Sun Deli Pizzeria: "Awful, just awful."

There's not much more to say, really. Excellent exterior, horrible pizza. The only perk about this place was that while we were in here, so yuppie was having a conniption about her sandwich being made wrong and the guy behind the counter just didn't give a fuck in the most amazing and zenlike way.

Sun Deli Pizzeria
1544 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10029

5 Star Cheesesteak & Pizza: "Like eating a sponge."

5 Star Cheesesteak and Pizza, how do I begin to describe thee? First of all, it is weirdly silent and sterile and awkward in there. It is like a black hole for any kind of ambiance. Seriously weird vibes. And the pizza, oh the pizza.


This slice was way too thick and I don't think it was made of food. As you can see from the above image, it began to fall apart as soon as I lifted it up. For something so dense and thick, that it a horrible sign. Texturally, this slice was a nightmare. The cheese was like plastic, the dough was like a sponge and it was SO DRY. It seemed like before they put the cheese on this slice, they had second thoughts about the sauce and wiped it all off with a paper towel. They couldn't get every bit, so there was some residual sauce in the crevices, but they succeeded in getting rid of most of it, leaving my mouth a dry, dusty wasteland after taking my first bite. This slice is almost so bad that I feel compelled to recommend it on the grounds that it is such an anomaly. True pizza connoisseurs should taste this pizza in order to understand the full range of just how bad pizza can get. Ultimately though, it's not even worth that. Maybe their cheesesteaks are at least decent, though the cheese on this pizza doesn't make me feel hopeful about that.

5 Star Cheesesteak and Pizza
2039 1st Ave
New York, NY 10029

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Two endnotes to today's entry:
1. It is about time for me to remind you all that there is a Donation button, located at the top right of this page. If you enjoy reading Slice Harvester please consider donating as little as $2.50 a month to help me fund my pizza. I don't expect to make money off this thing, but if it could fund itself that would be MINDBLOWING.

2. I recently got a copy of 3 The Hard Way because I was trying to track down this totally excellent Reggie Stepper song If You Want To Leave. The first song on there is a Cutty Ranks track called Culture Fi Lick, which is a rumination on the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the young people of the 90s. In it, Cutty Ranks discusses some of the skewed priorities of his generation's young people. He says:
"Give me punani," some of them will say.
"And give me pizza," some of them will say.



Having read about the difficulties queer folks have faced in Jamaica, I've been readying myself for years for what I thought would be the inevitable moment when I would have an ethical qualm strong enough to stop listening to a certain reggae artist. Having grown up on grimetime New York gangsta rap, I have a really complicated relationship with misogyny and homophobia in popular music and we could discuss the definitely complex and likely hypocritical nature of my fondness for Mobb Deep or Nine all day long. And at some point we should, because the patriarchy's not gonna smash itself and everyone should examine the innoccuous shit they do that helps bolster and support oppressive structures. However, and here's the real pressing issue, I never thought the repugnant lyrics I would find in a dancehall song would have to do with equating Pizza Eating with The Sorry State of Our Youth. I don't know if I'll be able to listen to Cutty Ranks the same ever again.

Coincidentally, while I was writing this post, my roommate was in the living room listening to my Pump Up the Jam LP. Check this shit out:



Maybe I'm wrong, but this is how I'm hearing these lyrics:
People don't you know, don't you know it's about time.
Can't you hear the jam is pumping while you taste the pizza mind.
Many different flavors and the spice is strong.
Get into the hot stuff something something blah blah blah.

Chuck was asking me tonight about my favorite modern poetry. Well there's your answer pal.

Tito's Pizzeria Restaurant. What a pleasant fucking surprise this place was! I didn't think it was going to be good. Tito's Pizzeria Restaurant is enormous on the inside, and then there's this HUGE outside patio, where me and Bill eventually ate. The decor made me feel like there should've been a Bar Mitzvah party going on in there. Like, it wouldn't have been out of place if we could hear a DJ playing "Celebrate" and there were a bunch of tweens wearing ill-fitting dress clothes hanging dancing around with inflatable electric guitars in their hands. Of course, my steez back when I was Bar Mitzvah age, was to find the cool cousin with the nose ring who was like reeeaaaallllly old, like 17, and get them to smoke pot with me. I just remembered that one time a hired Bar Mitzvah dancer showed me his cock ring! It was totally non-sexual and was just the crazy Gen. X moment where he was like, "dude.... you can pierce anything!" and I was all, "wooooaaaah." That shit is super profound for a stoned thirteen year old.

So anyway, Tito's looks like there should be a Bar Mitzvah going on in there, but there obviously wasn't because nobody got me stoned and showed me their dick, that's the point. Here's the totally excellent thing about this place, aside from weirdo David Lynch ambience: the pizza is only $1.50 a slice and is decent! This is unheard of. My mind was seriously blown. But apparently, when you walk through the door of Tito's you step into a time portal that takes you back to 1999, which is another perk. Pizza tastes better knowing that September 11th hasn't happened yet.


