Dave Portnoy, aka "Davey Pageviews," is El Presidente of Barstool Sports, a big website devoted to sports, though Dave seems more interested in great pizza. This works for me as I have zero interest in sports and more than a passing interest in great pizza. He and I agree that John's of Bleecker Street has the best pie in New York City.
Do not write to tell me of a better place since a hundred other people will and I probably will never get to any of them.
Dave does these pizza reviews — "One bite, everybody knows the rules" — and I find them very entertaining, as much for what happens to him on the streets of Manhattan (and elsewhere) as for what he thinks of the pie. In case you are not one of those people who knows the rules, here are some I've learned from watching Dave's videos…
- Pizza should be scored on a scale of 0 to 10.
- But you should never give anything a 10 because, as in figure skating, you're then closing yourself off to the possibility of something better coming along.
- On the other hand, Dave was fine with giving a Zero to Blaze Pizza, in part because Lebron James is a big investor in it. So what happens if someone comes out with pizza that's identical but it has a dead mouse on it? How do you give that a worse rating than Zero? And if you're going to go into negative numbers, why can't you give a great pizza a 10.3?
- You take one bite and then score it and you can't change your score. Unless you're Dave. He takes multiple bites (the third is usually of the crust) and he sometimes scores a slice then amends that score.
- He scores plain cheese with no toppings. With this, I absolutely agree. Great pizza should be great pizza before you add pepperoni or mushrooms or pineapple.
- You can lower the rating of the slice if the guy who sells it to you is kind of a dick. Of course.
- Ideally, pizza should be rated when it's so hot it's burning your mouth a little. But it's okay if you're busy with something to let it get cold first.
- Ratings in whole numbers are "rookie scores" and are to be avoided. A true pro might rate a slice as 6.9 or 7.1 but he would never give it a seven.
- Pizza that is identified as "Neapolitan pizza" is mostly all the same but I don't understand Dave's designation of some pizza as "Neapolitan" that isn't billed as such, nor do I get why he doesn't think certain other slices are "Neapolitan." He knows more about this stuff than I do.
- And lastly: Every so often, it's nice to get a slice for your camera guy.
You get the feeling I've watched a lot of his videos? I have…and I have a lot more to go. I like this guy and I don't know why he doesn't have a series on truTV and Billy Eichner isn't selling him slices.
Here's Dave in Las Vegas last year at a Sports Illustrated press event, getting supermodels to try and rate pizza with him. You can just tell by looking at some of the women in that magazine that they haven't had enough pizza lately. This may be the last one of his videos I post for a while since there are literally hundreds and I have to stop somewhere. If you enjoy them, you can check out this page.