I didn’t post much about Joe’s pizza because it tasted just like any average pizza I can buy around my area. As can be seen on the pictures I posted the crust is more dense and bready. In my opinion the crust had a slightly sweet taste to it. The cheese and mozzarella on the slice I purchased were just average. I like a better mozzarella and sauce. I find with each pizza I taste, they all taste a little different. As far as comparing it to the pizzas I make at market, I like the Preferment Lehmann dough a lot better. There were people inside of Joe’s purchasing pizza. There are so many pizza places in NYC to try.
Thanks for your thoughts on Joe's Norma. It appears that the dreaded restaurant apathy monster has finally reared it's ugly head and plunged Joe's into an oblivion of mediocrity. During the decade or so that I was going there, it hadn't dropped too much in quality, but that was before they were featured in the movie Spiderman. I'm guessing that with that much publicity, apathy was inevitable.
The interior photo was very telling. It may seem like a decent amount of customers, but, compared to it's heyday, that's downright empty. For the most part (DiFara's is one notable exception), you can pretty much always judge the quality of pies a pizzeria is putting out by the number of customers it has.
Edit: Btw, there's lot's of info on making Sullivan St. Bakery's pizza at home. Lahey even has the recipe in his book. I believe it's his typical high hydration/no knead process. Lahey (and Bittman) put no knead on the map.
