See Pizza, Eat Pizza

Today at lunch, we decided it was a good time to try a new pizza place. Of course, it’s always a good time to try a new pizza place, so that’s not exactly news. Since it’s only a few blocks away from my office, we decided to hit up Torna in Hoboken. I had heard enough about Torna to justify the 5 minute walk (such a schlepp!).

It is not unfair to say that Torna is a dive and half. Cheap linoleum flooring and crappy lighting make the cheap wood panelling seem even more so. You have two seating options: inside at the plastic veneered booths or outside stools sitting at the metal fence / bar table combo thing. The couple running the shop appear to have been working together for decades. They probably have. I didn’t ask them as they didn’t seem in the mood to chat (in English anyways - Italian may have been another story). They took our order for a slice each of regular and sicilian and that was that.

After a re-heat, we were handed two plates and we headed outside to enjoy a gorgeous day. I wish I could say that we enjoyed the pizza as much as the weather.

As I’ve furthered my pizza education, I’ve found so many delicious pizza places that I have started to have trouble finishing bad pizza (I may have to begin rethinking my “Even bad pizza is good” position). I am also find it hard to write at any length about bad pizza. I’ll try, though.

Torna’s regular slice was definitely over-cooked. I don’t know if this happened during re-heating or the original cooking. Either way, this was not a slice that any respectable pizzeria should have served a customer. The crust was dense and the cheese was blah. If there was sauce, I don’t recall. Their Sicilian was better. Barely. The crust was super thick and crispy, though it totally lacked any kind of defining flavor. Unlike the regular slice, the sauce was present, but it was certainly overshadowed by the lackluster cheese.

It’s funny how some slices can remind you of the good things you liked about the frozen or otherwise crappy pizza you ate when you were younger. Torna didn’t remind me of anything good - thought their sicilian definitely reminded me of a certain type of bad french bread pizza that used to be a staple of my diet.

So much for a good place only a quick walk away…

Rating: 1 slice

Torna’s Pizzeria‎
254 9th St
Hoboken, NJ
(201) 798-8873

Unlike my Saturday pizza tour with Scott Wiener, my visit to Una Pizza Napoletana (UPN from now on) wasn’t about finding delicious pizza off the beaten path. Countless articles have been written about Anthony Mangieri, UPN’s owner and only pizzaiolo. His dedication to preparing original Neapolitan style pizzas by hand has won him legions of fans. You need only read Ed Levine’s glowing chapter from Pizza: a Slice of Heaven to know what Mangieri’s pizza dedication means to pizza faithful.

Knowing how well-revered UPN was, I knew I had to mark it off my list of “must try” places sooner than later. From what I read, I thought there was a pretty good chance the wait for pizza would be shorter if I flew solo. This turned out to be good planning because the restaurant was, in fact, full. Because I was alone, they were able to squeeze me in to an akward table in the back which really only worked for one. No table wait for me.

UPN’s menu offers only four choices. No additional toppings are available. No substitutions are allowed.

• Marinara: San Marzano tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, oregano, fresh garlic, fresh basil, sea salt.
• Margherita: San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala, extra-virgin olive oil, fresh basil, sea salt.
• Bianca: Mozzarella di bufala, extra virgin olive oil, fresh garlic, fresh basil, sea salt.
• Filetti: Fresh cherry tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala, fresh garlic, extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, sea salt.

Pizzas are served uncut, which is apparently the way pies were served back in the day (the slice, after all, is a NYC invention). Pizzas were originally considered a one-person dish and are treated as such at UPN. You are welcome to share, but it is up to you to pick up your knife and divide the pizza as you see fit.

On this occasion, I had no reason to complain about the pizza-for-one philosophy UPN employs. They brought the margherita first, I cut myself a triangular hunk from the pie (if only we could think of a catchy name for that) and took a bite. Pretty tasty stuff.

UPN employs a crust that is light and airy, but still with a nice chew. The sauce and cheese were working in concert and ingredient proportions were expertly balanced. I loved the basil as well, but what really set this pie over the top for me was the sea salt. Used sparingly, it accented all the right spots and really brought the whole pie to life. If absent, I simply cannot imagine I would have enjoyed UPN as much.

