Fine Dining - We Ate ALL the Pizzas at Slice House

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

🍕🧱 Slice House Review: We Tried All the Pizza Styles, and Is Court Crying?! 🧱🍕 Court McGowan (@the_courtjester_) is back as we put Slice House by Tony Gemignani to the Chili's Test! And if you're going to review a place built around Tony's mastery of different pizza styles, of course we're going to try them all. Four different crusts, wings can tear friendships apart, and mooooore! 🍕 We Try So Many Pizzas 🍗 Court and I Are Quite Far Apart on the Wings 🍪 A Chocolate Chip Cookie That Is More Bread than Chocolate 🩹 Our Kind-Eyed Cashier Has Some Concerningly Cut-Up Hands 🧻 As a Bearded Wing-Eater, I NEED Paper Towels in That Bathroom 🧱 Brick Walls Remain a Great Restaurant Vibe 👶 A Small Child Makes Sure the Entire Restaurant Knows They're Upset 😭 Wait...Is Court Crying? 📏 Calibration Station: From Sending Food Back to Old Reliables 💬 COMMENT BELOW: Which pizza style is your fav: New York, Grandma, Detroit, or Sicilian? 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, extended Yelp segments & more): patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, cursed Yelp): discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: youtube.com/channel/UCLbraNhL6KhDPkdSWt2yiuw 🔗 All links: linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 Guest: Court McGowan | IG: @the_courtjester_ Patreon Producers:Sue Ornelas, Joyce Van, & Robert McLaughlin Patreon Subscribers:David Ornelas, Kellie Baldwin, Jeremy Horwitz, Herbert Amaya, Simone Davalos, Scott Bennett, Amy Reinhart, Josef Castaneda-Liles, Travis Langley, & Michelle Elmer Free Patreon Followers:Joe Warszalek, Lauren Cummings, Grace Krainak, Keri Estes, Robert Duran, Patrick Elliott, Dave Plummer, Nicholas Volney, Michael Gerard, Tracy Molino, Phuong Duong, Tyler Robinson, Brandon Gully, Mason Cruz, Michael Milito, Mez, Aaron Hubbard, Steff, Renae Michael, Crystal C., NiZ, Science Broe, Jahid Ahmed, Jewell Hermann, & Macky Markar 👉 NEXT WEEK: I dive into JINYA Ramen Bar with Grayson Alamango Shapiro from Obsession! 🍜

Is Slice House on track to be the best nationally available pizza chain? The young man taking our order had eyes so kind, my heart grew three sizes, but this pizza cools off so fast, Barry Allen couldn't keep up. The food looked so fresh I could see steam rising from a meatball at a table six feet away. But the plastic cutlery and paper plates look like they had just been sourced at your local 99-cent store. That has recently gone out of business. The New York-style pepperoni slice had a crust so perfect, I audibly moaned. But not putting paper towels in the restroom after I wet my beard to clean the wingsauce was all kinds of sinister.

At some point, the amount of pizza styles this restaurant serves starts to look like they're just showing off. Is Slice House actually worth the pizza it's printed on? Let's find out together. This is the Fine Dining Podcast. Ready, take your seat, the flavor of the day is mediocrity. To try a bye. Hello there. Welcome to fine dining.

I am your host, Michael Ornellis, and this is the podcast that uses Chili's, the most mediocre restaurant in America, as a point of comparison to measure a restaurant's quality. By the end of this episode, we'll answer the question everyone was wondering after the Louvre was broken into and robbed in broad daylight, is Slice House better than Chili's? Today, we're going to tell you everything that was good, not good, and just there about our meal at Slice House before we give it a score. And joining me today to discuss Slice House is an incredibly talented friend, actor and performer who can be seen singing with me on our improvised musical teams unsupervised and guest lecture. She's a clown, but not in a terrifying way. She's one of my most fashionable friends.

And she's the human equivalent of that feeling you get when you land your first kickflip. It's Cort McGowan. Oh, my God. I'm so, everyone knows what it's like to land your first kickflip. I remember when I, I still haven't. Yeah. All right, you are the human equivalent of the feeling I imagine it's like when you land your first kickflip. Wow.

Which honestly, is probably better than the actual feeling. That's so nice. Because I build it up. That's so great. Yeah. Hello. Hi. How you doing?

