I Didn't Know We Were Related - Uncle Mario's (9th Ave)

Apparently there's an Uncle Mario in my life and he resides on 9th avenue. Uncle Mario, no relation to Super Mario as far as I know, is open for business. Like incest, I keep it all in the family so I paid Uncle Mario a visit to see what he was offering. 

Armed with a brick oven, some flat screen TVs, and a saucy, middle-aged waitress who gave me the bedroom eyes, Uncle Mario's is definitely going to be an eatery to be reckoned with - even on the packed landscape up and down 9th avenue by restaurant row.

Entering Uncle Mario's is like entering a pizza porn shop. There were so many options sitting there waiting to be eaten it was nearly impossible to choose one. They all looked so good - from the regular pies to a chicken marsala pie that looked better than anything I ordered but I was on my 3rd meal of the hour so I had to take it easy.

I also needed a baseline, one that I'm using to gauge what a pizzeria can do so I sampled a Margherita slice and a white slice. Why a margherita? Well it's 5 o'clock somewhere was my rationale. Truth be told, if I have to pick between a regular slice and a margherita, I'll go with the latter at every chance. It's usually lighter and less salty and it gives me a chance to compare to good ol' Lombardi's.

White pizza is a guilty pleasure. It's less overwhelming than a calzone and tastes just as good. The margherita was crispy, thin, fresh cheese, fresh basil, and a delicious sauce that was not muddled down with too much seasoning to detract from the overall medley of flavors that Uncle M was bringing. As another example, take a look at the mac-n-cheese pizza to the left. I'll go back and let you kids know what I think. I saw this and thought of Kevin. Kevin, you know you thought of yourself too.

I will definitely be going back to try these and any other pies they've got. Especially you chicken marsala siciliano. I've got my eye on you.

Rating - 4.5/5 If they can consistently churn out pizzas like these, look out. Everyone will know their name if they don't already. They immediately enter the NYC pizza scene as a contender for the best in town.

Love At First Bite? - Justino's Pizza (10th Ave.)

Scattered throughout NYC (Staten Island too) is Justino's Pizzeria. I lived on Staten Island for nearly 15 years and I honestly never heard of them but that has no larger meaning since I wasn't an official member of the Staten Island Pizza Society (SIPS).

Nestled in the heart of NYC, on 10th Ave by 57th, Justino's is not much more than a small store front to grab a slice or a pie to go - further proving that the NYC landscape is incomplete sans a pizzeria every few blocks. Does Justino's deliver? Yes, literally. But what about the figurative? Is their slice worth your hard earned dollars? According to their menu it says, "Love at first bite." I'm not sure if I'd get that carried away but it is a clever slogan and I'm a fan of those. I'm also a fan of long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, Spanish poetry...but let's talk pizza. I am pretty sure they also reference their SI presence and I really doubt that anyone in NYC, specifically that area in NYC even knows the general direction that SI is in.

I think they deserve a look. Ordering a whole pie for delivery is always a tricky task as the pie will often get mushy from the steam effect inside the box. The steam effect, for those who don't know, has an end result of a soggy dough and crust, thus making the pizza chewier than it should be. Not terrible but it's not the ideal situation to gauge your pizza experience. At Justino's, the sauce did have a nice flavor and the pizza was not too thick and doughy (thankfully or else the steam would have given it a bubble gum texture. 

In contrast to the pie was a single, solitary white slice. Again, the best way to gauge a pizzeria is by how their slices are and this white slice can really hold it's own. Cheese, garlic, fresh basil. Wow. And the size was formidable and the crust packed a very nice crunch.

Rating - 3.5/5 - The plain cheese was a tad salty but not overwhelming. The white slice was divine, I loved the copious amounts of garlic and fresh basil. I would certainly go here again as I am curious about their "L&B Style Square."

Oh, and there's really no such thing as the SIPS but if anyone wants to start one the name belongs to me.

