NYC Pizza Tour 2022

Tommy

Just a Millennial living in the real world...

Well if you know me then you know that I attended Purdue and one of my favorite things is being a Purdue sports fan. I love the University, I bleed black and gold, and I am ever grateful for what Purdue has given to me. Unfortunately on Friday night, Purdue was on the wrong side of history and became the second #1 seed in NCAA History to lose to a #16 seed… Since the NCAA Tournament began, the record for #1 seeds in the Round of 64 was 150-1 and now that record is 150-2 or 98.6% win percentage. Yeah not good… The team Purdued it in embarrassing fashion on the national stage… Hopefully Matt Painter and our team will learn from the failure and win a national championship within my lifetime. It’s over, the past is the past, and I’m moving on. So let’s talk about one of my other favorite things, pizza.

Last September during Labor Day Weekend, I had a flight credit that I had to use by the end of October so I chose to go on a weekend trip to NYC to go on a Pizza Tour and visit Citi Field, which checked my 17th ballpark off my bucket list. This would be my 3rd visit to the Big Apple. My first 2 visits were focused on doing touristy things and my 3rd visit was focused on food. NYC is such a big city with so much to do that you pretty much have to make multiple trips. Even a full week won’t be enough for me with all of the things on my bucket list.

Last time in NYC, I stayed in an AirBnb in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn last time, which is the neighborhood where Jay Z grew up. Since most of my pizza joints were in Manhattan for this trip, I decided to stay in Midtown at the Andaz 5th Avenue hotel. If I ever needed to stay in Manhattan again, I would definitely consider staying at the Andaz 5th Avenue. It’s located right next to Bryant Park and a block away from Grand Central Terminal. The hotel’s location is very well centralized. So it’s super easy to take the Metro to uptown/downtown Manhattan, over to Brooklyn, out to Queens, and out to the airports.

I had a morning flight out of Chicago around 8am so I would land at LaGuardia around 10am and I would be in Manhattan around 11:30am just in time for lunch. This is the second time I have flown into LaGuardia and I always use public transportation as the Metro runs quite frequently on weekends and it’s just as fast as driving due to NYC traffic. Just make sure to purchase your Metrocard ($33 for 7 days unlimited or $2.75/swipe) at a kiosk near the bus terminal. Essentially, there a few ways to get to Manhattan from LaGuardia using the Metro and I think the two ways below are the easiest. I took option 1 as I was heading straight to Prince Street Pizza, but Option 2 is usually quicker to Manhattan.

LaGuardia to Manhattan Option 1:

From LaGuardia, take the M60-SBS bus heading towards Broadway/106 St.
Get off at the Hoyt Ave./31st stop and walk over to the Astoria Blvd. Metro station.
Take the N line towards Coney Island/Stillwell Ave.
This route will take you right through the center of Manhattan and you can take it to Brooklyn. Notable attractions include Central Park (5th Ave./59th St.), Rockefellar Center (49th St.), Times Square (Times Square/42nd St.), Chinatown (Canal St.), and Barclays Center (Atlantic Ave./Barclays Center).

LaGuardia to Manhattan Option 2:

From LaGuardia, take the Q70-SBS bus.
Get off at the Roosevelt Ave./74th St. stop and walk over to the 74th St./Broadway Metro station.
Take the 7 line towards 34th St./Hudson Yards.
This route will take you right to the center of Manhattan. Notable attractions include Grand Central Terminal (Grand Central/42nd St.), Rockefellar Center (49th St.) and Times Square (Times Square/42nd St.).
This route is the best route to take to get from LaGuardia to Grand Central Terminal, which is the center of Manhattan. Then you can transfer lines to get uptown/downtown Manhattan or wherever.

Day 1: Pizza & Citi Field

Prince Street Pizza

My first stop on the Pizza Tour was Prince Street Pizza. This is a highly rated pizza joint in the Nolita neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. Prince Street Pizza is a top rated spot and I arrived around noon. I was shocked that when I arrived there was barely a line. I ordered the Original Prince slice, a Sicilian slice of the Spicy Spring, and a Pepsi for about $14.

