After leaving New Rochelle, we headed back into NYC, which I was happy about. Hadn't been back home for a while, so I was craving some city pizza. We had several meetings to attend which weren't really exciting enough to keep me from day dreaming about pizza. As we left our second meeting and started walking towards the third, we passed Famiglia Pizza along the way. At first I didn't want to go into it since it seemed like the same place I saw earlier in the day somewhere else in the city.  I am not really one to enjoy chains. But when I saw the garlic knots through the window, I decided it was time to stop in and give it a try.

The first thing I noticed upon walking into Famiglia Pizza on 6th Avenue, was that they clearly display the amount of calories each item on their menu has.  I am not certain if this is now mandatory in the city, but either way it was extremely helpful....especially if you are counting those calories.

I quickly ordered up a dozen knots while I decided which kind of slice I wanted.  Wasn't really too much in the mood for a Sicilian, but it looked pretty darn appetizing. So, I ended up getting the Sicilian after about a 4 minute moment of indecisiveness.  When the slice came out it looked splendid.  The cheese was bubbling, the crust was ultra-firm, and it was the perfect size.  The crust was baked a golden brown, and I just couldn't wait to bite into it.

Naturally, I am skeptical of "chain" style pizza places, since they ALWAYS seem to skimp out on quality and instead, try to rush their pizzas out with the most cost effective ingredients. This can be found throughout almost any chain style place around the world. But Famiglia is different.  This slice tasted like they actually did care about what they served.  The cheese was most likely Grande, the sauce was sweet, and applied to perfection, and the crust was impressive.

When I bit into the slice at first, I could hear how crisp the bottom was. When the top of my mouth bit down on the cheese and dough, it melted into the roof of my mouth and was quite a pleasurable experience. For those of you who eat at a Famiglia around the world daily, perhaps you would tend to disagree with me since you are sick of it and it tastes like nothing more then mall pizza to you. But on this day, with this particular slice I had, I feel confident saying that Famiglia is one of the best chain style pizza places I have tasted to date.  If you pass one, go ahead and try it out for yourselves.

Famiglia Pizza on 6th Ave in New York City gets 5 out of 8 slices.