I’m not sure why NY style pizza is supposed to be the be all end all of pizzas.
Yes, I know, I live in Dallas Texas, and we Texans know squat about pizza. But we do have quite a few M&P shops around here that are supposed to be the real deal.
The toppings and sauce are spot on. But the crust I don’t really care for. You pick a slice up, and it just goes limp right there in your hand (shut up).
So my question is, shouldn’t a properly cooked NY style pizza have at least a little bit of crunch to it? Are the folks in my neck of the woods doing it wrong?
No you don’t. It’s simply not possible, and you will agree once you come to the NY area and get a slice. Believe me, I lived in Texas and I dun the research [/Katt Williams].
My experience in NYC was that I’d come in for lunch, point at a pie, they’d put a slice back in the oven and take my money, then hand me a big thin floppy slice with a crispy bottom from the brick floor of the oven. I’m salivating just thinking about it.
But yeah, you keep it on the paper plate and fold it in half to eat with one hand
I like NY-style pizza a lot, but the one thing that annoys me about it is how it’s often covered in grease that dribbles everywhere, especially when you fold it up. And goes right through those paper plates they come with.
Sometimes, if the pizza is extra greasy it gets floppy but, ideally, it shouldn’t flop. The bottom of the crust should be crisp enough to support the upper, softer parts.
Note that in NY there are two types of pizza-- thin crust and thick crust. Thin crust is just the crusty part. Sometimes when you fold it, it cracks. Thick crust is like I described above: crusty on the bottom and saucy, doughy on the top. I prefer thick crust myself.
Are you eating it at the shop, or delivered to your house? I suspect that the environment of a sealed, insulated pizza box on a hot pizza would soften up a crust significantly.
And the only pizza I ever ate in NYC was much more along the lines of the pizzas I ate in Italy than any interpretation of “NYC Style” I’ve ever had- thin, cracker-like crust, no crust rim to speak of, etc… It was at a joint on Arthur Ave. in the Bronx, so I don’t know if it was trying to be Italian or NYC style.
All that said, the local NY style pizza joint (“Primo Brothers” in Lake Highlands) is pretty tasty, even if it may not be 100% stylistically accurate.
New York style is a thin crust based on Neopolitan pizza style. They can be limp and need folding to eat, it’s quite common for pizza sold by the slice to need folding because it’s larger than the slices found in the typical large pie sold. It doesn’t have to be paper thin though. Some people prefer it very thin. Each pizza place has their own style. Many places in the NY area will sell a Sicilian style pizza also. It has a very thick crust, resembling Chicago pizza, except it tastes good.
You just need to take about four napkins, and stuff them into the cuff of your shirt, so the grease that dribbles down off the fold and into your palm gets caught before it hits your elbow. The orange oil-soaked plate should be held well out in front of you, and angled slightly downward. It’s only purpose (beyond keeping the pizza from touching the counter while you pay the guy your three bucks) is to deflect errant cheese/toppings from dropping onto your shoes.
I ordered a pizza at a small shop in NY state (not the city, but close). When I said I wanted peppers, hamburger, and onions, they looked at me like I had three heads. Apparently, New York style means only one (or fewer) topping.
You can usually order all the toppings you want. Perhaps the hamburger threw them off or something, it’s an unusual order. In PA there was a local shop that simply used numbers for the type of pizza, like 20 for plain, 22 for pepperoni, and a few other of their most common combinations. They gave out those numbers to customers that called in as if it were their order number and there was occasional chaos as three customers showed up at once saying they were number 22. That was then, most orders were the few basic combinations, since then ordering unique combos seems to be more common.
My dad was from Flatbush. He went on-and-on about NY pizza my whole life. He even brought a whole pizza from NY home to Los Angeles on an airplane once in his carry-on luggage, wrapped in foil. He stated you knew how good the NY pizza was based on how far the grease ran down your arm.
