As you well know by now, I am a pizza fanatic! It’s like heroin to me and I always need a fix. When I am at home in New York, this is never a problem. Quite the opposite, I am overwhelmed with good pizza choices.
The down side to living bi-coastally however, is that when I am in California, getting decent pizza is a serious challenge. Note that I said “decent”, because finding “good” pizza has been next to impossible. I finally had settled on finding a “decent” pizza that could help me survive my California pizza drought, but had up until today come up empty handed.
Granted in the past few years, a few Neapolitan pizza places have opened up on the OC, Pizzeria Ortica and Pizza et Vino for example. Both serve world class Neapolitan pizza, making the challenge for good pizza in CA a little easier. But sometimes you just want that big slice of NY style pizza and alas, I have had trouble finding one that was up to my standards. Until now.
I was cruising on the internet and entered “best NY style pizza orange county, ca” in google and Johnny’s Real New York Pizza popped up as one of the matches. I had tried all of the other ones that had come up (all of which resembled NY pizza about as much as a banana resembles an apple), but Johnny’s Real New York Pizza was new to me. I mentally made a note that I would have to give it a try someday.
Then this morning, I had to take my dog to the groomers. having 3 hours to kill, we headed over to Johnny’s for a bit of lunch. I of course went in a total skeptic, having had my hopes dashed so many times before by so called purveyors of “Real NY Pizza”. We ordered a 16” pie, half cheese and half cheese & mushroom, and a large house salad.
We dug into the salad which was chock full of romaine, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, olives, sundried tomatoes, provolone, pepperoncini and we had on the side for my partner cubes of salami & mortadella. An excellent salad with a nice vinaigrette, I was very pleased.
And then the pizza came. It looked like the real McCoy, so I grabbed a slice and gave it the fold test. Bingo, it cracked when it was folded, signifying a thin crisp crust. Then I took my first bite........OMG this was the real thing! The crust was perfect, the sauce was perfect, everything was amazing. I devoured three slices, a little too quickly in my excitement. This pizza addict was finally getting the thing that I had been jonesing for since my return to CA 3 weeks ago. And should the occasion arise, they are also one of the few places in CA that actually serve slices.
I have finally found a place in the OC that lives up to its claim of being REAL NY Pizza! I’m already planning for next week on ordering one uncut so that I can bring it home (a bit of a drive, but worth it) and heat it quickly in the oven! Johnny’s Real New York Pizza has gained a new fan and I will become a familiar face to them. :)
Johnny's Real New York Pizza
2756 E. Coast Highway
Corona Del Mar, CA 92625
(949) 729-9159
