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.