I am a pizza junkie! I eat it at least twice a week and whenever I need my fix I make sure I try to get it from Famous Ray's. You might think ""pizza is pizza,"" but you'd be wrong. There's a science and an art to making a really great New York style pizza--sauce to spice ratio, thin or thick crust, how much cheese goes on top, and how long it cooks for--whatever the science is, Ray's has got it figured out. Of course I realize that the ""perfect"" pizza is subjective, which is why it's also an art, but Ray's hits so many high marks that it just might be that perfect pizza.
I love their crust, it's thin-crust, not too thin though, and cooked just right so that it's just a little crispy, but still foldable (very important!). The slices are also HUGE! Grab two slices and you've just bought lunch AND dinner! I usually only eat cheese slices, but sometimes I'll grab a black olive slice, or a veggie slice, and the ingredients are usually pretty fresh. They also have pasta dinners which are proper restaurant quality, and remind me of some of the Italian food places I used to go to as a kid with my Italian Grandmother, and that's saying A LOT!
Ray's is a chain, but sometimes I feel like it's the one chain restaurant in NY that's doing it right. Each location feels like an independent pizza place. My one and only gripe is that when the pizzas sit out too long they dry up, and they're not nearly as good when they're fresh. It's best to grab whatever slice just came out of the oven. The ambiance isn't always great since they can be a pretty high-traffic chain, so try to avoid the lunch rush and the bridge-and-tunnel drinking crowd, and you'll have a great experience.
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