Every culture, city and neighborhood, it seems, lays its own claim to pizza. Certainly the Romans have laid claim to the first pizzas, but every American city has a favorite neighborhood pizza place. There’s Boston, and New York City, of course, and Chicago touts their own deep dish pizza.
And the best pizzas I ever had were in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Lyon, France. So the debate continues.
A lot of historians say that baker Raffaele Esposito from the Naples region of Italy created pizza in the late 1800s, even though in Rome, many street vendors apparently sold a flatbread dough topped with cheese and something. So the history is in question, but not the appeal.
Suffice to say that everyone disagrees on the best pizza, but everyone loves pizza. Especially the popular New York-style, which I loved when I lived in NYC in the mid-80s.
Which brings us to Prince Street Pizza.
Just opened in February, Prince Street features the familiar wide-slice, thin crust, foldable, kinda greasy pizza that every New Yorker grew up with, as well as the Sicilian-style, square slices.
In fact, knowledgeable sources tell us that in order to achieve the same dough texture as the original location in New York City, Prince Street uses a water infiltration process to replicate the water used in New York.
It’s all about the details.
Full disclosure: We did not order the DineLA Week special, which in fact, didn’t seem to be advertised anywhere in the place. No matter. Street-style pizza is meant to be affordable. And this was.
We went with the original Prince Street slice, which features the Prince Street pizza sauce and shredded Mozzarella, at $5.75 a slice, along with the fresh-from-the-oven, puffy, square-sliced $6.50 Meat Lover’s pizza, topped with pepperoni, oven-roasted sausage, Marinara sauce, fresh Mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, and garlic.
With just those two items and a diet Coke, we were happy and satiated.
Prince Street is a happy, friendly, often crowded eatery. There is plenty of comfortable seating, the music is loud, and the vibe is good.
And there’s pizza. Life is really easy sometimes.
Prince Street Pizza is at 49 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91105. (626) 722-4506. princestreetpizza.com
