National Pizza Day is celebrated each year on Feb. 9. But before you head out for a celebratory slice, you’d be wise to take a few precautions.
After all, among the many reputable slice shops in your neighborhood, it’s likely that a few of those pizza purveyors are pushing less-than palatable pizza. And while it’s easy enough to look up any restaurant ‘s reviews online, determining the quality of a pizza often comes down to gut instinct, especially before you get that pizza into your aforementioned gut.
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To that end, Fox News reached out to Mark Bello, the owner and operator of Pizza School NYC , for help in determining a disgusting slice before handing over your hard-earned cash.
By his own estimation, Bello – who has demonstrated pizza -making at the James Beard House, and was named a “pizza expert” at the Food & Wine masters series – has tasted thousands of pizzas, both in the US and abroad. And when it comes to trying out a new slice shop, he tells Fox News to beware of five red flags.
# 1. Too-good-to-be-true deals
Bello says consumers should immediately be wary “if the place is trying to sell you on the quantity of the pizza over the quality of the pizza. ”
That doesn’t mean the pizza is necessarily bad, however. It’s just the first of a few factors that point to poor pizza.
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Quality pizza is always going to look appetizing, but it’s not always going to look consistently the same, even between slices from the same pizzeria. And it should never be too “pale,” Bello says.
“If the outer crust resembles the rim of a Styrofoam cup in geometry, uniformity and pale color it’s likely going to taste like the outer rim of a Styrofoam cup, ”according to the expert.
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