The Best Thing About Running For Citywide Office?

OK, I’ll bite . . . it’s the pizza. There are a lot worse reasons to run for office than the opportunity to sample pizza in every borough:

[City Councilman John] Liu is most readily known among the press corps in Queens for his overbooked schedule and uncanny ability to rattle off reporters’ phone numbers from memory. But in an interview with TimesLedger Newspapers about his ambitions for comptroller, Liu displayed a lesser known trait: pizza aficionado.

“I eat pizza almost every day,” Liu said, while taking a bite of his second slice of cheese pizza at Amore Pizza in Flushing. “That’s one of the best things about running for a citywide office: I get to sample pizza from all over the city. No matter where you are in New York, there’s always at least one pizza place.”

Liu’s discerning taste quickly became apparent as he rattled off the equivalent of his cheers and jeers list of pizzerias.

“VIPizza, yes. That’s a good place. You know what else is good up at the Whitestone Shopping Centeri Pizza Chef, you should try that one,” Liu said. “But one place you should never go, and I won’t mention names, but there’s a place right across from the Empire State Building that’s just awful. How they can even have the audacity to call that pizza is beyond me.”

Liu also dismissed the popular John’s of Bleecker Street.

“That’s not a real pizza joint,” he said. “There’s a clear difference between a pizza joint and a pizzeria that is more of a restaurant.”

And big props to Liu for having the stugots to publicly diss John’s. He may earn a vote or two from that.