This slice has excellent ratios, a good amount of grease, decent ingredients and was cooked so as to achieve a great CRUNCH when bitten into. It is structurally sound and not at all floppy, so you could easily eat it while walking without making a mess. Of the crust, Bill had this to say: "At least there's not a lot of it." There is nothing to complain about, but nothing taste or texture-wise makes this slice exceptional. However, it is $1.50 and you get to use a time machine, so that is pretty special or something.

Tito's Pizzeria & Restaurant
2049 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10029

Triangle Pizzeria: "I think it's pleasant."

First and foremost, sorry for my absence. The Slice Harvester took a vacation, not from pizza eating, but from pizza writing. First I stayed at my mom's house for a few days to celebrate our nation's legacy of oppression and genocide. It was pretty cool. My family are still total weirdos, but this year no one got into a fight. In fact, Thursday morning when we were doing the crossword my mother read that article in the Times about cousin's getting married, and playfully suggested that now I could finally "do it" with one of my cousin's whom we all agree is especially loathsome and she then proceeded to repeat the joke to everyone in the family. Oy vey, my life. After that, a very dear friend, Mikey Hotsauce, whom you may remember from my Providence Pizza Post as well as some New York pizza eating in October, came to visit, and I spent time hanging out instead of doing work. Fuckin' sue me.

Anyway, last week I went pizza eating with my friend Bill, who I've known for like, probably more than ten years. He plays in this pretty cool band, The New Dress, who sound kind of like a boy and a girl singing songs that Billy Bragg didn't write yet, as well as a bunch of other rad projects. He is a well-dressed, well-mannered and well-spoken gentleman of the highest caliber and even when I was a misguided and overly passionate early-twenty-something who totally dissed our friendship, Bill understood that we are P4L (Pals 4 Liiiiieeeef!) and just gave me room to be an asshole for a few years without taking any of it personally. Kudos to you, buddy!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, best dude. So, me and him went pizza eating. It turns out, and this may not be news to everyone, that the East Side in the 100s is like, the Inexpensive Pizza District. Me and Bill ate 7 slices and not one of them was over $2.00. Our first stop was Triangle Pizzeria, which may be the smallest pizzeria in all of New York City. Check this shit out:



I am a bad photographer and shit, but is it clear how small that building is? I was pretty impressed. Like, there were maybe three people in there when Bill and I walked in, and while we were there three more tried to come inside and Bill had to go wait outside to make room for them. It was the most awesomely cramped shithole on earth and I love it so much. The pizza, however, while not bad at all, did not taste as good as I felt being inside that cramped pizzeria.


Any even semi-frequent reader will know that this does not look like my shit at all. Way too cheesy, premi crust, the whole thing looks like a mess. And it kind of was a mess, but in a really nice way. This pizza is billowy and soft, and even though it was from a place called triangle pizza everything about it felt round. This pizza was like Chet Bakers voice, or something, like, it was just so soft and comforting. If you like the feeling of warm delicious goo sliding down your throat as much as I do, then this pizza is for you. The cheese, even if there was a little too much of it, was good quality, so it didn't get any weird texture or flavor. The sauce was delicious, and the dough was phenomenal. The crust, even though it was softer than I usually like, tasted fantastic and the softness turned out to be something totally pleasant. The slice was assembled and cooked expertly. This is like, The Chicken Soup of Pizza or something. This pizza will take you home and cuddle with you and stroke your hair while you tell it your problems and then it'll read you Chekhov stories until you fall asleep.

Triangle Pizzeria
246 E 106th St
New York, NY 10029

Mariella Pizza: "Possibly the only good slice near Columbus Circle."

Me and Ma walked passed right by Mariella initially, we didn't even notice it, even though it was on my list. But when we were at 9th Ave Pizzeria, my cousin Stephanie called about Thanksgiving plans and my mother kvetched to her about the lack of decent pizza in that neighborhood.
"What about Mariella?" my cousin probably said into the phone.
"WHAT ABOUT MARIELLA?" my mother shouted, because she had a phone to one ear so obviously she had to shout at me from across the table.
"I think we passed...." I began.
But I can only assume, since I couldn't hear what my mother heard on the phone, that while I was talking Stephanie was saying, "Mariella is pretty good."
Because my mother shouted, "STEPHIE SAYS MARIELLA IS PRETTY GOOD."


So we went. It was packed full of high school or junior high school kids. At this point everything younger than like, 20 looks the same to me. Usually I hate children, but these kids were poorly behaved in a way that was not a burden on me and just served to keep me smiling slightly as I watched them eat and fight and flirt. It was kind of adorable. I still think kids are repugnant and shit (except my friends' kids, they are darling!), but I can see what some of the appeal in being a parent is, I guess.


This slice is not anything exceptional, but it's totally, solidly good. Compared to the rest of the slices in this neighborhood, though, it's like God jizzing Fox's U-Bet chocolate sauce into your mouth. Um... but not for my mom. There is nothing even remotely resembling any jizzing going on anywhere near my mom.

