About Our Vegas Pizza Crawl...
Surprise, Prince Street Pizza won out
Last week Wed., the day before our disastrous Thanksgiving, my husband Ed and I went on an old-fashioned pizza crawl/shoot-out, to indulge in one of our favorite foods, as well as to loosely rank which was best to worst. The results surprised us:
Prince Street Pizza, off-Strip, Durango Casino & Resort’s Eat Your Heart Out food hall
Verrazano Pizza, off-Strip, 240 S. Rainbow Blvd.
*Villa Pizza Durango, off-Strip, 3385 S. Durango Dr.
Secret Pizza, Boulevard Tower, Level 3, The Cosmopolitan, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd. S.
Bonanno's New York Pizza Kitchen, off-Strip, Downtown Summerlin, 2010 Festival Plaza Dr.
Evel Pie, downtown, 508 Fremont St.
Why does everyone like Pizza Rock so much? It was alright, but nothing to rave about. I could’ve had better from a frozen pizza. Good Pie, downtown Art District, 1212 S. Main St.
*Joe’s New York Pizza, off-Strip, Eastern Marketplace, 10090 S. Eastern Ave., Henderson, with locations in Vegas
Marsigliano’s Pizzeria & More, off-Strip, West Sahara Promenade, 8125 W. Sahara Ave.
*Broadway Pizza, off-Strip, Rancho Towne & Country, 840 S. Rancho Dr.
*Napolipizza, off-Strip, Sahara Pavilion North, 4760 W. Sahara Ave.
Pizza Rock, downtown, 201 N. 3rd St.
*Pizza we tried before and after Wed.’s crawl…
Why the surprise? Everybody raves about Pizza Rock being the best. But we hated it the most. There was zero flavor in the cheese, the tomato sauce, and crust. The sauce was minuscule at best. We’ve had better at Chuck E. Cheese, or even a Pizza Hut. Make us feel something!
The best was also somewhat of a surprise, considering the lukewarm reviews about bad service, long lines, and cold pizza. But we found Prince Street Pizza a revelation, even better in flavor to the original in Manhattan. It’s not because we cheated and had a square Sicilian pepperoni. It was the plain cheese slice that did us in, the right cheese to tomato sauce to dough flavor we remember from the best pizza joints in New York. So much flavor in every ingredient, plus you can eat the crust on its own, alone or with a salad. For us, service was prompt, efficient, friendly, and our pizza slices arrived piping hot. We loved it so much, we went back on Thanksgiving when we gave up waiting in a three-mile-long line at our South Point hotel’s Garden Buffet.
The biggest revelation by far had to be #2’s Verrazano, a 40-year area business run by a an ex-pat who knew nothing about pizzas except eating them before he moved to Vegas. We knew it was special because of the name of the restaurant. Only East Coasters know it’s the Verrazano bridge.
As soon as we walked through those doors, we were greeted by the sweet, reassuring scent of pizza done right, as well as one of the workers behind the counter chatting us up and getting our slice ready like we were old friends who needed no introduction.
Our cheese slice almost beat them all: hot, crispy, chewy, tangy, half-sturdy/half-floppy, with melted, greasy-orange cheese blisters, just like we’re used to at our favorite N.Y. and N.J. pizza parlors.
As the ‘70s child of an Army sergeant in Ft. Dix, we’d regularly go to the greatest pizza parlor of them all — Pizza King (R.I.P.) in nearby hooker-Wrightstown. This pizza reminds me of that, the litmus test of pies.
For our last dinner, we returned for a full Italian meal: spaghetti and meatballs, meatball sub, and two more slices, a cheese and a pepperoni. We almost ordered a large pie to take back with us in our cooler. As we left, the worker said to come back for a different kind of trip…
Another pleasant surprise, validated by food/travel vloggers Bill and Lisa on YouTube, is Evel Pie. Not just for a proper, blistery NY slice, but for the dive biker bar atmosphere where everyone’s chilling, letting the day linger, surrounded by the cool memorabilia of late, 1970s motorcycle stunt jumper, Evel Knievel. It’s where downtown Vegas goes from scuzzy to vintage-hip.
Fun fact: Knievel attempted to jump across Snake River Canyon, which is literally in our backyard.
The only good pizza place on the Strip is Secret Pizza in The Cosmopolitan. It’s easy to find, thanks to a number of food vloggers who showed the way through a short hallway full of old album covers on the third level of the Boulevard Tower.
The pizza place is tiny, manned by three friendly staffers taking orders and spinning pies. They’re hot, fresh, and just what a New Yorker would want — taken together or separately (the crust).
Walk to the right aways and you can have your heart’s desire in the Block 16 Urban Food Hall: Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, Tekka Bar for hand rolls, Momofuku’s Bang Bar.
Napolipizza wasn’t technically NY style. The crust is way too thick and doughy, the tomato sauce a tad sweet, but naturally so.
It’s the smiling, warm-hearted women who work behind the counter who make going worthwhile. They hold the place together, even late at night, when hardly anyone’s there but a crying-ass kid and a frazzled mom.
The pizza’s not so bad, either. It may be thick and doughy, but it works somehow, especially if you’re starving and slightly traumatized by an Uber driver shooting on the Strip earlier in the day. The sweet sauce never gets cloying, the mozzarella cheese sits just right, and that dough just might make a great dipper for ranch or marinara.
I didn’t think we could eat more than two or three pizzas, to be honest. But we hit eight pizza joints in one day, and still had room for a Shang Artisan Noodle dinner!
Tips for Going on Your Own Pizza Crawl:
Skip breakfast, go hangry,
Bring water bottles, avoid buying extra drinks eight-10 times.
Share one cheese slice.
Try not to buy anything else, like a Sicilian pepperoni, like I did.
Lump places in the same geographical area. Use the GPS to find where everything is from where you are.
If a pizza is particularly good, bookmark it for later, when you want dinner.
Most pizza places offer slices, but some don’t. If the restaurant is particularly highly rated, order the smallest pie you can, take one cheese slice, save the rest for … dinner.
