Hubby had done a decent search of the popular pizzerias at New York to taste their signature coal-fired New York style pizza. However, we had to avoid many of them, because of extremely long queues. The long queues clearly tells that people are darn crazy about good food. I have even heard that people even plan a food trip to New York!! We had to settle for John's Pizzeria at Times Square.
We started with John's garlic rolls.
It was served with marinara sauce. We got 7 rolls & the taste was pretty good.
I could get the taste of fresh mozzarella & garlic. Quantity was right for the two of us.It costed $6
We ordered the traditional large pizza without any toppings. The service with the starter was quite quick & we hoped to get the pizza to at the same speed. However, we were wrong. We waited for a good 45 mins before we got the pizza. We were tired of waiting.
The specialty of New York-style pizza is in its thin hand-tossed crust made from bread flour. The traditional toppings for the pizza are the tomato sauce & the mozzarella cheese. Pizzas are cooked quickly in extremely hot ovens, generally coal-fired, until the thin crust achieves a gloriously charred, smoky crispness. The dough is prepared daily; the mozzarella is real, not packaged; tomatoes are the best quality. Also, the pizzas are made on order & not sold in slices!
Source (Picture of coal-fired brick oven, used for baking the pizzas)We did not like it at the first bite, but then slowly started enjoying it.
The edges of the pizza was crisp & crunchy, while the center was soft. The dough was flavored with carom seeds! The smoky flavor was very different from the regular pizzas that we have had before. We could hardly finish 2 slices each from that large pizza & hence packed the remaining.
The cost of the large pizza is $16.25.
The next day, we reheated the left over pizza in the microwave & it tasted delicious. It tasted fresh & felt just out of oven. I have not had the same feeling with any other left over pizzas!!
Their menu is huge. Apart from the pizzas, they had many varieties of pasta, calzone's & desserts. We wanted to have a three course meal, but ended up leaving without having the desserts! Yes, you read it right,
the desserts! We had couple of hours for our lunch & the service at the restaurant was so slow that we could only have the starter & the pizza. Wish their service was fast enough.
Cost for two: Around $28 without any drink and dessert.
Overall rating: 3/5
Food: 3.5/5
Ambiance: 3/5 (It is a huge place!)
Would I go there again: Yes
More info: (They have 3 more branches)
260 W, 44th Street,
New York, NY
Operating Hours: 11:30am to 11:30pm (Mon-Sun)
Website:
http://www.johnspizzerianyc.com/The advantage with this restaurant is, it is in the Times Square & is easily accessible. The restaurant is huge, hence waiting time is considerably less. In fact, we did not even wait to be seated.
**Pardon the noisy pictures as it was a fine dining place.Disclaimer: This is not a paid review!