Pizza Box: Appendix

I just wanted to add an appendix to Austin's excellent post about the Pizza Box, which is definitely my favorite pizza spot in the Village. In addition to the serviceable indoor seating, there is fairly expansive outdoor patio for the spring and summer, which allows you addicts to smoke your cigarettes while enjoying pizza box's modest but still much appreciated selection of wine and beers on tap. I am a sucker for good crust, and pizza box delivers like few places can--its literally some of the crispiest, most perfect new york crust i've had the pleasure to shove down my drunken gullet. While the cheese, mushroom, and vegetable slices are all great, it is with the crucial margherita slice where the Box truly shines. Usually if a pizza place can't do this right, it's dead to me pretty quickly, but the Box outdoes itself with this mouth-watering combo of fresh mozzarella, basil, and delicious sauce. Throw in the aformentioned crust, which seems to have been born to live under these ingredients, and you have one goddamn good slice of pizza. It's right near a bunch of cool Village bars, so eat at least three slices before drinking to prevent blackouts. The Doctor has spoken.


Sauce-8
Cheese-9
Crust-10
Ambience-7
Booze-6
Outdoor Seating-8
Price-6
Service-7
Margherita-10

Mardigras

3 Maiden Ln (between Broadway and Liberty Pl)
Financial District

Frida Kahlo framed posters line the walls of Mardigras' pint sized establishment off Broadway in the Financial District. When I first walked in, my whole line waiting experience at their festive red and yellow countertops was spent trying to remember Kahlo's name. Once I sat down and took a bite of my normal looking plain pizza slice it came to me, and immediately I entered the world of Frida Kahlo. The unique cornmeal-specked crust and perfectly textured cheese made me truly understand Kahlo's work and remember some of her most famous words:

"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."

Yes. Mmmmmm. Yes.

So I strongly recommend Mardigras for its appropriate mix of spectacular pizza and interesting conversation/thought inducing decor. You wont be disappointed.

Pizza: 9
Decor: 9
Service: 6
Cheese:9
Crust:10

Friendly Pizzeria

Friendly Pizzeria
59 Nassau St. (Financial District)
Corner of Nassau St. and Maiden Ln.

Friendly Pizzeria has got to be the smallest pizzeria I’ve ever been to in my entire pizza-filled life. At lunchtime it was crazy hectic. Seating was limited to one table and one ledge, with a total of four chairs. People pretty much conveyor-belted through the dual entrances and went upon their merry ways. It’s a quirky spot, though, and the reggae music this guy blasts/sells right next door put me in a good mood.

AS FOR THE PIZZA: I had the fresh tomatoes/mozzarella (Napolitana) slice, which was strangely puffy and weird. Sauce sucked, crust sucked, toppings were fresh and delicious in my mouth. B-slice had the mushroom, however, which was so bad he yuked all over both of us and like 5 other closely packed customers (figuratively). The place has plenty of character and if you find a slice you like I guess it might make you feel cool to go there or something, but it didn’t do much for us.

Sauce=3
Crust=3
Cheese=5
Napolitana=3
Toppings=5
Ambience=8
Service=5


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Pizza Box

Pizza Box
By Austin Thomas

I count out sixteen quarters every morning to buy two things during the course of the day. Coffee at Bruno’s Bakery and a slice of pizza at Pizza Box. Bruno’s and Pizza Box happen to be two of the few places that have managed to remain on or around Bleecker Street. Over the years, the turnover rate of places in this area has steadily increased. About every six months there’s a Pinkberry that takes the place of a Red Mango that took the place of a Jamba Juice. But for as long as I’ve been alive, there’s been Bruno’s and Pizza Box for coffee and a slice.

The price of coffee has varied by a negligible amount over the years. It has been stable at six quarters, or $1.50, for a while now. Pizza though, as we all have followed, has gone from a general consensus of $2.00 to $2.25 and now to $2.50. I’ve adjusted accordingly. Ten quarters for a slice. Got it.