I'm doing swell. I am feeling a little bit like a habit. a heavy lunch. Usually pizza is a dinner thing for me, I will admit. Yeah. It's like I get to go lie down afterwards kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also ritualistically, often like a pizza and a movie type thing. So the brain had to be on. I wasn't able to dissociate. Which is like your default. Yeah, I want to eat pizza is disassociation. I've only ever seen you do a thousand yard stare when you have pizza in front of you. Yeah, exactly. Well, you made it through.

We went to Slice House, and I brought you here because you touted that you're a little hard to impress with pizza. It's true. And like one of the Yelp reviewers last week, I was like, I'll impress you. And I don't know if I did. But there were things to like about this. There were things that maybe didn't live up to the expectation and maybe a few things that were exactly where you expected it to be with it being a chain. So let's go ahead and dive right in talking about just the things we liked, everything that. was good.

The cashier was just a nice boy. I don't know why I was so enamored with just like, what a pleasant fella. Yeah. Kind eyes, of course. I've mentioned the kind eyes. Lots of cuts on his hand. Oh. And I don't know if it was like from like he owns a cat.

Or pizza slicer mishaps, like maybe not the best at the back of house stuff. It didn't quite look like he had been in a fight. But yeah, his right hand had a lot of cuts. Damn, I didn't notice at all. Oh, all right. Take three guesses. Cuts on a hand. What are you thinking?

He's Wolverine. Great. He's Batman. Oh, he's other heroes that aren't known for. Supergirl. These are all possible. That's the only reason you have. Only three reasons people could have cuts.

Small cuts on your right hand. Yeah. Famously, Wolverine would have them on both. No, but the cat-related cuts. I relate to that. Oh, so Batman because he is hooking up with Catwoman. Exactly right. Yeah.

And Supergirl has a dog in the new movie, I think. And that's not a cat. That's not a cat. Yeah. Yeah, what's a good thing you like? I liked how the pepperoni slice was hefty. Michael and I cut it in half so we both can try it. And I was still able to fold New York folds my half.

So this was specifically the New York style crust pepperoni slice. If you like a lot of pizza, that's a big old slice. It's a big boy. Yeah. Much bigger than, not much bigger, but bigger than like a New York slice in New York. Yeah. Well, it depends on where you go. I remember there was a place on like 110th called Coronet Pizza that I used to go to when I was in college.

And it's not even that it was particularly great, but they were huge. It was like, it was like an eighth of like a manhole cover. It was huge. It was kind of like a novelty to like get it, pick it up, hold it and be like, I posed with my pizza. Well, that's what they use them for when they don't sell out. They become a manhole cover. Yeah, yeah. They just dime gray or brown or whatever and dip them in metal.

And, yeah, you heard it here first? And the rat czar still doesn't know. The rats are of New York still doesn't know that. So please don't let this get on the desk of the rats are. On the desk? Yeah, on the desk. Do you say rats are like HR, but rats? No, there's a rat czar in New York.

Oh, rat czar. C-Z-A-R. I think is how you spell it. Yeah. Okay. I loved this slice. It was crispy. It had cupped peps.

I loved the cupped peps. I love cupped peps. I think cupped peps are the best way to do peps. Yeah. I was going to do a separate love about the cupped peps. So we are in agreement there. Yeah. No, that's it.

That's it. Go off, girl. Go off on those cup peps. I think this is the best New York style pizza I can find in L.A. Nice. Yes. It's no Joe's. I'm very partial to I love.

of Joe's pizza in New York. But it is like genuinely the word I would use to describe this is it's great. I really like this pizza. The crust is perfect. The like end part of the crust is chewy. The under part of the crust you can kind of taste in every bite. It's got a little bit of a crisp to it. I went eight and a half out of 10 on the New York style pepperoni.

Sure. And of the four crust types, I thought this was my favorite. Same. Yeah. A little light on the cheese for me, but we're talking about what we love. And I love that it was a little light on the cheese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What would you score this slice?

Favorite slice we had for sure. Maybe six, five. Six, five. Seven. You are hard to impress. Dang, okay. Okay. No, look, I'm not trying to change you.