The crust was soft, crispy, and had little flop. The cheese was great and had lots of it. The sauce was tangy. The Spicy Spring had some kick with some mild heartburn as it was Diavolo sauce. Sauce to cheese ratio could have been better. The Spicy Spring was loaded with Pepperoni, which was great! Definitely had a kick and it was very good quality pepperoni.

Crust: 10
Cheese: 8
Sauce: 7
Toppings: 9
Overall: 8.5

Scarr's Pizza

Scarr’s Pizza, located in Chinatown, was the second stop of the Pizza Tour, which was walking distance from Prince Street Pizza.

Some say this is the best pizza in NYC. I arrived around 1pm on a Saturday and shockingly enough this was my longest wait of the trip so expectations were high. The line was small (about 10 people in front of me), but the pizza joint was also very small with some seating outside and in the back of the joint. The joint was very old school, which was pretty cool.

It took about 20 minutes for me to get my food, which was kind of slow. I ordered a Pepperoni square and a slice of cheese. Unfortunately, the square slice was bad. The crust was flavorful, chewy, and that was the best part. The sauce to cheese ratio was extremely bad so it was extremely dry and it needed way more sauce. The pepperoni was good, but it needed more. Overall, it was an extremely dry slice. The cheese slice was much better, but also dry. Good crust, better sauce to cheese ratio, and the cheese was good. There was pretty much zero flop because of how dry the slice was. Overall, the ingredients were good and I think I just had some bad slices. I see why Scarr’s has a lot of potential. I saw that they had the slices out on display and threw them into the oven to heat them up, which is standard. However, I have a feeling that they left the slices in the oven for too long so that is why they were extremely dry. Prices were cheaper than Prince Street Pizza at about $5.50/slice. The employees were friendly when I ordered so that was nice. I’m glad that I tried Scarr’s Pizza, but unfortunately these slices were the worst of the trip. But still better those most!

Crust: 7
Cheese: 7
Sauce: 5
Toppings: 7
Overall: 6.5

Patsy's Pizzeria

Patsy’s Pizzeria is my NY friend’s favorite place and he told me to go to the original location in East Harlem (2287 2nd Ave. & 69th St.) because of the history. This was the third stop and I arrived around 3pm on a Saturday during Labor Day weekend. 3pm was offpeak so there was essentially no line, but there were people ordering when I was there. They have a sit down restaurant, but I ordered from their window as I going to go check into my hotel afterwards. Due to the time of the day, they were only serving cheese slices and I wasn’t going to order a full pie since I have already eaten breakfast and 4 slices already. So unfortunately I couldn’t order pepperoni for my toppings ranking. This location is also cash only.

Hands down this was the best crust and sauce I have ever had on a pizza! The crust was extremely fluffy, had amazing flavor, light, and minimal flop. The sauce to cheese ratio was great overall! The sauce was sweet and tangy. The cheese had great flavor! Overall, Patsy’s became my new #1 in my pizza rankings. Patsy’s ranked slightly above Di Fara, and Roberta’s. I should have tried a full pie!

Crust: 10
Cheese: 9
Sauce: 10
Toppings: N/A
Overall: 9.33

Citi Field

After Patsy’s Pizzeria, I ended up heading back downtown to my hotel to go check in. After getting settled in, it was time to go to Citi Field for the Met’s & Nationals game. Staying at the Andaz 5th Avenue was great because I was right next to Grand Central Terminal, where I would take the 7 train out to Flushing/Main St. to Citi Field. The US Open for tennis was also in town so the train ended up getting quite crowded as Louis Armstrong Stadium is right next to Citi Field.

Citi Field was pretty cool. No cool views of the skyline or anything, but clean, modern, and it had a big jumbotron. Any seat in the park seemed to be a pretty good view. The food was pretty good and I think concessions were on the cheaper side. The crowd reminded me of Cubs fans as they were pretty rowdy. I liked it much better than Yankee Stadium as it felt too corporate. I would compare Citi Field to Comiskey Park and Yankee Stadium to Wrigley Field. Citi Field was definitely more of a fan experience while Yankee Stadium is more of a neighborhood experience.

