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| - As a lifelong Toronto resident, The Big Slice was just part of the seedy downtown background. A dirty sign, grimy windows and transient crowd hanging outside crumbling steps would instead drive me north, the expensively gentrified pies of Yorkville, or South, to the Eaton Centre and points beyond.
Last week, I attended a training session at College Park. Lunchtime options nearby are limited, and the location and price were right. So, I sidestepped the tough guys outside, and waited on line for the chance to enjoy a Big Slice big slice, sitting at what looked like a repurposed office chair, under a delightful poster of Freddy Krueger.
I'll admit to food snobbery, but the slice was fantastic. Retro pepperoni and mushroom; the kind of pizza that I enjoyed as a kid, before I knew from terroir, or micro-regional differences in soil, or woodburning ovens. The pie came straight from the oven; too hot to touch, and pooling with neon-orange grease that threatened to course down my chin as I ate. It was huge; easily a slice-and-a-half's worth of the immediate competitions. It was authentic in the way that it satisfied those basic childhood cravings; the texture of a blistered crust on my tongue; the tang of pepperoni, the feathery feel of shaved mushrooms...the mixture of salt and grease that said this meal was a special treat.
And all for $4.20 with a can of diet pepsi (we all have to grow up some time, don't we?).
There may be more grown-up pies out there, but to me pizza is first and foremost kid's food. And for providing that childhood the experience of folding a slice that's bigger than my head, even in very adult surroundings, The Big Slice deserves its place in Toronto's culinary landscape.
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