When Pizza Bar — the replacement for the failed Vinino in the Power & Light District — was preparing to open, the PR buzz spoke of skilled pizza chefs, top quality ingredients, and true New York Style pizza.

Well, I suppose they probably do sell frozen pizza in New York.    Pizza Bar’s pizza tasted nothing like anything I’ve had in NY, but plenty like what I’ve had from a freezer box or a run-of-the-mill grocery store deli.

Last night five of us ordered two pizzas:   one pepperoni, and one with the works ($41).   We got them to-go, and the instant we opened the box our excitement changed to disappointment.

One person liked the crust, the other four compared it to Red Baron or food court pizza crust.   All five people thought both  pizzas were so bland that one would have to go out of the way to remove so much flavor from the ingredients.   Even the peppers and onions had been overcooked to such an extent that they tasted like unflavored gelatin.

We were adding salt, season salt, pepper, hot pepper salt, anything we could think of to give it flavor.

“It’s nursing home pizza,” was the group consensus.   Something you’d feed people with high blood pressure and no teeth.  Soft crust, flavorless, and seemed manufactured.  Both crusts were so excessively uniform in thickness, shape, and color they seemed stamped by machine rather than hand-made.

“It’s the shittiest and most expensive pizza I’ve had,” added another member of the group, a Navy chef who has had pizza all over the world.

The fact that it’s open until 3am may save it, but we doubt it’ll last past winter.    There’s too many other pizzas within a 20 minute walk that are much better and actually give the taste buds a reason to be there.    Tarantino’s,  Grinders, Pizza Bella, d’Bronx, the Cosentino’s deli, Johnny’s Tavern, Antonio’s in City Center Square, the other Antonio’s in Walnut Deli, Caddyshack, Cupini’s, Cafe Al Dente, Minsky’s, and even The Quaff all immediately come to mind as better pizza.   Even Pizza Hut and Domino’s deliver better tasting specimens to downtown.