I'm just trying to understand you. Shall we? Shall we, Tony. Dang. We went on a Sunday afternoon, and it felt very, like, family-oriented. There was a pleasant vibe going on. There was a baby tank. There was a baby tank.

Yeah, literally, like, that's the only way we could figure out how to describe it. It looked like it was like a stroller for two kids. So it was like double wide, and it had like a hard shell awning over it. It looked like a tank, baby tank. And there was enough space between the. tables that like, you know, we weren't with the kids, but we were not with child. We were not with child yet. Although child was with us. There was a child that was very much making themselves known. Yes. I'm sorry. I just kind of panicked because I looked at the camera

like, we're not with child yet. As in like, I'm not to get pregnant, which is a crazy small joke to make. I just love the panic you're feeling. Yeah, there was a good vibe going on. The man with kind eyes delivered us our food, which is not always the case. Delivered the child. Delivered the child. Put a pacifier in his mouth, rocked it to sleep. From childbirth, famously lots of sharp angles.

Crazy. The booths were comfy. Yeah, they, you know what? They were. I have no complaints with the, and Joyce who came with us prefers a chair. So we got the booth side and that's nice. I like it. I thought the barbecue wings are in the good.

Generous amount of meat. Definitely GMO. I'm not mad about it. I love a buff chicken. Those chicks were more pumped. Very saucy. But I was just, I was a fan. We got it with a barbecue sauce.

You guys got a cup of blue cheese, which I thought said, He did. It was B.C.H. And from a distance, I was saying, I just write a bitch on that container? Yeah, that was a Tony thing. We're fighting. Oh, no.

Yeah, I knew I was coming, and he sent us a subliminal. My brain is piecing together just the saddest narrative of your time living in Tony's basement. And it's basically the movie Room with Brie Larson. Whoa, that's dark. I know. I was going more like the barbarian route. and you guys can decide if Tony is the barbarian or if I am. I mean, I've seen the way you, like, run around on stage.

Hey. I see you leaping off a water tower. I was hoping the editor can insert a photo of the barbarian. Here. Great. Anyways, I went seven and a half out of ten on the wings. Oh, nice. Yeah.

I feel like you're... I thought you were maybe more. impressed than it seems like you were. I thought the experience was nice. I just like, I'm trying to be fair and balanced and that this is like you're talking about chain restaurant because I famously am a Fox News correspondent. I think I would have been more impressed if we had, we're not, we're talking about what we liked right now.

Yeah. I'm going all over the place. Yeah. Were there other elements that you like? I jumped in and assumed that there weren't many more. I think you're right. Oh, no. Well, I hope that what remains is at least in just there and not in the flat out not good section.

I hope it's in the median, not in the... That's true. It is. Okay, cool, cool. I had a little bite of the grandma-style sweet Gino because they have gloopy cheese, and that's not going to be for me. But I saw it off a corner. Sought it off with the plastic cutlery. My take is skewed because I'm a baby who won't eat that kind of cheese.

But the crust was like a cracker. It was very interesting. And the sauce was sweet, which makes sense. It's called the sweet Gino. And I think I would have liked it if I ate the whole thing if it didn't have the clumpy cheese as it was. It was interesting. And the things about it that I didn't like, I would largely chalk up to waiting too long before it. it kind of cooled off.

Yeah. And so I gave it a six, which is kind of a cusp. You know, it could be good. It could be just there. And just out of being a Jiminyani fan, I'm going to put it in the good. Okay. Yeah. Do you have anything else in good?

I have one other thing. I was just thinking about crust. At the end, I was getting full, but I decided to try the Sicilian crust just to be fair and balanced. and I did like the small snippet of the Sicilian crust that I tried. Yeah. So I'll put that in the good. My other good is also the Sicilian pizza. So we got the combo Americano.

And the way I feel about it is complex. It has sliced sauce, salami, applewood bacon, pepperoni, sausage, lingua, which is another type of sausage, mushroom, bell pepper, black olive, cherry tomato, and green onion. It had all of that on it? It's got a lot going on. I would say maybe too much. The taste of this pizza was a little like too sour slash bitter for me when it comes to like the olives and the slice sauce or the green onion. I don't know.

