Sean, I can see how, like a grandparent who loves all their grandchildren 'equally', you could wax diplomatically about sometimes being in the mood for Lombardi's while other times being in the mood for this- at least, I could see you saying that after your previous bake. But now that you've replicated perfection one more time... I would seriously hope that at least a tiny bit of that diplomacy might be going out the window.
This is the Chuck Norris of pizza. A Lombardi's pie would cower in this pizza's presence. A lot of people say "Oh, I like all pizza," and in theory, that's a beautiful sentiment. Good on them, I say . But the reality is that not every style of pizza is as good as the other- all pizza styles are not created equally- and this pizza here is the cornerstone for that paradigm.
Pick a non NY metro area town, anywhere in the U.S.- as long as there's a decent sized population and not a lot of pizza options available, this pizza will make you a millionaire in 7 years. With a Lombardi's clone, you'll be lucky if you can stay open for 7 years.
I know I'm never going to get you say "this pizza rules, Lombardi's sucks" but I would really hope that you can at least begin to grasp the inherent awesomeness that is this pie. To the untrained eye, it really doesn't look all that different from the countless mediocre slice places you find on every corner in our area, so, for some, it could be easy to dismiss. But, one bite, and you know.
The NY metro area may never see another golden age in pizza, but, if there's going to be any hope, it will be when people stop lauding Lombardi's (and Patsy's and Grimaldi's) and start celebrating this.