UWS - Sal & Carmine's

I draw a lot of my life lessons from the hip-hop I was weened on. At the ripe old age of 10, I was listening to Public Enemy and a song stands out that is so appropriate for this review. More on that in a second.

I often get asked, "Why don't you post any bad reviews?" The answer, simply put, I don't often eat bad food. Yes, I do get disappointed at times but it's rare that something is so bad that I just do not enjoy it. Plus, I feel as if I should be steering you towards good food, not bad, but I've got to find a balance.

One actor that I do not enjoy, even a little, is that Eisenberg guy that was in Adventureland, Zombieland, Facebook the Movie, etc. and had I seen this prior to venturing uptown, I'd have had second thoughts. My research told me that the kid's a New Yorker, city boy even (if Queens counts) so I tried to give him a pass. On top of tip #4 from the aforementioned article, was this gem. There was no way that I was going to miss one of the Elite 8. Especially since the writer/reviewer threw in Joe's & Pat's from Staten Island - while they have arguably the best slice on the Island, it takes some research to put SI on the map like that.

Back to Public Enemy. The year, 1988. The song, "Don't Believe The Hype." Enough said.

I just had to have this pizza that has been appearing on a lot of peoples' radars in recent months. So I ventured up and found myself at Sal & Carmine's. A small, unassuming pizza joint that serves massive slices and has real tight space. Size doesn't matter since it's gotta be made good - crust, cheese, sauce. The plain slice delivered. Amazing crunch. Cheese - as usual, it's the salty dilemma I've mentioned before but not too bad. Sauce - nothing to write home about because if granny was making this she'd have lost stove privileges long ago. Overall, I was satisfied with the cooking and size of the slice to the left. The sauce was blah but I still enjoyed this piece and would eat it again.

One piece was not going to cut it so I tried my hand, foolishly, with a sausage slice. I say foolishly because it looked bad (too thin and sunken in in the middle) while sitting on the counter. It also looked uncooked but it's fair to say that some more cooking the first time around would have totally made it melt through the paper thin (literally, not figuratively) bottom crust. I got it anyway, and well, have a peek. It's basically translucent (I think that's a word that means what I want it to mean) and that doesn't work. How bad was it? I couldn't even eat it because this mess was somehow so uncooked that the dough tasted like uncooked dough and it just sucked. Oh, and it was FLOPPY.

In closing, this isn't must have. If you must have it, go with a plain slice. Play it safe. Marvel at it's size. Wince at its price. And then move on to bigger and better pizza.

Rating - 2/5 And that's overall - helped out A LOT by the plain slice.

Best of the Best Tour - L&B

I left Brooklyn so many years ago it's getting too hard to keep track. The one place that I absolutely always needed to return to was Spumoni Gardens. Long before there were countless TV shows with random hosts coming and drooling over the pizza served at L&B, this family owned establishment has always had a lot full of cars coupled with cars being double and triple parked out front. Go there on any warm day in the summer and you'll see that same scene. Go there in the winter and the lot's still full and there may be some double parked cars. Pizza is cooked and served equally as fast.

I have so many stories and memories of visits to this place it can fill a book. As a kid growing up in BK, I knew good pizza and I also knew that L&B was the pinnacle - for two reasons:

1. When we were moving to SI, my uncle stopped with my brother and I, double parked our moving truck out front, and we grabbed some squares because he said, "you'll never eat pizza like this out there." While I wasn't sure he'd ever been to Staten Island to back up his statement, I believed him. He also said "you'll never see girls like these outside of Brooklyn." On a mid-August day, that's a VERY hard claim to refute.

and, more importantly

2. I do not eat squares. EVER. Except from here. That is a fairly large statement.

Revisiting an earlier post, I do not like thick, doughy pizza. The squares at Spumoni Gardens are not too thick and have a signature crunch that is out of this world. For me the secret to the success of their squares is in the cooking. The dough receives a healthy drizzle of olive oil, followed by a generous coating of sliced mozzarella, and then covered in a sweet, delicious, thick pizza sauce. Ultimately, the squares shine because this sauce is amazing. Yes, the crust is typically crunchy and perfect. Yes the cheese is melted in nicely, forming a nice, gooey layer on top of the dough. But at the end of the day, it's love at first bite because the sauce is just that damn good.

