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Portland is a great pizza town. Portland is not a great slice town. Your average neighborhood pizzeria, If it serves slices at all, tends to keep them cardboard-dry in hot boxes at the front. Reheating only dries them out further, or burns them to a toasty crisp. But as we learned during our Pizza Madness tournament earlier this year, a new combination of pizza obsessives, baking nerds and New York expats have helped give the city at least a handful of decent options. By our count, Portland now has four very good New York-style slice spots, including two excellent ones. Here, for your convenience, are the top 10 finishers from of our March tournament, ranked for your convenience.

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No. 10: Pizzicato

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In weird Portland's pizza world, Pizzicato is among the least eclectic pizzerias you'll find, a clean, streamlined restaurant chain with 15 metro area stores and, according to their own website, plans to grow in California. But the menu has Portland's number, with gluten-free options, craft beer and several vegetarian- and vegan-friendly slices. Our plain slice ($3.25) arrived in just under four minutes -- slow for the slice game -- with chewy mozzarella under a scattering of grated Parm, a hot spiral of dark tomato sauce and a white bread quality to the cornmeal-dusted crust that I didn't totally mind.

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Details:

Multiple locations

pizzicatopizza.com

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No. 9: Hot Lips

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And the Fastest Slice Award would seem to go to Hot Lips ($3.75), specifically, the handsome Hot Lips Hollywood location in the old fire-damaged Pal's Shanty space on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. (Spoiler alert: at 1 minute, 25 seconds it's hard to imagine a slice arriving faster.) I'm pretty familiar with Hot Lips from parties, work functions and pre-gaming at the Civic location before Timbers matches. And I already knew that I'd have a mixed reaction to the lukewarm mozzarella (can a slice come out too fast?) and the pale, soft crust, which sometimes has a gritty exuberance of cornmeal dusting the base.

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Details:

Multiple locations

hotlipspizza.com

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No. 8: Sizzle Pie

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It's hard not to appreciate the branding at this pizzeria chain, which has expanded over the past few years from Portland to Eugene, Seattle and, briefly, New York. You could spend a good 15 minutes just taking in the bumper stickers, posters and T-shirts advertising pizza and garlic knots in Wild West or Dungeons & Dragons themes. Even the stacks of red boxes with their "Eat Pizza Every Day" slogan feel carefully curated. And you might just have that much time. Slices at Sizzle Pie took a relative eternity to come out, more than five minutes at the West Burnside location, a whopping 6:25 during a follow-up at East Burnside. Once your name is called, the cheese slice ($3.50) you pick up will be pretty good, with a Saltine-thin crust, bright tomato sauce and nicely browned mozzarella that floats around the slice and improves as it cools.

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Details:

Multiple locations

sizzlepie.com

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No. 7: Pizza Jerk

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Tommy Habetz' follow-up to Bunk Sandwiches deals in nostalgia, specifically for a 1980s youth in and around the pizzerias of Connecticut. With its gingham tablecloths, tabletop video games, neon inside and out and a soundtrack of punk, post-punk and British Invasion rock. It's basically San Junipero come to life. At the time of our tournament, Habetz was talking about switching from dough prepared for the restaurant by Hollywood's Fleur de Lis bakery to making their own. Since then, they've opened a second location in the original Bunk space. My cheese slice ($3) arrived in a sparkling 1:20, faster even than Hot Lips from the play-in round, with a dark crust that veered into over-charred territory, a lightly herbed tomato sauce and melted mozzarella soaking under a shallow pool of clear oil.

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Details:

5028 N.E. 42nd Ave.

503-284-9333

621 S.E. Morrison St.

971-803-7960

pizzajerkpdx.com

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No. 6: Handsome Pizza

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This isn't the unlikeliest slice spot in Portland -- that would be Dove Vivi, where the deep dish quarters take 30 minutes or more to bake -- but it's the only wood-fired restaurant on this list, which makes their small slice menu all the more impressive. Handsome, which shares its space with whole grain bakery Seastar, has a sort-of modern farmhouse look, with wooden tables and light fixtures wrapped in black and white comics (just like the original location on the opposite side of I-5) overseen by a blue-green dragon designed by "Gremlins" creator Chris Walas. My cheese slice ($3) emerged from the oven in 3:50, its thin crust sporting a rustic char and a tangy sourdough flavor, with good tomato sauce and mozzarella dotted with dozens of tiny holes like sand dabs burrowed in the beach.

