Competitive Dining, Day 2

The first step towards being able to assess pizza on day 2 of my "Mouth across Teaneck" adventure is finishing up my yesterday.

While I wallowed in crapulence after eating all that pizza, I sat on the couch thinking about dinner. While I did that, I ate half a package of Oreos. That helped my thinking process and soon enough, I was online, looking to order Chinese food for dinner. The website indicated no available times for delivery and I was curious why, so I called the restaurant to let them know of the hijinks playing across their website. While they had me on the line, they asked for my order. I was a bit caught short as I view the ordering process as a long opportunity to decide what I want, but with the guy on the phone asking me my order, I didn't know what to do. So I ordered wings. I didn't even have the sense to say "deliver them in a few hours" so before I knew it, I had a large order of wings. I ate them. Then I polished off the rest of the package of Oreos.

I did NOT sleep well. I think I might have over eaten or something. I guess we'll never know.

I woke up this morning and started getting ready for my eatings for the day. After an hour's worth of grading papers, I bundled up and went out. I made a conscious decision today to stick with places where I can get a single slice. Getting personal pies means more to eat, and personal pies are just a different beast from a plain slice.

So I drove over to Poppy's, which now boasts "Fialkoff's" pizza, as if I am supposed to know what that means. Catchy name.

The sauce was sweet, and initially flavorful, but there was a little too much. The crust was very thin and reasonably crisp. The cheese had almost no pull/stretch, and had only a very light flavor but there was a good amount of it. It was, ultimately, a bland slice. This might be because it was reheated (though I don't know that I was; it just seems like that), which also might expain why there was no fold -- the reheated crispiness towards the end was nice but made folding impossible.

I headed then to Season's Express as I had heard that they had pizza and it was good. They served it in one of those little triangle boxes. When I opened it, I was hit with a strong buttery odor. The slice was easily folded and had a good saltiness to it, but there was little depth of flavor. As I moved towards the edge, I was able to discern a bit more garlic flavor. The crust gave a good chew without being oppressive. Not a bad slice.

Then I drove all the way to Grand and Essex, and their pizza shop called "Little Italy." It was very little Italy, more like Italess. The slice was reheated and put in the same kind of triangle box. It had a strong smell and a tangy sauce (though a little more than I would have liked). The slice folded well and had a nice flavor but there was a LOT of oil on this slice and that caused the slice to fall apart, and the crust to go from crunchy to chewy really quickly. It was thin, though, so it wasn't too bad. The cheese has a good pull to it and the crust at the edge did have some nice fluffiness to it, but it felt a tine bit underdone and the dough became really chewy at the end quickly.

This leaves me with Patis and La Cucina (both of which will have me order a personal pie). Where else in Teaneck can I get a slice? Will I move to Englewood next?

Stay tuned. I think the answer is "no" but who knows?