Pizza 33 is a hellhole

In a perfect world, I would eat nothing but Cheesy Gordita Crunches from Taco Bell. I would savor one cheesy, sour-creamy bite after another, delighting in the fact that I am eating pure joy. I would wash it down with Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a flavor so ridiculously good that it's available only in Taco Bell. To release it to the masses would be to invite anarchy to our beautiful American society.

Unfortunately, it is not a perfect world and, as such, I must from time to time consume things besides the prestigious Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Tonight was one such time when, at work, we ordered the Terra e Mare pizza. A more appropriate name for this catastrophe would be the Terror e Nightmare pizza.

The shrimp, which I imagined would be plump and delicious, were tiny. Do you know the feeling you get when you're embarrassed and want to curl into a ball? I expect that the shrimp were so ashamed to be a part of this disaster of a pizza pie that they shrunk into themselves. I can't say I blame them. I, too, would have been ashamed to be a part of that pizza. The mushrooms were also offensively bad. The other intern who ate the pizza said he liked the mushrooms, but he is from Maine, a den of iniquities so profound that I will not discuss them in the detail they require.

The analyst whose credit card we used to order was likewise disappointed. He told us that the pizza was depressingly bad and that it reflected poorly on us as interns. He said, rightly, that in a city known for pizza that it was a true feat to discover a place that got every aspect of it wrong. Well done, Pizza 33. Thanks to you I have discovered the ultimate depths of human depravity - infinite. The other person to have reviewed this place is either an out-of-towner so enamored with the idea of new york pizza that he/she convinced himself/herself it was good (despite it not being so, I assure you) or he/she is an employee of this awful excuse for a restaurant.

THIS FOOD IS TERRIBLE

In a city of 8 million people with immigrants from all over the world, why is it so hard to find decent Chinese food? Especially in Morningside Heights there are no legitimate, consistent options for Chinese. By Chinese I of course mean Chinese, Japanese, and Thai, but not Korean because fuck that shit.

The only semi-legitimate option is what I like to call "Wack Chinese" from the Wien food court. The problem is that the idiots in charge are getting rid of the food court to make room for a "lounge." I love how they say they're going to "make" a lounge, which is basically an exercise in negating the space. Nothing is going to be added except for couches that nobody will use and instead we will all be worse off for not having wack Chinese to eat. Also, what is going to happen to the old, black guy who works there. I like to call him "Shakes McGee" because he has trouble keeping still. Yes, I realize how bad that sounds, but I don't care because it's hilarious. What's going to happen to Shakes? They took away his medical license so he can't go back to neurosurgery. He's going to go hungry because some kids need a university-sponsored lounge in order to feel like they're enjoying themselves.

With Wack Chinese gone there will be no legitimate Chinese (et al) left in Morningside Heights. Let's take a look at the available options. I am going to number them not because some are deserving of higher numbers, but because I like lists.

1. Ollie's - The last time I ordered from Ollie's it tasted like vomit. That's not a hyperbolic simile - it tasted like regurgitate. I felt as if I was eating food marinated in the wok with Bruce Lee's bile and puked up dog bits. Bizarrely, and appropriately enough I suppose, the two Ollie's that are further down Broadway are great. Despite this and perhaps because of it, I award our Ollie's zero points.

2. China Place - Aside from having the most boring name possible, their food is also as boring as possible. Everyone knows that the main ingredient in Chinese food is love - you need to hug the flavor into General Tso's chicken. Without this you're left with rubbery meat in nondescript orange sauce. They even get the rice wrong - how can you fuck up rice? It tastes like pellets of overcooked unhappiness. Zero again.

3. Caffe Swish - The first non-Chinese Chinese place on the list, Swish is known for discriminatory hirying practices. Specifically, they won't hire you if you're a decent human being. You need to be rude even by New York standards to qualify for employment here. The food is decent most of the time but the sushi is wack (and not good wack like wack chinese or taco bell RIP dawg) and the fountain soda tastes like bad medicine and not the Bon Jovi kind but the robitussin kind.

4. Empire/Concord - I have to rate these together because I can't tell them apart. Both have amazingly bad food. I often see one of them (I can't remember which) when walking down Amsterdam and I'm even more appalled by the appearance of the place. I almost cried when I saw the origins of my one-time-meal of Pepper Steak with Onions (as opposed to onion steak with peppers?). Stay away. Avoid at all costs. If you see a friend about to order it, steal the cell phone and break it. He'll thank you.

5. Wai Lee - unadulterated suffering. Misery in its purest form. I would take my hat off to this accomplishment except I've suffered at the hands of Wai Lee so it's personal. Rumor has it that Jack Bauer uses Wai Lee as the ultimate torture mechanism.

There are so many more, but I'm depressing myself by recalling all of this tragedy. Also, I need to go to Carnegie Hall to see a fucking high school band play because instead of seeing a concert for the report due Monday on a regular weekend night, I put it off til sunday so that I could preserve drinking opportunities. This is my life.