So it wasn't the best. But the crust was so fluffy and like a nice crispy. And I've had this kind of crust when it's hot. I usually get this style of pie as the pepperoni slice or pepperoni and sausage, I think, is what they do with the Sicilian. And that pizza is really good, especially if you get it hot. My initial score for this was like a five and a half, which is not in the good. After just going back for a little bit more crust, I then kept going back for crust. And I gave it a seven because that crust is good to me.

Yeah. And so I'll put the Sicilian in good. but there is something that it really affirmed for me. I like pepperoni. I don't need all the bells and whistles. I don't need 80 toppings. To me, just give me a slice of pizza with some pepperoni.

And, you know, I'm not opposed to having other things on it, but not everything complements pepperoni. And the fact that this had pepperoni, it didn't need more. But like my go-to domino's order is pepperoni, bacon, and garlic. Whoa. And it's really good. but I'm also totally fine with just a pepperoni. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially since they do cupped pepperonies. Cuped peps. Yeah. I just, I don't need to venture outside the comfort zone. I did for this because we were doing an episode on it and I wanted to get a broader sampling, but I love me some peps.

And I'm going to go back to my comfort zone the next time I go there and I'll like it more. Mm-hmm. That is all for the good. It is unfortunately less than I had hoped. But also, we didn't get like a tough. Well, it felt like we got a ton of food. We did not get a ton of different items, you know, six things for three people, I guess. So that's all the good for me.

That's all the good for you. The last good for me is that they had the crushed red peppers and parmesan cheese on each table. Not on each table, on many of the tables. You had to track down your palm. I had to track down my parm. And that is okay with me. I didn't have to ask someone at the counter for it. I just found an empty table with the parm.

Yeah. I was able to grab it. You'd rather steal from someone else than interact with a human being. Exactly. That's what I'm taking from it. A fair, fair and balanced world. Stop. Why do you always know?

Why do you always know how to hit your camera? Yes. All right. We're going to talk about all the things we didn't like now, everything that was not good. This is not so good. I'm not quite sure about. It could have done with it. It's stuff that brings down the moon.

Not. I had a major thing that I did not like. These pizzas cooled off so quickly. So quickly. And it was a, it was an issue on every single slice, except for the New York style one because we ate it first and we ate it quickly. And it wasn't hot, though. It wasn't hot.

No. And I've had these pizzas hot before. scaldingly so, and they were delicious. And it was confusing because we saw that meatball steaming at the table next to us. Yeah. It was a beacon of false hope. Yes. Yeah.

And then as they cool off, they also like kind of harden a little bit. Yeah. And it's just such a shame because they are genuinely so good when they are fresh. It means the idea of getting this place to go will never cross my mind. Yeah. It's like, I'll get it when I'm there. I'm not taking this out. Mm-hmm.

And I read a lot of Yelp. reviews about people who would get full pies, either delivered or for pickup. By the time they get home, they're like, it was like cold. And usually when people use the word cold for their food, I'm like, you're exaggerating. You mean it's room ten. I believe them that it would feel like ice cream. Ice cream. It would be like milk.

Maybe this goes back to the one oven thing that we learned about when Gemini was scaling. He learned how to make it all. in one oven. Or it might be the par baking, like the like baking it, freezing it. Yeah. And then and then heating it back up. And it's just like, well, it wants to stay cold. So you heat it up and it's like, yeah, technically cook some stuff, but it's going to want to revert faster maybe.

I don't know. I'm not a scientist. We're not gastro-scientists. I'm not a gastroenterologist. Well, I don't do colonoscopies unless I'm a bottom for colonoscopies. What? I have Crohn's disease. I have to get them every couple of years. But that would be the way you would phrase it. The top is the guy with the camera. Or a woman.

Incredible. I can't tell what's going through your brain right now. I couldn't tell if that was a panic response or if it was a appreciation. It was appreciation and shock, especially in July. This is the month for the straits. Every month is Pride Month. I said it once I meant it Where's your flag By the way

I don't see any Pride flags In this house Yeah I too wrote That the food Was lukewarm Not even I don't even know

If lukewarm was I don't even think it was Yeah I think the New York Style was the closest Everything else Did feel like It had been in the fridge

And then someone took it out For a minute or so Yeah So that was disappointing For sure Yeah I agree And a major hit against the performance.

