"Gen X remembers a time when pretty much every single corner pizzeria was amazing in its own right. Going into the 90 's, that started to change, and the trend has been monotonically trending downward ever since. In my neib, Midwood, we have Di Fara 's, of course. But I honestly can 't think of any other pizzas that knock my socks off. We have good ones, but other than Di Fara, none that really stand out. We were in Carrol Gardens and stumbled across Giardini. It looked good, so we walked in to get a pie and some calzone. The punchline is, Giardini really stands out. It 's hard not comparing Giardini with Di Fara 's, b/c Di Fara 's is my 'home turf ', and I love both pizzas. The difference is, of course, that Di Fara 's is known to be NYC 's most expensive pizza, which is obviously not a contest anyone should want to win. What did I like about Giardini? The cheese was fresh and tastes beautiful. The average pizza these days is flavorless, but not this cheese! The sauce was not overly sweet. I still like *my* sauce better, but in terms of pizza sauce, this sauce is savory, not sickening sweet. It has a ripe tomato profile, which has sadly become elusive in the NYC pizza scene. To me, it screams 'home made ', definitely not canned. The sausage was savory and vibrant. Very fresh tasting, and not overly greasy. The same for the pepperoni. The vegetables on our pizza roasted broccoli and tomato was fresh, tasted delicious, and was done in just the right proportions. The calzone was unbelievably delicious (I ordered sausage ricotta meatball). What was I neutral on about Giardini? I wish our pizza box had a pizza saver since we were carrying the pie home. One one hand, a pizza saver really works when you 're carrying a pie, but on the flip side, they 're environmentally unfriendly, so I can 't complain about this too much. What didn 't I like about Giardini? Nothing. There 's nothing I don 't like about this place. If they were here in Midwood, we 'd be going here exclusively for our pizza needs."
