The Search for the Slice Part 1 - Famiglia's

If you ask anyone what food New York City is most known for, the answer is invariable pizza. While most of the country suffers with commercial crap or items marked with the universal stop sign - "pizza flavored", New York is the home of the real deal slice. However, finding it is harder than you may think. There's a million choices, everything from high brow specialty pizza with artichokes or wild mushrooms, to dollar slices at grungy dive bars, probably reheated days before you had the privilege of cramming it down your mouth at 4 AM, too drunk to feel the sauce in your hair - or care. So, here at FoodGasm, we'll do the hard work for you. This is a quest...nay... a journey to find the perfect slice.

I thought long and hard about how I could compare all these various pizza joints. I thought about using a plain only standard, but that seems insufficient. Some places do plain, some places do fancy shmancy toppings. Does that make them worse in some way? I don't think so. So, for the purposes of this quest, I'll eat whatever pizza looks like the best slice.

Unfortunately, stop one was a major disappointment. I figured I'd stop into a local pizza joint around the corner from my apartment - La Famiglia. This place is nothing fancy, and I like that. Its your quintessential pizzeria, a variety of pre-made pies, sitting out under a glass counter waiting to be thrown back into the oven. You've been here a million times. And apparently so have a lot of famous people. The walls of this seemingly typical pizzeria are slathered with photos of the store's owners or workers standing with a slew of celebs and politicians. Ron Howard, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Arnold Scwarzenegger are just a small fraction of the famous faces posing for the walls at La Famiglia. Still, despite the classic feel and the celebrity endorsements, the pizza at Famiglia doesn't cut it. I ordered two slices, one a massive disappointment, and the other just mediocre. And for ten bucks, with dixie cup of coke, its a bit pricey.

First I ordered a tomato, fresh mozzarella, and basil slice. I usually like this, its very rustic, and when done right, its a foodgasm in your mouth. However, this slice was almost inedible. The key to this sort of pizza is the quality of the ingredients, and they simply dropped the ball in that department. The first thing that caught me off guard was the sauce. It literally tasted worse than C-grade tomato sauce from a jar. The cheese was rather tasteless as well. The only saving grace of this pizza was the crust. It was crispy but not a cracker, striking a nice balance. All in all, even with the crust, it was one of the top five worst slices of pizza I have ever eaten.

The other slice was better, but nothing to rave about. I've had worse, in fact, I just did, and it may have been the sheer horror of the first slice that saved the second one. This was the "supreme" slice. I am a total toppings whore. I hear peppers, mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni all together and I'm all for it. It all stayed together pretty nicely too, thanks to that pretty excellent crustage. Still, it was, shall we say, meh.

So, as for the first stop on The Search for a Slice, I would not take my famiglia to La Famiglia. I suppose I should have aimed higher for the inaugural pizza post, but this place is around the block from my apartment, and those places tend to be the best kept secrets. Next time, I'll check out one of the "elite" NYC pizza joints.

Stay hungry folks.

Jon - FoodGasm

Report Card:

Food - C

Atmosphere: B

Service: B

Price: B-

Overall: C+