The bianca was delicious as well (I actually can’t decide which I liked better). Again, ingredients were in perfect proportion and the sea salt was rocking the Casbah. Because tomato sauce is left off, the olive oil is really given some room to strut its stuff. This is definitely to be encouraged as it is fine stuff, indeed.

My site is young and UPN has presented an interesting quandary to me. If you read the above paragraphs, you can probably guess that I believe this pie deserves high marks. What’s the hold up, you ask?

1. Una Pizza charges $20+ per 12″ pie. Yes, it’s delicious, but that is very expensive for a pizza so small. Pizzeria Bianco (yes, I know they don’t have UPNs rent) charges $11 for a margherita and $14 for a pie loaded homemade sausage and onion.
    
2. Neapolitan pizzas often cook fast - 1-3 minutes fast. My first pizza came FORTY minutes after I ordered. My second pizza took about as long (as in - another forty minutes). When all was said and done, I spent an hour forty minutes dining at UPN (from being seated to receiving the check). This would have been fine if they had asked me if I’d like another beer (even once!). Or they had brought me some water. Or I was with 14 people and we were having a good old time. But they didn’t - and I wasn’t. Frustrating.

Ultimately, I’ve decided that I want my ratings to be about pizza. I’ll make sure to tell you about service problems or other issues I encounter, but the following is based solely on the goods they be putting in front of me:

Rating: 4 slices

Una Pizza Napoletana
349 East 12th Street
New York, NY
(212) 477-9950

On Saturday, I joined Scott Wiener on a trip to Staten Island in search of pizza awesomeness. This would mark my third trip to Staten Island for pizza (I had previously visited the scrumptious Joe & Pat’s twice), but my first with such a knowledgeable guide. Scott has an unquestionable love of pizza. In fact, he loves pizza so much that he’s made it his profession to spread the love to others via his new pizza touring company, Scott’s Pizza Tours (I’m scheduled for the maiden voyage, this Sunday).

Now, I don’t need much of an excuse to take a pizza tour anywhere - but, I certainly wasn’t about to pass up the chance to ride along 1-on-1 with a licensed NYC tour guide and supreme (Pizza Hut Pun alert) pizza enthusiast. Scott picked me up Saturday morning and said he had three locations planned. The weather was fantastic, the tunes were cranked and hopes were high.

Did Staten Island deliver? »

I was feeling like pizza for lunch today so I decided to take a short walk to Mario’s. I keep an office in Hoboken and Mario’s is just seven short blocks away.

I had been here two other times and my first two trips were quite different. The first time, I was very unimpressed with my slice. It was plagued by all of the normal problems your average corner slice shop has (cheap cheese, uninspired crust, canned sauce). The second time, I had quite a tasty experience (maybe my pie was a little fresher or something).

I knew this time would be make or break for me and Mario’s. There are plenty of other pizza places in Hoboken and I don’t need to mess around with a shop that can’t get it done on a regular basis.

Just so we’re clear on my comparison, here are some notes about all three trips:

• I visited in early afternoon.
• Slices were reheats.
• The same counter guy served my slice each time (I never saw a pizza being made, so I don’t know if he also made the pizza).

Unfortunately, this visit was more like the first time. It’s an OK slice, but Mario’s and I will be parting ways. There are just too many fish in the sea to spend time with a slice that can’t decide what it wants to be.

Rating: 2 slices

Mario’s Classic Pizza
742 Garden Street
Hoboken, New Jersey
(201) 659-0808

Friday night, I went to see Paul Simon perform at BAM. It was a great show, but that’s a review for some other place (after all, this is a site about pizza). I decided that if I was going to schlepp all the way to Brooklyn (it takes 2 trains totaling about 50 minutes in rush hour) I needed to go all-out and get some delicious pizza.

I had been to Luzzo’s once prior to this visit and it didn’t impress me. In fact, we had a sausage pie and the sausage tasted strangely similar to feet. Normally, that would have been enough to ensure I never returned to any dining establishment. Luzzo’s, however, is a trusted pizza friend’s favorite Manhattan spot. I thought it odd that our opinions were so opposite, so I decided I was willing to give it another try.

I sat down and ordered a 12″ bufala. At $16, one would expect a seriously tasty pie. Several minutes after ordering, the waiter placed a fantastic looking pie on my table. The crust has the right amount of coal-burning oven char spots and the mozz was just starting to brown. My mouth immediately put it’s salivation division into action.