Well, yeah... anyway. The slice was good. It was cooked pretty perfectly, which is to say, the dough was crunchy without being brittle, the cheese was smooth without being runny. Everything was decent quality so there were no weird chemical aftertastes. The ratios were perfect, the slice was warm and moist where you wanted it to be, crisp and dry where it needed to be. This slice was real good, I will totally come back here if I ever have to return to this hellish pizza no man's land.

Mariella Pizza
960 8th Ave
New York, NY 10019

Pizza Triple Feature: "Can I turn three boring slices into one interesting post?"

Luigi's looks like the Ground Round or a schmaltzy Irish pub on Jamaica Ave, which is to say, dark wood, those lamps with green glass lampshades like they hang over pooltables, etc. I felt very comfortable in there and everyone in the store was really nice. Too bad the pizza blew chunks.

Horrible cheese, bland sauce, crappy dough. It seems like it's cooked okay, but the dough's delicious crunch quickly gives way to that nasty uncooked paste I totally hate. And that segues perfectly into the horrible cheese, like making a Stuff That Sucks mixtape and fading Hey There Delilah into Your Body Is A Wonderland into Virtual Insanity

Luigi's - $2.50
936 8th Ave
New York, NY 10019

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Ma Harvester and me discussed the possibility, upon approaching, that this place was named after Nicola Sacco, the famous persecuted anarchist, and were both hoping like hell it would rule because, I don't know about y'all, but nothing works up my appetite like an imprisoned or executed anarchist. (Proposed business idea: Empanada Goldman: If I can't eat, it's not my revolution.) And aside from the tenuous political alliance I have with the name of Sacco Pizza, the place looks like the dingy kind of A Number One shithole that I love. And just so we don't have an trouble with the antisemites, shithole isn't a yiddish word, and I use it very lovingly.

Seriously, it was cramped as fuck in there with all the construction workers waiting to eat. Both me and mi madre breathed a huge sigh of relief at the prospect of finally having a good slice. Because Sacco Pizza feels right. Sadly, as you've probably already noticed from the picture, the slice is shit. It is easily apparent to any armchair pizziaolo that this slice has been sitting out for a while. The cheese should not form a solid enough mass that it can shift so cohesively off a slice EVER. But if we just got a bum slice, it must've been from a bum pie. Not only did this pizza not taste good, but it tasted like the absence of flavor. This is like, the anti-pizza.

Texturally, it was a nightmare, but that at least has some historic context. See, back in the day when Christopher Columbus, Larry Flynt, Mike Eisner and Sylvester Stallone had to flee Communism in Italy and take their divinely ordained homeland, the good old US of A, back from the socialist Indians, they didn't have time time to let their pizza dough leaven because they had to leave surreptitiously, under cover of night. As such, they packed their cheese, their dough and their sauce into containers, and then they had to cook their pizza in the sun on the roof of their Hummer as they drove across the desert, fleeing Fidel Castro's army of cloned Hitlers. Sure, it wasn't the best pizza, but it was enough to nourish them for the long drive, and the Great Pizzaola used her magic to grant them the ability not to have to pee, so they never had to pull over and the Hitlers couldn't ever catch them because they were riding on Segways. As such, every year around Thanksgiving, traditional pizzerias cook their pizza with unleavened dough, to remember the struggle that our Four Fathers went through in order establish a homeland for their previously nomadic people, Free Market Capitalists.

Sacco Pizza - $2.50
819 9th Ave
New York, NY 10019

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Oh boy, this place. The slice tasted and felt like if you poured ketchup over a piece of cardboard and then melted plastic onto it. NO GOOD. It caused my mother to comment that New Yorkers are really slacking on their pizza making. She said, "you know, I would've thought that at least 1 out of 7 slices would be Great, if not at least passable. We haven't had a single solidly good slice today. I don't know if the rose-colored lenses of my childhood nostalgia are affecting this statement, but it just seems like there weren't this many bad slices when I was a kid." To be fair, my mother was also eating pizza in Corona and Elmhurst mostly, which were two predominantly Italian neighborhoods back then, and not in Midtown, so that may have something to do with it, but she may also have a point. Have we, as a city, accustomed ourselves to settle for a shitty slice? I think we should all do a little self-searching. At least by reading Slice Harvester you're doing your part in promoting a culture of non-heinous pizza.

9th Ave Pizzeria - $2.00
791 9th Ave
New York, NY 10019

Pizza In The Park: "The coffee was good."

On our way to the next place, my mom and me passed this weird kiosk. I checked and there was a pizza oven, so we dutifully ordered a slice.


I will let the picture of this slice speak for itself.


Ma took a bite and said, "this is tasteless. It doesn't taste like anything." Though after a few minutes she added, "I mean, there's a slight unpleasantness." At our seat we had a view of the other side of the kiosk, which has this sign:


Had I seen that, I would've known not to order. This place obviously doesn't count. The slice of pizza they served was by far one of the worst eating experiences I've ever had in my life. The coffee was good, though, and there were weird old people. And while it was fun to feed the rest of our slice to the pidgeons, it wasn't worth $2.50.

Pizza In The Park
Corner of 57th and 9th
Stay Away.