Famous Original A's

I had a lot of fun with the Koronet review on Slice. Go read it here »

I think I’d always described the jumbo slice there as being “bigger than your head.” But I’d never tested that statement. Yup. It’s pretty much true. I knew I had to take a photo to document this.

I’d only been to Koronet a handful of times before I visited for my review. I always sort of remembered it as being not horrible but not good. Turns out that it’s actually pretty good. I wouldn’t say it’s the best slice out there, but I think Colin the Slice Harvester is dead on when he says the story doesn’t begin and end just with the gigantic size. It’s actually got some good-quality stuff going on — just on an epic scale.

Turns out, too, the Manikis family, who own Koronet, are basically my neighbors. They live about a block down from me in Astoria. Small world.

Koronet Pizza

2848 Broadway
New York NY 10025 (at 110th Street; map)
212-222-1566

Every Friday I drop a pizza review on Slice. Here, on FOA, I give a little background info.

Pauline & Sharon's Pizza on Fourth and Prospect avenues replaced Peppe's Pizza & Panini in November 2010.

I originally visited the Park Slope area to try newly opened Giuseppina’s up on Sixth Avenue and 19th Street. It’s the long-anticipated sister restaurant of Lucali in Carroll Gardens. Or should I say “brother restaurant”? Giuseppina was opened by Chris Iacono, brother of Lucali’s Mark Iacono. If you know anything about Brooklyn or NYC pizza, the fact that top-rated Lucali has spawned a spin-off is BIG NEWS. After a year of delays, it had finally opened last week.

As at Lucali, though, it’s impossible to take a decent photo in the dim lighting there. This was Wednesday, and I needed to have my review in by Thursday night. Problem. I could either go back as close to opening (6pm) as possible and try to get a shot in what remained of the daylight or scramble to review a different place.

Luckily, I had stopped by Pauline & Sharon’s on my way up to Giuseppina’s.

See my “review” on Slice » (more…)

For this week’s Slice review I went to Adrienne’s Pizzabar in the Financial District. Quoting myself:

What I love just as much as the confluence of great ingredients, though, is the riot of textures on this pizza. The airy, puffy parts of the dough are crisp yet soft and pillowy. The thinner parts that didn’t rise as much are crisper and dense and get a little more oily and almost fried in the pan. The regular “aged” mozzarella in spots chars a bit and takes on that crunchy texture that I love in Detroit-style pan pizzas. And the fresh mozzarella remains creamy throughout.

This is the second full review I’ve done on Slice after taking suggestions from the Slice community via Facebook and Twitter. Both Yvo “Feisty Foodie” and Anthony “Tony Calzone” Falco nudged me here.

For this review, the wife and I went on Wednesday night, but it was too dark and crowded to take photos and not look like a tool. I went back solo on Thursday afternoon around 4:30. It was interesting to see how the pizza changed from day to day. As co-owner and head pizzaman Nick Angelis said, it really depends on the hour you’re eating it, because the pizza proofs in the pan — and because they make two batches of dough a day, one for lunch and another for dinner. Get a pizza made from a tray of dough that’s been sitting a long time, and you’re going to get a puffier pizza, which might explain why my Thursday afternoon pie was much more airy — it was likely lunchtime dough that had been rising for a while.

Adrienne’s Pizzabar

54 Stone Street, New York NY 10005 (map); 212-248-3838; adriennespizzabar.com