Is New Yorks Best Pizza in New Jersey?

[elleng]

JERSEY CITY — We were on our third pie of the night at Razza, across the street from City Hall here, when Ed Levine stopped chewing long enough to ask me a question:

“Are you going to say that the best pizza in New York is in New Jersey?”

Ed Levine knows what it means to make a strong claim for a pizzeria. The founder of the website Serious Eats and the author of the book “Pizza: A Slice of Heaven,” he caused a stir in 2004 by writing in The New York Times that the pies at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix “just might be the best pizza in America.” So when it started to dawn on me, about a year after my first dinner at Razza, that no pizzeria in the five boroughs gave me as much pleasure, I thought of Ed.

New York pizzerias can be divided into those that apply the steady heat of gas (the most revered of these is Di Fara Pizza) and those that subject their pies to the blistering, scorching fires of coal or wood. The high-heat group is further subdivided into the bakers, such as Co. and Totonno’s, whose reputations rest on their dough, and the cooks. Among the cooks, there are those whose pizzaioli express themselves through combinations of toppings that have never before occurred to anybody (Roberta’s, Paulie Gee’s) or a less exhibitionistic, farm-to-table sensibility, of which the late Franny’s was the paragon.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/dining/razza-pizza-review-jersey-city.html?

[BigmanPigman]

1. Do they eat pizza with a knife and fork like tRump?

Jon Stewart shows how it is done.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0ect4f/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-me-lover-s-pizza-with-crazy-broad

[longship]

2. Thin crust means thin toppings.

Try Chicago pizza some time. It's a meal, not a snack cracker. Likewise Hamtramck, MI pizza. Shield's Bar had the best in Detroit area, now sadly long gone.

I ate at Hollywood Pizza once in SoCal. No crust whatsoever, like a saltine; next to no toppings. Tomato sauce was put on with a fucking eye dropper. An individual pizza was fucking over $10.00. That's what Californians apparently call pizza. After dining at Hollywood Pizza the next thing one wants to do is go out and eat a good meal. Tasteless crap, too.

Not a big fan of thin crust pizza. Cannot believe that people would credibly support that less is somehow better. There is no there there.

And put some god damn tomato sauce on it!

[murielm99]

3. Yes, Chicago pizza is real pizza.

And Chicago style hot dogs are the best, too. No ketchup!!!

[longship]

4. Yup! But I like Tiger Stadium hot dogs, too.

Simple. With just mustard and fresh chopped onions, nothing else.

Get yer Red Hots! Red Hots here! The way to piss off the Red Hots vender is to ask him for ketchup or, horrors, relish.

Sadly, Tiger Stadium is now gone.

[brush]

5. Chicago style is good,no doubt, but apparently you've missed the real NY pizza experience.

You just need to try it. There used to be a great pizza place at the end of the D subway line on Jerome avenue in the Bronx. It might still be there.

You'd go in, order a slice or two, toppings if you want but it was delish without toppings, take up the wait time by playing one of the video games by the plate glass window, an iteration of "Grand Theft Auto" possibly while the traffic noise from busy Jerome Ave and subway train screeching waft in the open doorway of the joint.

The counter man calls out your order. You pay and take your paper bag stuffed with the slice/slices on a sliver of wax paper on top of a white paper plate — you know the kind, with the crinkled edges — and you either take it out and hike to your car where you parked it in the morning before taking the train into Manhattan, or you decide to just sit in the joint and eat it.

Whatever you choose, once you slide a slice out of the paper bag, grease-stained by now (if the bag is not grease-stained you've been duped with lesser quality goods), you take the slice, fold it the long way to make it manageable, and shove the pointed end into you mouth.

Watch it, careful, it's most likely still hot, but your experience comes into play. You know how to handle it in your mouth so you don't get burned, and you just enjoy.

I mean the generous amount of melted Mozzarella is great, the tangy sauce is smeared just right, the crust is crisp and not too thin, not too fat and doughy, cooked so the bottom is browned but not burnt, it folds just right and doesn't flop over once you double it to bitable width — u-m-m-m-u-h-h-h-h, talk about your slice of heaven.

[longship]

6. I've tried NY pizza. Thin crust sucks.

Delish without toppings? That's utter fucking madness! Might as well just eat soda crackers.

And the quality of a pizza is somehow foldability???? That just means that it is limp and lacks substance.

I maintain that pizza should be a meal, not a cracker snack.

Of course, outfits like Pizza Hut have been trying to convince people for decades that thin pizza is the best. There certainly is less food there, less expense, less pizza goodness. Looks like they've succeeded, in part.

Of course, Chicagoans, and many Detroiters know better.

Thin pizza is an evil global conspiracy.

[brush]

8. Some people have tunnel vision and can only appreciate one thing.

Like I said, Chicago-style is good, it's a different experience.

NY-style pizza is another, experienced by people who savor different experiences.

Sometimes you want red wine, sometimes white.

Sometimes you want something that'll get you through to dinner and won't sit in your stomach like a lump.

[longship]

9. Sometimes you want food with no food in it?

IMHO. That's thin crust pizza.

Regards.

[brush]

10. Everybody's got one, like that other thing.

[longship]

11. Good one, my friend.

My best to you.

Enjoy your thin crust. I'll enjoy my thick crust pizza with the garbage can poured on top. Yummy!

[elleng]

7. RE the debate here: The first known pizza shop opened in Port Alba in Naples and is still there toda

https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-neapolitan-pizza-2708762

Pizza Through the Ages

http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/a-slice-of-history-pizza-through-the-ages