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Food

Michelle Obama Basically Said Grimaldi's Beats Chicago Pizza


By

John Del Signore

Published Mar 25, 2010

Modified Mar 25, 2010


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In NYC, the pizza is so good that the city's notoriously busy residents will often wait on line for hours.

 

Harris Graber's Flickr


By

John Del Signore

Published Mar 25, 2010

Modified Mar 25, 2010


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Michelle Obama took her mother, daughters, and three of their friends to acclaimed Brooklyn pizzeria Grimaldi's yesterday, and what started out as a casual lunch is now reigniting longstanding tensions between two bitterly warring factions: the Chicago-style pizza crowd vs. NYC.

The Grimaldi's waiter who served the family, Rafal Harajda, told City Room that after they finished their meal of four pies—a plain, a pepperoni, a sausage and one with mushrooms, peppers and onions—the First Lady of the United States of America declared, "It was better than Chicago pizza." Which must cut like a pizza slicer for Chicago, seeing as Obama is from their hometown. Harajda later clarified the First Lady's statement, but did not contradict it.

When asked by the Chicago Tribune about his quote to City Room, Harajda clarified: "No, what she said was, 'It's the best pizza, and I'm from Chicago.'" Which is essentially the same thing, and it's just the kind of Biden-esque remark that could cost the President the support of Illinois Democrats and derail the completion of health care reform. The only way this could be worse for Obama is if she had called Chicago pizza retarded. Below, a short video of the standing ovation the First Lady received after settling, once and for all, the longstanding dispute over which city has superior pizza:

After eating pizza followed by ice cream from The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, the First Lady visited the set of Sesame Street at Kaufman Astoria Studios, where Obama last appeared to film a PSA with Elmo about eating right. There was no nutrition lecture this time, but we're guessing she filmed a new segment about how she'll never be able to go crawling back to inferior Chicago pizza now that she knows what real pizza tastes like. For the record, here's the Elmo PSA:

Tagged

chicago style

First Lady

grimaldi's

Michelle obama

pizza


John Del Signore

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Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations


Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations


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