I lifted a slice to my mouth, took a big bite and felt my hopes for Luzzo’s redemption dashed instantly. Yes, the crust sported a nice chew and the mozz had that creamy, scrumptious flavor I desire. But, all that goodness is seriously impeded by an almost bitter sauce. Not only does the sauce not gel with the other ingredients, but it overshadowed them altogether with it’s un-deliciousness (look it up, braniac). The outer crust was also overly dry and tasted like nothing but char. Not yum.

Luzzo’s has a tremendous reputation and a big following, but I’m not sure why. The East Village has plenty of other pizza places (Una Pizza Napoletana, Artichoke and Vinny Vincenz come to mind) that I’ll be visiting soon enough and I’d be willing to wager that I’ll find better pizza right around the corner.

Rating: 2 slices

Luzzo’s
211 1st Avenue (between 12th St & 13th St)
New York, NY
(212) 473-7447

Bayonne pizzeria’s most popular floor mat.

Earlier this week, I had an errand to run in Bayonne New Jersey (about 20 minutes from Hoboken). Before heading down, I decided to do a little web research on the Bayonne pizza scene so I could pick a place for lunch. I wasn’t finding much information to go on, so I decided to cast a moderately wide net and picked three places to try.

The plan was to work my way up Broadway (the main business artery in Bayonne), and visit three spots: San Vito Pizzeria, Pompei Pizza and Mama Rosa Cucina Pizza.

Given how little I was able to find online, I didn’t get my hopes up that I was going to find any superstars in hiding. I did, however, hope to find some solid pie in a fairly populous (60,000+) east coast city.

Could Bayonne meet my expectations? »

Earlier this year, my dad asked me if I wanted to go to Phoenix for baseball spring training. As the words were leaving his mouth, my mind already had a revelation: “I can go to Pizzeria Bianco!” Needless to say, my answer came quickly. “Yep. Let’s go.”

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Bianco, it has been celebrated by pizza fans everywhere. It is included in countless top 10 pizza lists, featured on Oprah, Food Network and countless books and magazines. Chris Bianco (who makes every pie himself) has achieved an almost mythical status in the pizza world.

Needless to say, I had to know what all the fuss was about.

So, was Pizzeria Bianco worth it? »

See Pizza, Eat Pizza has been in the works for months now. One of the questions I’ve had to ask myself was how (or if) I should rate the pizza I write about. While many food blogs forgo ratings altogether, I felt that a rating system would serve my needs best. A year from now, I want to be able to look back at my site and easily see how my tastes have evolved. I want to know if a pizzeria is declining in quality or improving over time. I want to be able to easily compare one location of a micro-chain (e.g. Grimaldi’s or Totonno’s) to another.

That all being said, I needed to implement a rating system that would be instantly understood by even a casual reader and/or pizza fan while not leaving any ambiguity about where I felt a pizza place fit in the grand scheme of things.

One of my favorite things to say about pizza is that “it’s good even when it’s bad.” That is to say, even a mediocre offering brings something to the table. With that in mind, my rating system is based on how many slices I would order from a reviewed location if I was at a normal level of dinner-time hungriness when I got there (I’ve always found that lesser quality pizza fills me up faster than the good stuff):

5 Slices: Exceptional pizza. A five slice pizza is skillfully prepared using high quality ingredients. There can be no ifs or buts in its description. Simply put, it is pizza immortality.

4 Slices: Very good pizza. Four slice pizza can be eaten regularly without growing tiresome. It’s good, but missing that “special something” that puts it over the top.

3 Slices: Good pizza. Three slices is definitely above average pizza, but it has a fatal flaw holding it back (e.g. overcooked crust, bitter sauce).

2 Slices: Decent pizza. Two slices pizza has some quality that pushes you into that second slice (e.g. nice sauce), but doesn’t do much else for you. Most random slices will fall into this category.

1 Slice: Bad pizza. One slice pizza is edible, but only because you’re hungry. There isn’t any particular feature of the slice that makes you smile, but it’s still pizza - and you’re still hungry.

0 Slices: Horrible Pizza. This is pizza so horrible that you debate whether or not you can even call it pizza. Zero slice pizza is so bad, you don’t even eat it when you’re hungry. This designation is applied perhaps more rarely than five slices as only terrible, terrible pizza with no redeeming qualities fits here.