Adventures in Syracuse!

I’ve been spending some time around the area in which I grew up lately due to some unfortunate family events. On my way back to Syracuse one of those evenings, I was passing by a local pizzeria whose pizzas were a staple of my youth. It had probably been more than a decade since I’d tried their pizza, so I decided to give it a go.

It’s a given that people tend to romanticize the past: the good old days, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, Grandma’s [insert dish] was the best ever, etc. Fear not, you won’t be hearing any of that here. I never particularly cared for the pizza from this very popular location and perhaps that’s what instilled me with the desire to always be seeking a better slice. I know many people from home swear by their pizza, and think it’s nothing short of wonderful but no, not I.

Square-cut pizza

Oh, for the love of… OK, listen, we’ve discussed this before. I have my issues with the “Syracuse-Style” cross-cut pizza, but the square-cut pizza is truly a pizza abomination. What you have here is sixteen pieces of pizza. Eight of those pieces actually resume a normal slice of pizza in terms of crust-to-body ratio. Four of the remaining pieces are roughly 50% crust with about one bite’s worth of cheese and sauce. The final four pieces are the center four which have no outer crust for gripping and, essentially, are a mess of sauce, cheese and soggy crust. It is nigh-impossible to eat these without making an utter mess of your hands and face. When I was a kid, my preferred way of handling one of these pieces was to fold it in half or even wad it into a pizza ball and just shovel it in. Classy, no?

So what this creates here is a caste system for pizza slices. You’ve got the eight pieces with their crust and their cheese, which are clearly the upper ruling class. These are the pieces that everyone wants. If you’re either unlucky or slow, you’ve got to decide between the all-body/no-crust pieces in the middle or the those ridiculous hunks of crust with a dash of actual pizza in the corners. Obviously, the four center pieces are the second-tier options, leaving the corners as the red-headed step-children of the cross-cut pizza. Seriously, look at this sad, pathetic thing:

Crusty corner piece

These are the pieces you give to your least favorite kid. Pizza is supposed to be about equality, about friendship! Piece #1 should be just as awesome as Piece #8. The square-cut system promotes greed, jealousy, fights among friends, crying children… it’s not good. Oh, and that’s not even the last of it.

Yet another downfall of the square-cut

There you have it. While the wonderful, amazing, perfect triangle slice tapers away the further it gets from the crust, the evil, terrible, unholy square-cut piece remains at the same width from end-to-end. Thus, the toppings will cause the poor under-supported slice to wither and fold under its own weight. That is just terrible pizza engineering. For shame.

Now, if this were the greatest tasting pizza on the planet, it could be cut into the shape of Hitler’s face for all I care and I wouldn’t grumble (much). Alas, after all these years, I still think that it is a very average tasting pizza; a 3.0 out of 5.0 score would be pushing it. If I’m hungry and I eat it, it’ll solve my hunger problem, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t go searching this pizza out again, there are just too many other places to get a good slice of pizza in the area. If the Pizza Geek ever finds himself out that way, I’d certainly like to know his thoughts.

I’ve not mentioned the name of this franchise as they are a local chain and I’m not interested in bad-mouthing them and possibly damaging their business. However, the tale of the unfixable wrongness of the square-cut pizza needs to be told. Triangle slices for life!

When it comes to pizzerias, Central New York is the proverbial land of milk and honey. Here in Syracuse, it can seem that there is a pizza shop on every other block. However, with the blessing of plentiful pizza comes the curse of plentiful mediocre pizza. I reserve a special place in my cold dark heart for poor pizza.

While I am not the connoisseur that our resident Pizza Geek is, there are certain things that I look in a pizza shop that factor into my overall opinion of the place.

1.)    Cheese pizza

When it comes to pizza, I almost always eschew toppings and opt for the plain cheese pizza. There’s something about the simple flavors of just cheese, sauce and crust that appeals to me. When evaluating a new pizzeria, how they do with their classic plain cheese pizza is the first thing I look at.

2.)    Buffalo-style chicken wings

As with the traditional pizza, everyone does the classic unbreaded fried chicken wings. As a spice-lover, I generally try the hottest wing if they use the mild/medium/hot scale or the second hottest if they use some sort of mild/medium/hot/scalding/masochistic/spontaneous-combustion scale. As above, I need to know how well they do the classics before progressing to the fancy stuff.

3.)    Specialty pizza

Now it gets fun. Any good pizzeria needs to have a good selection of specialty pizzas. Some examples are white (garlic) pizza, chicken wing pizza, pizza with towering mounds of meat, various veggie pizzas, tomato pie (thank you Utica!), Sicilian (thick crust), pizzas that focus on multiple cheeses, spicy pizza (Cherry peppers, red pepper flakes and hot sauce? Yes please!)

4.)    Specialty wings

After the traditional wings, most places have specialty flavors such as BBQ, garlic, honey-mustard, Cajun, jerk (Caribbean), Greek-style, and so forth. While not as important to me as the above three categories, a truly great specialty wing can really go a long way to setting a place apart from the competition.

Now, I do have a few personal gripes concerning a some semi-common practices that will result in a penalized score.

1.)    Triangle slices vs. square/rectangle “slices”

Please people, cut your pizza into triangles as nature intended. I’m looking at you Twin Trees! I have to admit that the cross-cut style being dubbed “Syracuse Style” bugs me. I can understand using that cut by request for large variety orders; maybe they want to give people the ability to sample a variety of “slices”, but as the default cut? I’m not having it.

2.)    Wings – dozens vs. tens

I don’t know how chicken wings became associated with pizza in the first place, but I like it! That being said, there seems to be two groups of thought: serving chicken wings by the dozen and serving them by multiples of ten. It’s a fact, proven by science*, that the human stomach is the exact size to comfortably house a dozen chicken wings. Yet, there exists those few non-conformists who insist on serving their customers ten wings and leaving them hungry. Why, why would you do such a thing?

3.)    Dipping – blue cheese vs. ranch

I know that there is a sizable part of the wing-loving crowd that prefers ranch dressing to bleu cheese when it comes to dipping their wings. I don’t understand it, don’t like it, but I accept it. If they insist on having ranch dressing for dipping, a pizzeria should at least carry both. Those that don’t even have the option of blue cheese for their wings lose major points with me.

There is a lot of great pizza to be had in our city and region; it’s my personal mission to champion those who make it best.