The final score that I end up giving this place higher than yours, but much lower than I expected going in today. Because I know how much I enjoy this place typically. So what's a not good for you? The grandma slice we had, do you remember the name of the slice? The sweet gino. The sweet gino. because of the temperature and the sweet sauce that they had on it, it all felt kind of like congealed in different sort of pockets.

Yeah. And you turned to Joyce and you said, this is like a dessert cheese. Yeah. It was weird. I like cheese. That's not my problem. And I like a little sweetness.

I like the hot honey stuff. Although it wasn't hot honey, but it had like kind of hearkened that away. Yeah. That whole slice was weird. Yeah. I don't know. The texture of the crows.

was kind of strange. It looked the most artful, like visually. It's true. It was a... But it was also a segregated slice. In terms of like, there was like a section of sauce, a section of cheese, a section of bread. Yeah. Yeah.

But there were multiple segments of each type. Yes. So. Yes. Yeah. It was like you technically could split it into four little pieces. There's one slice. You could split it into four, and every person would have a sampling of all of the cheese, the sauce, and the crust.

But it would just be like a little bite of sweet, congealed confusion. I feel like you could use that slice of pizza to teach people about gerrymandering. Exactly. In CNN, I'm looking for a job. Go on. That's it. Okay. three, five or four out of ten from the sweet Gino.

I had in the not good the Rosa, which was the Detroit style pizza. I knew going into this that this is going to be too cheesy for me. Famously, not a cheese fan. I'm famous for it. I'm famous for not liking cheese. In the improv community, that's true. And this one literally one of the descriptive words was it just said brick cheese. And I went, oh no.

And then we got it. And I was like, this makes sense. It was just so cheesy inside. There was a pretty thick layer of bread that I expected to taste more of. And then it just kept tasting like cheesy bread. And then there was like a like a crispy edge around the crust that my brain was like, you'll eat cheese it's. So maybe it'll be like a cheese it. And then it was just too cheesy for me.

And like I already put my head in the sand when I eat pizza of like, look, I know it has cheese and I know I don't like cheese, but I like pizza. This passed my threshold. And I tapped out. I went four out of ten on the Rosa. Did you have the Rosa in Not Good as well? I had the Rosa in Just There. And just there.

All right. Do you have anything else in not good? This is controversial because you put it in the good, but the chicken for me was not. You didn't like it? I only had one bite of it. Yeah. So you know how it is with chicken wings? Like if you get the wrong bite.

The texture in there sometimes can make it go wonky. Right? Is that just me? I'm really trying to figure out where you're fun. Where I'm from? Wonky. You said it like Shrek says donkey. Donkey.

Donkey. Donkey. I am from the swamp. It's true. I do believe that. There's one thing I believe it's you're from a desert swamp. I haven't always, I've gone through periods where I don't eat meat. So like grain of salt.

Yeah. Grain of sand. What's the saying? What do I feel like... Grain of salt. I feel like since coming on this podcast, I have lost 12 brain cells and have only been speaking from one brain cell. Can I be honest with you? Yeah.

I feel like it's been more than 12. Oh my God. You thought I had more than 12 brain cells to begin with? I don't. That's so nice. I don't want to be on record agreeing with that. Yeah, so my, the chicken to me, I had one bite of it and it was wonky. Yeah.

All right. Do you have a score for it? Two. Two? Wow. All right. But again, I'm not a mean eater all the time. So don't take grain of sand.

Take it with a grain of sand. Famously what you season food with. When you do a beach. Nice. And speaking of if there was sand on me, no paper towels in the restroom, infuriating. Look, if you're a place that serves wings, you need something with physical wiping power in your bathroom, not just on the table. Because I'm a beardy boy and stuff, you know, sauce will get in my beard. And then I go into the restroom and I splash some water on there and I try and get the water out. What am I going to hold my face under the little like blow dryer thing? Terrible. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not a monster. I'm not a monster. And more importantly, I can't bend down like that these days.

I'm an elder. Yeah. I'm an... Respect your elders. Yeah. And it makes me sad to then have to come out with just a wet face. Wet face is horrific. And that's why the kid started crying.

And that's also in the not good. Oh, yeah, the crying kid. Like, look, he was a bundle of smiles until he was not a bundle of smiles. kid at the other table really just very similar to my dog, Kona, just wanted nonstop attention. And I guess there was a moment where he started crying and we looked over and his mom very handled it like a pro. Because like you get parents that are just like, you need to deal with it. You know, like my kid can cry in public. Who are you to shoot me a look or whatever?