Day 2: Pizza, Pizza, and more Pizza

I ended up sleeping in slightly the next day until 8am and then I went for a 3 mile run to burn off some of the calories that I have consumed. Last time I was in NYC, I didn’t try a New York bagel so this time around I wanted to try one for breakfast. I ended up running along a riverfront trail on the East River and then I ran to Ess-a-Bagel at 3rd & 51st St. I arrived around 9:30am and there was a huge line around the corner, which wasn’t a huge surprise as it’s the most popular bagel joint in NYC. It would have been at least a 30 minute wait. I didn’t want to wait in it so I ran a quarter mile north to Tal Bagels at 1st & 54th St. It was also crowded, but not nearly as long as a line as Ess-a-Bagel.

Tal's Bagels

I ended up only waiting about 10 minutes and the line moved very efficiently.

I ordered an everything bagel, which is my favorite bagel and I tried it with Lox spread, which I have never had before. This was probably the best bagel I have ever had as I typically only eat Einstein’s Bros Bagels and Thomas Bagels Thins, and I missed out on Montreal bagels as I wasn’t a “Foodie” back then. The bagel was large, toasted perfectly, cheap, and it had a generous amount of spread. I thought that the everything bagel could have had some more seasoning, which is one of the best parts of an everything bagel.

Overall, the line was much smaller than Ess-a-Bagel, which is a huge plus and the bagels were very good! I don’t think it’s totally worth waiting in line for a very long time as I am not a huge bagel fan. But if you love bagels and want a shorter line, then I think Tal Bagels is a good choice! Service was very efficient and I appreciate that! The bagel with spread was about $5 so I thought this was an incredible bargain in NYC especially with the size of the bagel and the generous amount of spread. So I would recommend skipping the massive line at Ess-a-Bagel and try Tal Bagels!

Joe's Pizza

Joe’s Pizza is the quintessential pizza slice of NYC and the 4th stop on my Pizza Tour over Labor Day Weekend. I arrived at the Greenwich Village location (Original) around 12:30pm on a Sunday. This location was an extremely small space, hole in the wall type of place and it’s cash only.

I already had a bagel from Tal Bagels for breakfast and I had a full pie coming up so I only ordered a slice of Pepperoni. The slice was about $5.50, which was cheap given how big the slice was! This slice was so good and I believe they are very consistent given their following! The crust was amazing! It was soft, fluffy, chewy, and it had great undercarriage. This was probably the best sauce to cheese ratio out of all of my slices. The cheese was very good and they loaded it up. The sauce was very very good, but there was nothing very memorable about it. I loved the big/wide slices of pepperoni, which were very good as well!

Overall, I loved Joe’s and I see why it is so highly rated. There was really nothing wrong with this slice and I think it would be a very consistent slice where you can’t go wrong. In the wise words of Dave Portnoy, Joe’s was a great football slice!

Crust: 10
Cheese: 8
Sauce: 8
Toppings: 8
Overall: 8.5

Bleecker Street Pizza

Bleecker Street Pizza wasn’t on my list, but I was exploring West Village and I walked by it so I made the spontaneous decision to try it. I arrived around 1pm and there was a small line. The vibe was pretty cool and I thought it was pretty retro. I ordered a Grandma’s slice and a slice of pepperoni/sausage. I enjoyed both slices, but I thought the square slice’s crust was a little dry (starting to see a pattern here with square slices). But the thin crust was good. It was crispy and minimal flop. The cheese was a ok, but nothing memorable. The cheese to sauce ratio was good. I thought the toppings were extremely good and the best parts of the pizza! The basil on the Grandma’s slice was on point! I loved the pepperoni and the sausage. Slices were about $5.50/slice so decent value. Overall, this was good/very good pizza and I am glad that I stopped by to try it!

Crust: 7
Cheese: 5
Sauce: 7
Toppings: 10
Overall: 7.25

Since it was Labor Day Weekend, I knew that the wait time would be long to reserve a table at John’s of Bleecker Street so I placed a to-go order ahead of time around 4:30pm. So I had some time to kill. I checked out Pier 45 Hudson River Park, explored Soho, walked up the Brooklyn Bridge, explored the Two Bridges neighborhood, walked and around NYU’s campus before picking up my pizza from John’s.

