Pudgie's Pizza: That's No Good

Once in the New York City subway I saw a woman rooting through a garbage can. She extracted a styrofoam cup with a lid on it, and shook it. There was something in it. She bent back the lid and put it to her mouth.

I quickly said, "Hey, lady, don't - ", but it was too late. She took a sip. And then she made a face, and spit out whatever she had tasted.

"That's no good," she said to me.

And that's what I'm saying to you about Pudgie's Pizza.

I didn't have time to make lunch today, and I'm the only one where I work, so I can't leave. I needed a place that delivers. I looked in the phone book, and saw a coupon for Pudgie's Pizza.

The coupon was for a special deal on Tuesdays: buy one, get another for a dollar. I thought, that'll take care of mealing for a while. And it's valid only Tuesdays. Must be fate.

Ordinarily, as a true blue New Yorker, I shun chain pizza with great disdain. But they were offering a deal, and I was in a hard place. So I figured, how bad could it be?

Like that woman in the subway figured.

It is no good. It is not even pizza. It is donuts placed in the shape of a pizza, from the taste of the crust.

And lest you get too pudgy eating it, they refrain from ingredients very much. Like, cheese. There was some on there, I eventually noticed with my glasses.

There was also a little sauce on there, with a loose interpretation of sauce, like is the stuff inside packets of ketchup sauce?

I am, naturally, deeply ashamed of this culinary lapse, but confess it, that I may be forgiven. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa for ordering imitation pizza.

Next time I will put up the "Back in 5 Minutes" sign, and ankle it over to Sal's for two hot slices with Napolese roots.

Steve Burke
for Ithaca Blog