cheese and sauce that is still
| a very healthy profit.
|
| I agree every region has its own good cheap food.
| Interesting stuff.
| [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.
| _elkue wrote:
| You're completely right. I wish I had visited more SI spots,
| some of my favorite pizza of all time has been on SI
| 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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