Photo by Brian Kachejian
One of the things I found most interesting about Val Pizza was its use of no apostrophe s in its name. I probably said “Val’s Pizza” multiple times in my video review just because it seems obvious to use an apostrophe. I guess sometimes my New York State public school teacher certification gets in the way of me just writing a simple pizza review, but come on, can we at least get the name right? Nonetheless, I’m going to keep this one simple. Is a visit to Val Pizza worth it?
As someone born in Manhattan, raised in the Bronx, and who has lived in New York my entire life, I take pizza pretty seriously. It’s also one of the most common items that I review because in New York, there seems to be a pizza place every hundred yards you walk, no matter where you are, except maybe in the Adirondacks, although I’m sure someone will open one at the top of a mountain somewhere.
Val Pizza is in a hot location at 166 West 46th Street in Times Square, New York City. It is the most visited section of the city. For most of the day and night, it is total chaos, and any food place in that area is doing volumes and volumes of sales. So we have to keep that in mind when reviewing any sort of food in Times Square. Restaurants in that area usually have to prioritize speed, sometimes even over quality. That does not go for every food establishment in Times Square, as there are some pretty good ones, but for the most part, this is tourism USA to the max, or I should say world tourism to the max. It’s probably the most visited section of stores and concrete in the entire world, although maybe the Vatican gives it a run for its money.
A slice of pizza at Val is not cheap. It just may be one of the most expensive small slices of pizza I have ever had in my life. It cost $5.43 for a slice of cheese pizza. Now I am someone who will never complain about the price of food if it is worth it. Well, maybe sometimes I will get a little upset paying a fortune for a side of mashed potatoes in a steakhouse, but that’s an argument for another day. Let’s get back to the pizza right now. Is it worth it?
The quick and simple answer is no, if you are basing it on quality alone. It is a cheap pizza sauce, but it is understandable because they are probably doing heavy volume due to their location, and they need to make as much money as they possibly can because the rent they pay is probably through the heavenly roof. The cheese is not the greatest either, and neither is the dough. It is all very mediocre ingredients and, as I say in the video, it creates a less-than-mediocre slice of pizza. It tastes very much like most of the pizzerias in this city that sell slices for $1.50, which, in the past, I have compared to school-lunch pizza. Although I would say the pizza was much better in many of the schools I worked in. At least it’s better than Pizza Hut. Hmm…. maybe not.
What Val Pizza has going for it is the location. People get hungry, are moving fast through Times Square, want something quick, and they do serve the slice quickly. They have many different specialty slices there, and it also looked like they sold heroes. But for me, these pizza reviews are always about the regular cheese slice, how it compares to others, the price, the speed, and whether it is actually worth the trip.
So I can sum this review up pretty quickly. Would I ever go back to Val Pizza for another slice? If it was the only place open, maybe. But this is Times Square, and this is New York City. There is always another pizza place open somewhere nearby, and chances are it is going to be a much better slice.
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