When living in SI, before gas prices were insane and the toll on the VZ bridge was somewhat tolerable, I would make 2-3 trips a week to the Gardens for squares and spumoni. Why? Because the squares are that good and the spumoni is the perfect finish after knocking off a couple of squares.

Rating - 5/5. This is the absolute best square your money can buy and the homemade spumoni is peerless.

Starting At The Top - Lombardi's

I'd imagine that once upon a time, Little Italy in NYC was slightly less "little." I'd also imagine that this would be the ideal place to start on a hunt for delicious pizza in the city so nice they named it twice. The thing about pizza is there's a joint on nearly every corner where I'm from and there are die-hards that swear by their pizzeria being the best that money can buy. So I'll start by asserting the fact that there's LOTS of good pizza in NYC but there's a lot LESS great pizza.

On my journeys, I've been asked, "What makes great pizza?" I think the judging can be somewhat subjective but if you base it on three primary factors you can find your way to greatness a lot easier. I focus on the sauce, the cheese, and the dough/crust. Bland sauce makes for bland pizza, simple enough. If your sauce is uninspired, I'm uninspired to eat it. I want to taste the wonderful herbs that are ubiquitous in Italian cooking - oregano, parsley, and basil (give me fresh basil and I'll be your BFF Mr. Pizza Man **note that if you do not want me as your BFF lay off the fresh basil) Moving on to the cheese, I don't want my pizza to be smothered in so much cheese that I can't truly enjoy it. I want a blend and balance because the mozz can tend to be a bit salty when it's just globbed on top. Lastly, the dough/crust needs to be cooked well enough to have a little crunch, thick enough to hold the pizza together and not just flop over, and thin enough to not feel like I'm chewing and chewing and chewing to get it down.

To sum up - flavorful sauce, easy on the cheesy, and a thinnish crust and then it's on to business.

Back to the mission, pizza. First stop - Lombardi's. Why here? Well, they kinda started the whole pizza thing in the good ol' US of A back in 1905. That's what the plaque to the right says and I believe EVERYTHING I read on plaques. If that's not good enough, nearly every listing for the best pizza in NYC has Lombardi's in the top spot (if not top 3.) We got two samplings from Lombardi's - a white pie and a pie with meatball, sausage, and pepperoni.

The white pie was more a work of art than a pizza pie. Notice the way the ricotta is on top of the pizza, reminiscent of meringues with their nice fluffy peaks and delicate hints of golden brown. Still looking? Yes that is fresh basil and it has also received some gentle browning courtesy of Lombardi's oven. The cheese was so delicious, spread nicely, and flavored with the perfect amount of garlic. Lastly, the crust was to die for. Don't believe me? My friend said, "I never eat the crust and I can't get enough of this." Don't believe her? Well, you should.

Moving right along I did mention another pie so I've got to give the low down. Yes I am a meat lover but I typically do not go loading on the meat on my pizza. Rather, I keep it more subtle since at many pizzerias, more toppings means a thicker, doughier pizza and that just aint my thing. But, Lombardi's proves me and my judgmental ways wrong by serving up this tasty treat. Loaded with generous amounts of each meaty topping, this pie still had flavors that stood out on their own merit. The homemade meatballs (made with pork and beef) were delicious. The pepperoni was small and thinly sliced but added the right flavor, same goes for the sausage. But what about the sauce DJ? Oh well this is the kind of sauce many of you wish your grandmother would make - and it was on a pizza!

I'm not sure if pizza heaven exists but this is one heavenly pizza. If you've been here, go again. If you've never gone, stop thinking about it and do it now. Chances are you're going to be waiting on a decent line anyway.

Rated - 5/5 as in pizza perfection.