So I get up in the morning and count out sixteen quarters. Six quarters for a small black coffee from Bruno’s (which by the way is a bakery that still makes fresh loaves of bread each morning and might give you any left over bread at the end of the day for free), and ten quarters for a slice at Pizza Box. I pick up the coffee first because it’s on the way to Pizza Box and because I’d much prefer to sit in a pizzeria with a coffee than in a bakery with pizza. I enter Pizza Box and the same guy who has always ran the place is there and greets me hello. He’s lost most of his hearing by now, and although I’ve been coming here my whole life he doesn’t recognize me anymore. But I bet that if I’d come in with my mom and brother he would recognize me as the curly haired little kid in the stroller with his mom and brother. I begin to ask him for a plain slice, but as I do, I glance up at the menu and see written in black magic marker on a paper plate taped to the menu: REGULAR SLICE $2.75. “I’m sorry,” I say. “No thanks,” and proceed to walk down the block to The Pizzeria, but I won’t write about that because that’s for someone else to do.

It wasn’t that I refused to pay the extra quarter that Pizza Box charges for their pizza which has always been and will always be the best pizza in the neighborhood. It wasn’t that I was mad about how food prices have escalated because our federal government has subsidized the conversion of grain into ethanol which has raised the costs of food products that are made directly from such commodities as bread, pasta, and tortillas, or because the Federal Reserve Bank chooses to weaken the value of the dollar by printing billions of dollars to bail out reckless irresponsible buffoons from Bear Stearns, and thereby making domestic products like pizza more expensive for American consumers. No, it wasn’t that. I surely would have paid it if I’d brought eleven quarters. But I didn’t. I only brought ten.

Cardato's Part Deux

Although the purpose of this site/blog/thing/monster Nick has created seems to be showing everyone NEW and different pizza joints in the city, I feel the need to throw in my two cents on a previously rated place called Cardato's.

Everything NIchabod said was true. Place was a deli, not much seating wise, kinda pricey..... However one point that may go overlooked is the quality of Cardato's Hawaiian pizza. Wow. For anyone who somewhat enjoyed Hawaiian pizza once in their life (even if it was only that one sloppy late night you tried to forget), go to Cardota's and fall in love(with pineapple and cheese) again.

Hawaiian=10

Thats' all you need to know.

Cardato's

Cardato's claims to be a pizzeria on MenuPages.com but really it's a pretty run-of-the-mill deli/grocery that also does pizza. Me and b-funk went there the other day. I had the white, which sucked, and a pepperoni, which was decent. He had a cheese (decent) and a hawaiian (actually really good). hawaiian's a tough one to pull off, so good for you, Cardato. Otherwise this place was fairly boring.

Cardato's New York

94 Greenwhich St.

Financial District

Ambience=4
Crust=6
Sauce=3
Cheese=5
White=2
Roni=5
Hawaiian=8
Price=7

Contributing

So just to make it clear...just comment on the most recent post (now it's this one) to contribute your opinions to the site. talk about your pizza experience basically in whatever format you want, with whatever details you want to include. its pretty loosey-goosey.  go for it!

SAMPLE COMMENT

SAMPLE COMMENT:

The other day me and B-Train went to this ridiculous place called LAHMACUN Mediterranean Pizza in the financial district. This lousy crapfest advertised 'mediterranean style' pizza but the only thing that was mediterranean was the picture collage on the wall. The guy behind the counter was a dick to B-Train and tried to charge him 50 cents extra but his boss was there and busted him on it. So I give the service a 2. The pizza itself was only ok, the crust being the highlight. Additionally, they put the pepperonis on a cheese slice raw to make a 'pepperoni slice', which is a cheap trick that i hate. The best thing about this place was the price (they had a nice deal for 2 cheese slices and a soda for 5$).

So, in summary:

LAHMACUN Mediterranean Pizza

40 Beaver St.

Financial District
ambience=2
service=2
sauce=4
crust=8
cheese=5
toppings=2
price=8


This was obviously a pretty bad experience, but worthy of criticism none the less. As you can see, after the eloquent memoir, I just thought of everything I felt like judging and gave it a 1-10 rating. you are welcome to rate as many or as few variables as you feel like. so that's the sample. now you do one!