Midtown Manhattan. Formerly known as the land of shitty pizza.

I say “formerly” as a new discovery has just saved this area from the seventh level of pizza hell. A find more awesome than James Cameron’s unearthing of the tomb of Jesus, but with no Discovery channel special (so far). I present to you one of the greatest inventions known to man:

Pizza Truck (with an oven in it!).

Pizza truck (actually called Jiannetto’s Pizza) serves all sorts of I-talian foods - pasta, sammiches, various types of parmigianas and, of course, pizza. Not just any pizza either, this is old school Sicilian style: Rectangular “slices”, all sauce, no cheese and done right - not to mention served fresh and hot, thanks to the futuristic internal truck oven. In addition to the foods I just listed, they also have (a limited number each day) Arancine (I-talian Rice balls for you filthy Americans). As I’m not super-fat just yet, I only ate the pizza and the arancine, so I can speak for the quality of the other stuff but, feel free to try it and let me know - my days of eating everything on the menu (over the course of time, mind you) are over.

(Oh, just fyi, I rate foods on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being shit so nasty I wouldn’t even feed it to an animal and 100 being the essence of perfection for the type of food - something that makes you laugh it is so good.)

Pizza - 80

The turnover for the pizza slices is retarded fast, so I was able to get a right out the oven pie slice. I ate one bite the second the dude handed it to me and the rest I took back to my office. There wasn’t a noticeable depreciation in deliciousness over time. The slice is rectangular and has some delicious crispy and dense crust/dough, which stays crispy regardless of how long you wait to eat it (I nursed my slice for two hours). Slice is cooked hella nice with some yummy charring on the edges and bottom, giving it that “old world flavor” (I have no idea what that actually means but, they use the phrase in commercials to denote crap that is “authentic”, this is like that, except without the quotation marks). As I mentioned before if you were paying attention, this pizza has NO CHEESE, just sauce - now considering how craptastic most cheese on pizza is, this is a good thing, particularly as the sauce is pretty damn good for a (minimum) second generation wop making it. It’s a sweet/tangy sauce - with tomato skin and seeds in it, you can taste a hint of basil and garlic in there as well. It’s the type of sauce where the flavor develops after you eat it - very impressive Mr. Pizza truck. The sauce is sprinkled liberally with the ghetto Parmeasean cheese , but if you’re hardcore, bring your own freshly grated. Overall a damn pleasure to eat…particularly in midtown. $2.25 per slice

Arancine - 78 (though if you have nothing O.G. to compare it to, I’d give it an 85-87)

First off, these things are fucking HUGE. One alone could be a meal for a hungry man - might even satisfy one of them Jerry Springer fat guys (not the ones that you have to take out of the house with a crane, but the medium huge dudes that can still walk) AND they come with garlic knots!!! These joints are like the Earth: The first layer (crust) is a delicious crispy fried, Italian spiced breadcrumb covering. Beneath that, the mantle if you will, is a thick layer of risotto rice (maybe cooking in chicken stock - it does have some flavor, but because of the next level, the core, I can place it clearly). Finally, you get to the hot core of the ball - where all the action happens - filled with spiced ground beef with peas in sauce and held together by melted mozzarella cheese.

If you want, you can even get it topped with more sauce (or sauce on the side) - which is a good idea, so that you can dip your garlic knots in it and make them awesomer to eat. The breadcrumb, rice, meat/pea/sauce/mozzarella combo is truly a thing to behold in your mouth - it’s like a risotto stew, but portable and hella delicious. Being a greasy wop myself (and hailing from the land of arancine - Sicily) I’m quite well versed in the comparison of the deliciousity of arancine and while these don’t come close to the awesome you can experience in the motherland, they’re pretty fucking good for something coming out of a truck. $4.00 each (comes with four garlic knots).

47th Street between Park and Madison, NYC