Delivery, Dining Out, Dinner, Event, LunchKerry Alaric CheeseboroJanuary 14, 2010Abitino's, cheese, Delivery, Dining Out, Dinner, Fat Sals, favorites, Ginos, local, Lunch, mozzarella, Neighborhood, phude, pie, pizza, pizzeria, sauce, sausage, slice, tomato, YorkvilleComment

EVENT | National Pizza Week, Part 4 | 'Nabe 'Za Faves

[mappress]

I HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE, and I'll say it again: if you are ordering pizza from places like Domino's, in this, the pizza capital of the world, you are an insult to both pizza-lovers and the city of New York!

The only excuse you have would be one of economics or inebriation, when you thought you needed 3 medium pies—enough to live off for at least couple of days—for under twenty bucks.

The "pizza" at Domino's is manufactured—in parts—in a lab hundreds of miles outside on New York City. Ordering from there would being like ordering Taco Bell in Mexico!

And almost every neighborhood in at least 4 of the five boroughs has a pizza place with minutes of their doorstep. And if you live in a neighborhood like mine—where pizzerias average 1.3 per block, you're going to want to do the work of finding out where you $2.50–$3.75 per slice is best spent.

So for all of my PHUDE-ies who do live in my neighborhood, and for the recent transplants who just moved here, I present a list of my favorite three pizzerias out of the 203 alone in the east 80s streets of Manhattan.

The farthest—two blocks away—is newbie Abitino's, which mysteriously replaced the tenured and revered Anna Maria's (which I ordered from mainly not for pizza, but for their buffalo wings, which counted 24 for just $8.25!). I recently, on a website's recommendation, ordered a nonna, or Grandma pie from, being so impressed with it I added it to my pizza rotation.

And since I had yet to order my favorite kind of slice—sausage—throughout my Pizza Week research, I decided I would do so today, at all three pizzarias, trying a sausage slice for the very first time at Abitino's.

I had gotten there right before the beginning of the lunch rush, and they were getting a large number of seemingly loyal customers rush in for the usual orders. My slice was very nice; a crispy-ish crust held on to a tangy sauce. The sausage, properly prominent with fennel seed, had a very natural more sweetness than spice, but still worked nicely. The cheese actually had a good cheese flavor; usually pizza's processed mozzarella is identified in the mouth by texture, and not taste, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Next stop, a half block back towards 2nd Avenue, was neighborhood stalwart and darling, Gino's.

Gino's may be very well best known for their Chicken Parmesan, and rightfully so. Their tomato sauce is a generationally perfected and protected recipe, and it winds up exalted the medium thickness dry, crispy crust it sits on. Adding happiness to an already gleeful eating experience was the unusual abbondanza of sliced sausage!

Knowing full well I had one more slice to dine on, I wisely took a meal break for the rest of the afternoon, waiting another 6 hours before crossing the street from my apartment to my last pizza stop for the day: Fat Sal's, which I have already written about in the My Yorkville section of PHUDE.

Finally! What I've been missing all week! That super-crispy, well done, minimally charred crust! The crust on a Fat Sal's slice is almost that of city lore. Folding it's content into it's edges makes it the on-the-go, one-handed sandwich it was almost supposed to be. A decent sauce, the right amount of cheese, and some spicy-sweet sausage help complete the nostalgia.

So, if you're keeping track, great pizzas all; however, Abitino's wins for its cheese, Gino's for its sauce, and Fat Sal's for its crust.

Also, if you're keeping score, these were my 14th, 15th, and 16th slices for the week. And how it argues for the quality of New York City pizza that I'm still enjoying every bite!

I couldn't say that about Domino's after just one slice....

Bun Apple Tea!

.kac.

Kerry Alaric Cheeseboro