Yeah. Not that we shot a look. But she was just like, he just wants your attention. I'm so sorry. And I thought that was endearing. But at the end of the day, eating a meal through kid screams, not my favorite. Agreed. I thought you like eating through the sounds of screaming kids.

Well, yeah, my brain is constantly like sounds of screaming kids. That's just like. Internally. Baseline. So when I hear it externally at first, I'm like, is that from my brain? Is that from my brain? No, but it did show that. at like family restaurants like that, there's a time limit.

We were taking our time and trying all the stuff and doing our research. But family restaurants, there always comes at a time when the family, when the kiddos. Yeah. It's time for nap. All right. That's all the things that were not good. We're going to jump into the things that were just there. This is a weird one.

I sure what to say about it. The stuff that is just there. A thing that was just there for me is the crust across the board. I appreciate that at Domino's, for example. Those crusts are seasoned up. Yeah. And I'm not a crust person. I will leave it behind.

I would rather consume, I got a tiny belly. I would rather consume more pizza and, like, save room and leave the crusts. Unless it's a really seasoned crust. And those crusts were not seasoned. They were cooked fine. I see fine that we discussed at length about the temperature of the food. Right. But, yeah, crust was just there for me across the board.

Hmm. I don't agree, but I see how you arrived at that. I'm also a big crust boy. I love the crust. It's one of my favorite parts. I will often get like a little side cup for dipping marion. And I will dip the crust in that. So it's like pizza 2.0.

Like it's, oh, it's not done. And because I don't like cheese, marinera and bread is kind of my favorite parts. So, yeah, I think this had two crusts I liked and two crusts I either didn't or didn't care about, you know. But I didn't have anything pizza and just there. Oh, all right. All mine were either in good or not good. Got it. What I had in Just There was the cookie.

Sure. A little dessert cookie. Not a bad cookie. Not a good cookie. It's a Just There cookie. Yeah. And if you're a Just There cookie, you're kind of inherently not worth it. Yeah.

Agreed. Too thin to have any substantial amount of chocolate? Mm-hmm. Very not chocolatey. Yes. For a chocolate chip cookie, very little chocolate. Agreed. But fine.

Five and a half out of ten. Mm-hmm. That was my take on the cookie. I would have wanted something gooeyer. I would have wanted something maybe with like a crisp. If it's thin, I like a crisp cookie. Dare I say a crunchy cookie sometimes. I'm okay with all of those textures.

This wasn't gooey enough to warrant how little chocolate it had. Yeah. It came with three and they were like kind of stacked on top of each other. Yeah. And it was like maybe they want you to think you just eat it like a pancake. But that wouldn't have been satisfying either. Yeah, because they didn't have syrup on the table. They only had part of it.

Parmesan and crushed red peppers. Which would be both would be crazy choices to put on a cookie. Damn. Or pancakes. We should have done it. Crush red pepper on a pancake. Any of these restaurants do that? Nope.

Okay. Zero of them. Zero of them. Anything else for you in just here? I thought the marinera across the board for me was pretty neutral, pretty just there. Yeah. The Rosa slice, the Detroit slice. I think I tasted the mariner the most because as we talked about the cross along the

was brick. It was crispy. So it was just like the textures between the two were vastly different. It was kind of like a crunchy piece of toast and then jam on the inside.

I was going to say or jam on the top almost because like for me the marinero was basically over the top of it. Exactly. It was like smeared on top. Yeah.

And then I got a lot of bonus peps on that one. Oh, you did. Yeah. On that one. I wrote my intro, like my teleprompter stuff for this as though

this place was going to be like a, slam dunk. Like this is, guys, this is the best pizza chain. I'm going to rave about it. And I'm going to be honest, there's other pizza chains I think that would score higher

than today's experience there. That said, sticking with the things I know I like, I'll be going back. I'll go back. I do like Sice House. And when they're hot and fresh, they hit. But this just created a longer list of the stuff that moving forward, I'll probably avoid. And that's a bummer

for me. Yeah. Because I really like this place. We need to put all of this together into a score. Okay. But before I can do that, Cort, this is your first time joining on the Fine Dining podcast. You haven't been to hundreds. This isn't multiple hundreds, but, you know, 150-ish restaurants like I have. So you're not calibrated the same way that I am. My zero, my 10 are defined. Yours are not, but now is the opportunity to do so. So we're going to jump into the calibrate. Station. Oh, my God

Trameration Station. Comparing this meal to the best to the worst. Calibration Station. Chugga, chugger, chugga, chugge, chugge, chugged, chute.

