That may or may not be my girlfriend. Her personal trainer may or may not be a reader of this blog. If that were the case, said trainer would be quite ashamed. Quite. Ashamed. For this article, I’ll just pretend I went alone.
After a grocery trip a couple days ago, We were I was getting hungry. For some reason I just started driving down Pultney St. I’ve never been to OIP so I stopped in. Original Italian Pizza (360 Pulteney St, Corning, NY) has a decent storefront, located in a plaza with a Dollar Store.
Dear Dollar Store:
Stop propagating. You are shopping plaza poison.
Love,
Myles
The inside of OIP isn’t all that nice. I’m pretty sure it was a Quiznos at some point. I used to love Quiznos (they’ve gone down hill lately) so I know the layout well. Turning to my girlfriend myself I say “It’s not necessarily dirty, but it could use a face-lift.”
“But it’s a pizza place,” I say to me, “you shouldn’t be so picky. I don’t know why every time I go out with myself lately it turns into an argument.”
So I ordered 2 slices of pizza. And “I” also order a cheese steak.
The pizza was surprisingly good. The one on the left is Chicken Wing pizza and the one on the right is plain. I don’t usually get “specialty” pizzas. When I feel like pizza, I want it to taste like pizza, not BBQ Chicken, BLT, or whatever else they can think of to make pizza taste like something other than pizza. However, the Chicken Wing pizza was quite good, so thanks OIP, you’ve made me a liar. It wasn’t over saucy and had great flavor that wasn’t over the top. The plain was also very good. I used to work in NYC and often grabed a quick slice for lunch. OIP came close to the flavor of a NYC pizza shop (something I also like about Picnic Pizza and Ricos). Whenever I have pizza that makes me remember those times, I get all warm and fuzzy inside.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as warm and fuzzy as I would have liked. And this brings up my biggest complaint about pizza by the slice; it’s often not left in the oven long enough. And that was the case here. When a pizza has been sitting out, I don’t just want it warmed up – I can do that at home in a microwave. It needs to be left in the oven long enough to come out fresh & crispy with melty cheese. If I owned place with pizza by the slice, it would be import to me to impress the “slicers” enough to come back and get a whole pie. Both slices at OIP were warm, but taken out of the oven about 2 minutes short.
The cheese steak was great. I lived in Philly for a few years and I can be annoyingly anal about cheese steaks. Let me tell you what a real Philly cheese steak consists of. It’s not Pats OR Genos (tourist traps). It’s doesn’t have cheese wiz (if you find yourself in a Philly join that claims “wit wiz” is a Philly Steak, LEAVE!) A Philly steak has an Amoroso Bun (the real secret), PROVOLONE cheese, and maybe onions and green bell peppers. The cheese is melted into the steak, not sitting on top of it. That said, the steak at OIP was good. The roll wasn’t ridiculously huge, and the only real “flaw” was they used sweet peppers. This is usually a deal killer for me, but they didn’t overdo it so I can forgive them. It’s also one of the few places in Corning that sells cheese steaks and also has KETCHUP. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the two other places I’ve tried steaks at (Atlas and Aniellos) don’t have ketchup (substitute w/ pizza sauce, that’s common in Philly actually).
Note: Don’t ask for ketchup at a real Philly steak joint. I did once and the lady said “Ketchup? You can do that when you get home.” BUT, I still believe places should offer it. The cook at that place in Philly – Dalesandro’s – must have heard me ask because I did end up with Ketchup on that steak. So even those opposed to it in Philadelphia at least had it on hand for a-holes like me.
I’d like to try the wings at OIP. I saw a couple people come in and order them. They looked awesome. But since I try to only eat one “bad” meal a week, I’ll have to wait on those.
Myles Lasco
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Finally, finally, someone who tells the truth about real traditional Philly cheesesteak cheese – provolone – just like I’ve been saying to my family all along. I lived in Phila. in 1967-78 and I never came across the dreaded cheese whiz. It was always provolone on a cheesesteak. Maybe Pat’s and Geno’s always made bogus cheesesteaks or maybe somewhere along the line they opted for a cheese that comes pre-melted so they could move the line more quickly. Food Network and Travel Channel should be reading your blog, Myles.
Pats claim – which is probably true – is that the original Pat invented the cheese steak from his hot dog stand in 1930. However cheese whiz didn’t come around until 1953. It’s likely they switched the recipe when they started losing out to better competition (or to increase production speed because the cheese was taking too long to melt), and then some of the competition added whiz too. It’s unfortunate that the only names tourists hear are Pats and Genos. I think a big part of that is they are open 24 hours and it’s somewhat close – at least a short cab ride – from various bar areas.
My favorite is by far Dalessandro’s, but they aren’t in center city and don’t necessarily get the notoriety…. well not from tourists. Which is a good thing. The line is always out the door during the lunch hour, which is a testament to how much the locals love them.
I love reading your reviews. You have an awesome sense of humor!
Thanks for keepin’ it real!
Thanks! 🙂