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Details:

1603 N.E. Killingsworth St.

503-247-7499

handsomepizza.com

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No. 5: The Crown

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Last year, Vitaly Paley transformed his Portland Penny Diner into this corner pizzeria, saying he wanted to recreate his pizza eating experiences from a childhood that featured stops in Italy and New York. Yet at The Crown, he's created a style of pizza neither Italians nor New Yorkers are likely to recognize. Slices are expensive, starting at $4.75 for a cheese and growing to $6.75 for a meat combo featuring house-made fennel sausage, pepperoni, salami, roast peppers and onions. They're also big: each heartily topped right triangle can fill you up with just one slice. Vinny Manna tends the dough, feeding it more than the venus fly trap from "Little Shop of Horrors." Our cheese slice arrived in 2:45 with good melted mozzarella, lots of sauce and that thin, crisp crust with a lovely sourdough tang.

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Details:

410 S.W. Broadway

503-228-7224

imperialpdx.com/the-crown

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No. 4: Escape From New York Pizza

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This closest thing Portland has to a pizza institution first opened downtown in 1983. And guess what? Three decades later, they still make a damn good slice of pie. At the remaining location in Northwest, opened two years after the long-demolished original, the Statue of Liberty is treated like most newer pizzerias treat the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: part motif, part muse. New York-style pizzas are made behind one half of the windowed storefront; the other features an in-demand booth. Our slice ($3.95) was finished in a very respectable 2:10, with an easy-to-fold crust, a loose spread of tomato sauce featuring just enough herbal zest to not be distracting and brown spotted mozzarella with a pleasant oil slick blooming from the top.

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Details:

622 N.W. 23rd Ave.

503-227-5423

efnypizza.com

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No. 3: Baby Doll Pizza

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This fast-talking Kerns neighborhood pizzeria set a new slice standard half a decade ago. Since then, it's slowly gobbled up the block. Head inside to find black-and-white tiles, clattering pinball machines and pizza box paintings of Freddy Krueger, the Notorious B.I.G. and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (it's not completely clear, but my money's on Michelangelo). There's an R.C. Cola-branded soda fountain and craft beer both on draft and in bottles to-go, plus a full bar in the former Bonfire bar space. My cheese slice ($3) arrived in 2:06, doubly impressive since a young family in front of me had just ordered garlic knots, a half dozen slices and sides of ranch. Baby Doll's pizza has a classic New York slice shop look, a little oil pooling above dimpled mozzarella flushed red from tomato sauce like a Scotsman after his first day at the beach and a crust that's crunchy (and a little fluffy at the ends) without being tough.

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Details:

2835 S.E. Stark St.

503-459-4450

babydollpizza.com

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No. 2: Scottie's Pizza Parlor

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Before opening this slice-loving pizzeria, owner Scott Rivera did the rounds at a number of great Portland pizzerias, including some of the ones already listed above. Rivera's slender pizzeria has many of the themes found at pizzerias throughout the city -- pizza box artwork, a passion for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a throwback RC Cola soda fountain among them. But look closer and you'll see those pizza boxes come from some of America's most beloved pizzerias, including coal-fired New York City pillars Patsy's and John's, some signed by the owners, like beloved baseball cards. Our plain slice ($2.50) showed up in 2:09, just long enough to heat everything through. The crust was remarkably thin, with an almost translucent structure that reminded me of what you might look for in a good dumpling skin, with some well considered char, a little brown freckling on the chewy mozzarella and a beautifully bright, chunky tomato sauce.

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Details:

2128 S.E. Division St.

971-544-7878

scottiespizzaparlor.com

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No. 1: Checkerboard Pizza

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In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have doubted Ken Forkish. But the master baker, who already gave Portland its best wood-fired pizzeria in Ken's Artisan Pizza, originally opened this kiosk at downtown's Pine Street Market food hall as a place where people could pick up croissants, baguettes and more outlandish pastry creations made in the workshop bakery attached to his Trifecta Tavern. At the time, pizza was an afterthought. Those pastries are still here, and they're great, but after a name change from Trifecta Annex to Checkerboard, the focus turned to the very New York-style pizza, with six intriguing options by the slice. Our plain slice ($3.00) hit the rail in a respectable 2:38, with a thin, crunchy crust sturdy enough to hold the lightly applied sauce and some character-rich cheeses without turning soggy.

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Details:

126 S.W. Second Ave.

503-299-2000

checkerboardpdx.com

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Read more:

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From a Thai tasting menu hidden behind a false bookshelf to a rustic French restaurant playing fancy dress up, Portland's best restaurants aren't afraid to evolve -- or just shake things up for the night. Don't miss our picks for Portland's top 40 restaurants, including Portland's very best restaurant overall.

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