True. Oh, my God. That train is so slow. You can start with whichever one you want, but tell me about your worst restaurant dining experience you've ever had,

something you would call a zero out of 10, or the best, something you'd call a 10 out of 10. Okay. I'll start with. the worst, bad news first. Great.

I was talking my husband about this last night, and we share this experience together, and he was like, you're going to shout out the name. You got to. You got to shout out the name. Pay for your crimes. Exactly. Yeah. The office bar and grill in Morristown, New Jersey.

Great. Just like an American restaurant, way too expensive for what it is. A lot of good restaurants, a lot of average restaurants around there. but this place, I don't know how long it's been open, but it's still open to the stay. We looked it up last night. Yeah. So we ordered an appetizer to share

and two separate entrees, which we know now was a sin. We need to share everything. And the appetizer was pretty good. It was a buffalo chicken meatball. And that was good. We were like on to a good start. And then when we got our entrees,

they were so bad, no seasoning, to the point where you couldn't not notice it. It was like they wrapped a paper towel around each entree and sucked out all of the seasoning. Was the paper from Scranton, Pennsylvania? Probably. Probably. And then Michael Scott came out,

dressed as the manager, and was like, how was your food? And like, we couldn't lie to the man. But his whole thing is incompetence. It's perfectly on brand for being the office. So true. I wasn't in on it then. Yeah.

hadn't watched all nine seasons yet. I haven't watched all nine seasons yet. But like when the manager comes over and asks, we were like, honestly, this was kind of bad. Yeah. And so we sent it back. It was the first time I've ever sent food back. I'm a big advocate for sending food back.

I don't do it much. But I'm a very big advocate for like, look, if something's not good and you're not going to eat it or not going to like it, don't be a jerk about it. Yeah. But get something you want. Yeah. We were not jerks about it and we wouldn't have done it if someone hadn't come and asked.

We were kind of like hoping they didn't because we're kind of too polite sometimes and we're just going to eat it and let the world stomp on you. Yeah. Oh no. I didn't expect tears today. That's actually not true. Hey, I took my mess this morning. But yeah, and then they were kind of like appalled when we did. did send it back.

Yeah. And it was like they took off, they gave us some sort of discount. I guess we weren't expecting them to like comp the whole meal. Sure, sure. But it was like, I don't know. Was the whole meal bad? No, the buffalo chicken meatballs were good. We started the appetizer we shared was good.

But both of our entrees were bad. We both got different things. Yeah. Jason got like a pasta and I got like a chicken thing. And it was just like truly nothing there. Just so bland. Empty calories. Yeah.

Okay. And then your best. Yes. The best. So I had a hard time with this just because I have bougie in-laws. They've taken us out some really, really nice meals in York and now in Los Angeles. So I was trying to decide using a bougie one or like level the playing feel a little bit. So then I'll pick the one that we had gone back to multiple times and it is always an excellent meal.

When a place that you love continues to hit and prove that. that it's not a fluke. Yeah. It is the greatest feeling. And it's Momosan and Murray Hill. It's a ramen and sake restaurant. And the service is excellent, whether you're sitting at the bar or whether you're sitting at a table. The ramen is excellent.

The drinks are excellent. It's always... What kind of ramen do you get? Oh, no, I didn't expect to see tears today. Just like every segment, insertion of me crying. Um, it's, it's usually like a spicy, I could look it up, but. Like a tunkatsu? Yes, thank you.

Was that whole thing you trying to think of the word tunkatsu? No, I wasn't going to try. I wasn't going to try. I was going to have to look it up or not, say it. Um, the broth is thick and it's just like, it's an excellent ramen restaurant, at pretty moderately priced for a restaurant with like great service and great food in Manhattan. and I would highly recommend it. Okay.

