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| - Ok, first thing's first. NYPD stands for New York Pizza Dept. So this place calls itself New York Pizza Dept Pizza? Isn't that kind of redundant?
I figured I had to give it a try, see if it lived up to a native New Yorker's standards. My general rule is that when an establishment uses "New York" in its name, it just means they are trying too hard and are really nowhere near authentic. "New York Pizza", "New York Deli", etc. If you were really authentic, you wouldn't need to remind people in your name, your food would speak for itself.
I called and placed an order for pickup and was put on hold twice. I was on hold longer than it took me to place the order. Argh.
I ordered a plain cheese pizza, mozzarella sticks, and their "upstate" wings. The same way I'm a bagel purist - plain bagel toasted with cream cheese is my benchmark - a plain cheese pizza is my benchmark for a pizza place. No crazy toppings like pineapple or bbq chicken, I challenge you to find a New Yorker that puts that stuff on their pizza. Also, what's the deal with "upstate" wings? They can't just be buffalo wings? Weird. When I ordered the wings, the guy asked me if I wanted ranch with it. In NY, buffalo wings come with bleu cheese dressing, not ranch. . .
As soon as you walk into this place you get that "chain" restaurant feel. It's way too over the top, nothing authentic about it at all, you will never find a pizza place in NY that looks like this. It's like Disney's interpretation of a NY pizzeria. Have you ever been to the New York New York hotel/casino in Las Vegas? This place would fit right in.
But the true test is the food, right? My husband and I both thought the pizza was just average - I didn't like the dough and my husband thought it was too thin/crispy and not floppy enough, like it was trying too hard to be NY pizza. It was certainly better than Pizza Hut or Papa Johns or Dominos if those are your only other choices. No doubt, if this place was in Boston or Pittsburgh it would clean up. But luckily here you have a multitude of choices. The mozzarella sticks were also pretty average, and we both thought the marinara sauce was on the disgusting side - waaaay to sweet. Marinara should be tomato-sweet, not added-sugar sweet. The surprise of the night were the wings - just the right amount of spicy and very flavorful. And to be honest, they were kind of sweet too, but we both thought that was an interesting twist. And it was nice they provided celery with the bleu cheese, but it was not so nice that the celery was disgustingly rotten and almost made my husband vomit with one bite. He did get a kick out of the fact that he could bend each piece in half without it breaking!
In conclusion, if you want truly fantastic NY style pizza in a truly authentic setting, Redendo's is right up the road from this location (at FLW and Raintree). So if you're headed here, think to yourself, "Self, you know what, Kristin S. recommended Redendo's right up the street, and Kristin S. is useful, funny, and cool!"
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