John's of Bleecker Street

One of Dave Portnoy’s highest pizza reviews of all time is at John’s of Bleecker Street so this has been on my bucket list for awhile.

This was my 6th and final stop of the Pizza Tour and 3rd of the day after Joe’s Pizza and Bleecker Street Pizza. You either have to dine in or order a full pie to go. Since I didn’t want to wait in line, I pre-ordered a full pepperoni pizza for a 4:30pm pickup on a Sunday. I arrived a little early and there was a small line for dine-in as it was off-peak. I told the guy that I was there for pickup and he brought the pie out for me, which was right on time. Prices were fair for NYC at about $25-$30 a pie.

This thing looked like fire and I actually thought it was going to be heavy. I loved the charred brick-oven crust at the end of the crust. It was a little lopsided, which was a nice little touch of imperfection and I thought that was great! The pizza was extremely light (NY style) and the crust was amazing! Super light, fluffy, chewy, and flavorful. The cheese was great and it had a nice sauce to cheese ratio. I thought the sauce was excellent as well! It was very tangy and very flavorful. It was definitely more hearty than Patsy’s, but very very good. The pepperoni was very good as well, but it wasn’t very memorable.

Overall, I thought John’s of Bleecker Street was extremely good, but it came up just shy of Patsy’s Pizza coming in at a strong #2 in my rankings. I thought this pie was definitely more hearty, more of a sit down meal, and reminded me a little bit of Deep Dish Pizza. Patsy’s was lighter, which I preferred. I thought service was fine as my pizza was ready on time. I think John’s of Bleecker Street lived up to the hype and I am so grateful that I had to the opportunity to try and stop by!

Crust: 10
Cheese: 9
Sauce: 10
Toppings: 8
Overall: 9.25

Sarge's Delicatessen

I’m a huge fan of corned beef and pastrami sandwiches and I know that Sarge’s Delicatessen is rated as one of the best sandwiches in the nation.

I needed to switch up meals from the Pizza Tour (6 stops over Labor Day Weekend) and I am a huge fan of Delicatessens, specifically Corned Beef and Pastrami sandwiches. Last time I visited NYC, I was able to try Katz Delicatessen, which was the best sandwich I have ever had! There were a decent amount of diners already as I arrived a little late around 7:30pm on a Sunday as I just ate a full pie at John’s of Bleecker Street around 4:30pm, but I was able to get a seat immediately. I didn’t realize that this was a sit-down full service restaurant over cafeteria style. But they had a counter where you can buy things to go.

The menu was massive and there were so many options. But I already knew what I wanted as I usually look at menus online. I ordered a #3, which was the Corned Beef & Pastrami sandwich and a potato pancake. The sandwich came with cole slaw and some pickles. The cole slaw was ok as I like mine creamier over vinegar base, but the pickles were great! The potato pancake was huge, very crispy, and very good. But Sharpiro’s Delicatessen in Indianapolis was a tad better. The sandwich was enormous so a great value and they piled on the meat. I thought the sandwich needed more mustard as I thought the rye was a tad dry. The corned beef and pastrami were very good though!

Service was excellent and my waitress was very friendly. Cost was typical for NYC at about $25 for the sandwich, but like all deli’s it was enormous! Overall, this was a very good place to eat and I am very glad I tried it! I definitely see why Sarge’s is rated as one of the best sandwiches in the nation. However, I think that Kat’z Delicatessen in NYC, Sharpiro’s Delicatessen in Indianapolis, and Manny’s Cafeteria in Chicago are ranked higher. If you don’t want to wait in the long lines at Katz (even though it’s worth it), then Sarge’s Delicatessen is a great option!

Overall

This trip was excellent! The next time, I visit NYC, I would stay in Brooklyn and explore that Borough more. The next restaurant on my bucket list is Peter Luger Steakhouse where I will have to order a steak and their burger as I know that they are rated highly for both. Also Lucali, L&B Spumoni Gardens, and Lombardi’s are all pizzas that I need to rate. Check out my post about my Pizza Rankings if you want to view them all!