Well, somewhere between Michael Scott allowing you to send back food and your old reliable ramen spot where literally everything is perfect lies today's meal at Slice House. So we're going to score it as we put it to the Chili's test. So this time you set scale, will it pass or will it fail? Is it the worst? Is it the best? Let's put it to the Chili's test. So this was a place that I have been regularly impressed by and that I usually get very excited about.

Hearing that there was one opening in Burbank, I got very excited because, one, I lived at Burbank at the time that it opened and had already been to Tony's Pizza and Napolitana in San Francisco. I have bragged about this place. And yet today, broadening my horizons, getting more types of pizza than I normally get there

just to try them all, there are some standouts and there are some that I will definitely be back for. I'm not like swearing off of this place. It was still a good dining experience, for sure. But the bloom is off the rose a little bit,

and that's a little bit sad to me that now, if I'm thinking about, like, would I rather go to Slice House or like Blaise Pizza. I'm now on the fence. I do really like Blaze. Yeah.

Blaise is higher than this is going to be. And even California Pizza Kitchen, although I like them for their spaghetti. And they have one of the only salads that I'm like, oh, I love the salad. Yeah. Yeah. Slice House has fallen a little bit in my eyes.

Not drastically. It's still good. It's still, I'd call it very good. You know? It's closer to be. being great than average, in my opinion. I gave it a 6.91. Kind eyes will take you far.

Yeah. And it was a good company. And I do like the vibes in there. Yeah. I love brick. Not brick cheese, but brick. Exposed brick. You're talking about the infrastructure.

Yeah, like the decor, like the, just the... Like the brick oven idea. It wasn't a brick oven, but I'm putting brick in a sentence. I just mean actual brick. Brick walls. They had brick walls. Brick. Walls. All right. 6.91 for me. Copy.

I am just a little bit under you. 6.23 for me. I really did like the pepperoni slice. I would come back for just that slice if I had just gotten out of the AMC maybe and was craving a pizza. But otherwise, I don't think I will be back to the slice house. Yeah. Okay. But I like the pepperoni cups.

I like the cuppa's. Cuped peps. Cuped paps. Big takeaway. Well, when you put your score together with my score, Slice House by Tony Jiminyani is going to go up on the Chotchky of Mediocrity at a 6.57. Whoa. Which is an exact tie with Brio Italian Grill, which is basically just nicer attes.

Italian food that kind of didn't cut it. Yeah. And so for it to be equal with a fast casual chain, I'm not that surprised. Yeah. Yeah. But all of this does mean, Slice House is a good restaurant because it is officially better than chilies. That is all for this review. I have to go somewhere next time.

So I'm going to turn to the you must bowl and draw a little thing that tells me where I must go. Everybody on hum, hum, drum roll and hum. Do a drum roll and a hum roll. Is that what a hum roll sounds like? All right. Next week on the fine dining podcast, I will be going to. Ginya Raman. Court, thanks so much for doing this with me.

It's very fun having you. It was fun. It's fun getting to play and be stupid and wonky. Wonka. Thanks for letting me cry. your couch. Your chair. Favorite Las Viguan I've had.

Las Viguan. Is that what they say? Las Vigans. Were you the first vegan? Yeah. You're the first person ever come from Los Vegas? Tony and Jemiani raised me that way. All right.

If you can remember it, tell people what your Instagram handle is. The underscore, court jester, underscore. That's me. Ending with an underscore is psychotic behavior to me. That's all they had left. Yeah. Take it up with Zuckerberg. And you can follow this show on Instagram and TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast.

You can join Discord to have a conversation with me. I'm there and I'd love to chat with you if you want to come say hi. And I do have a Patreon if you want to support the show directly. I appreciate every and all, every and all of my patrons. Beautiful. All of my patrons. And you get a full episode every month. some bonus stuff.

That's a Patreon slash phone to our new podcast. We did the thing. That is another one in the books. I will see you all next week. Have a lovely one. Why don't I say have a lovely one?

Have a lovely one. It's have a fine day. Are you crying? Well, there's another one in the folks. We judge the service up to the cooks and while we may have gotten a cup of the dirty love. No, the journey can never stop.

Now from the bottom down to the top, we've got things on lock. And that's good chillies to eat the lack for what we use when we put things up on the charge game. There's another one in the books and we will see you next a week and next a week, baby. Have a fine day.