Pizzeria Due, Chicago, IL

After eating nothing but pizza from Friday night until Sunday afternoon (Father and Son’s leftovers) I hardly had the stomach or the drive to get more, but I knew I needed to hit up at least one of the famous places in the heart of downtown Chicago.  Pizzeria Uno, Due, Gino’s East or Giordano’s, I didn’t care.  I felt it was necessary to the trip.

We eventually snail our way downtown around 9 or 10pm, a little later than I wanted but shit happens when you’re wandering around in a new city.  As 10pm came and went, I kind of gave up on finding a place to dine at, I didn’t think any place would still be serving this late on a  Sunday night.  As we make our way to the Signature Lounge at the 96th floor on the John Hancock building, I look left at an intersection.  Far in the distance I spot Pizzeria Due.  I run down the street to check to see if they were open and sure enough they were will serving this late.  Perfect.

image from goplantit.com

Pizzeria Due was opened by the owners of Pizzeria Uno, right across the intersection from eachother in the 40′s after Uno grew to be too popular.  They claim to have created the original deep dish pizza but others claim it was Lou Malnati, which is another pizza joint I wish I had the chance to try out.  You can read all about that crap on wikipedia so lets talk pies.

I was apparently the only one hungry enough to order anything so I got a small pie and tried to split some of it when my friend Katie.  The pie was split up half pepperoni half mushrooms.

The pie we got was a little more typical of a thick crust pizza.  Lots of gooey cheese, well cooked toppings, and a thick, moist crust that would easily fill up a hungry dude.  I don’t remember anything really unique about this stuff, it was just good. Everything was cooked perfectly, the crust had a nice balance of textures with a little oily touch.  Tomato sauce was a little more typical than a place like Burt’s; more on the tangy side than spicy, but it was certainly fresh and very tasty.  One thing I realized about Burt’s is that they don’t go very heavy on the cheese, which is something I don’t mind as much.  Due certainly had the most gooey cheese of them all.

Pizzeria Due is another really cozy pizza joint with friendly service and decent prices.  I typically paid about $15-$17 bucks each pizza on this trip of mine, which was usually enough to feed 4 people on average, though I found myself eating the Father and Son’s leftovers three or four times on the trip.  I can really understand the appeal of deep dish pizza now.  It seems to me that the goal is simple; you take good pizza and just make more of it in one dish.  Bread is something that I love to eat and I also find it to be very delicious, although not as good for your sex appeal in the long run, so it makes sense why this kind of pie is full of flavor.

This trip rocked and the pizza rocked even harder.  The best pie was definitely at Burt’s, everyone I was with seemed to say the same thing.  Father and Son’s was great but how the fuck did a rock get in my pizza?  Fuck you for that.  Pizzeria Due was also great if you enjoy a less than spicy thick crust pizza but I love the atmosphere there.  Half-basement dining in the heart of downtown Chicago?  I’ll take it any time,it doesn’t get much better.  And the only non deep dish pizza I tried at Piece was pretty damn great too.  Dammit, all of these places were good.  Are there any bad pizza places in Chicago?  Or did I just choose very carefully?  I’d like to think the former, but like everything else, there’s bound to be some shit stinkin’ up someone’s flower garden.

Now if we could only get a decent deep-dish pizza joint here in Richmond…

Thanks to Katie and Laura for showing me around and all the friendly people I met.  Go Blackhawks.

Burt’s Place, Morton Grove, IL

After a fun trip to the Home Alone house in Winnetka, IL. we made a stop at a much talked about pizza place just outside of Chicago called Burt’s Place.  I had read great things about this place on the internet and from Mr. Bourdain’s show, No Reservations, so myself and others were excited to check this place out.  Tucked away in a cozy neighborhood with more than cozy service, this was easily the best pizza I had while I was in Chi-town.

We almost didn’t find it.  Who would have thought such a popular pizza joint would be nestled far away from the main business road, way deep in a neighborhood that I would have no doubt never, ever visited if it hadn’t been for Burt’s Place?  The people inside were more than accommodating.  The joint was small, and about two people were on the floor serving, one of them I recognized as Burt’s lady from the No Reservations episode.

As soon as we realized they didn’t accept credit cards, we told them we had to go find an ATM.  That was no problem for them, they took our order anyway since the pizzas usually took around 45 minutes to cook and let us leave to get money while the pies were in the oven, so they’d be closer to being done by the time we came back.  I can’t imagine any other pizza parlor doing this for total strangers.  Very cool.

We sat down and ordered some beers from a menu that consisted of mostly Great Lakes Brewing Co. beers which were all very much good beers.  I ordered a pale ale with an %8 abv. which is something I’ve never seen done in a pale ale.  I was disappointed in the lack of a beer for the budget minded as every beer on the menu was $4 or more, and thats bottled!  Is it really that hard to keep a small stash of Budweiser?

Anyway, I didn’t come here to drink.  We ordered two small pies, which was more than enough food for 6 of us.  Granted, some of the ladies only ate 1 slice, and one couldn’t eat any due to a Gluten allergy (god bless her soul) but the three slices I ate absolutely annihilated me.  One pie was sausage, one veggie.  The verdict?

Amazing.

This was one of those pizzas where you can tell just how great it is going to taste before it enters your mouth.  You can taste the spices and flavors through your nose right as it’s placed in front of you.  The crust on these pizzas is caramelized which is sort of a defining characteristic of Burt’s and it really sets it on its own pedestal.  Crispy, chewy, full of flavor and plenty of it to go around, the crust is almost one with the cheese that is baked on top of it.  And forget about that dog food sausage that you find on your pizzas around here, this stuff is sliced thick like pepperoni and spiced perfectly.

I forced myself to eat more of this than I should have, but how many times am I gonna get to come here?  If I’m ever in the windy city again, I’ll definitely be making a trip out here.  The pizza is absolutely crushing and the people of Chicago, I consider them lucky to have such a killer place to eat.

Piece, Chicago IL

One stop on my Chicago pizza tour took me to a place that doesn’t really do deep-dish and they seem to be blowing up every night without it.  They serve up traditional red and white Neapolitan-American pies as well as the mozzarella-less New Haven style pizza.

Piece is also a brewery, brewing their own beer within the facility.  We tried the Worryin’ Ale (a Rye Beer) and the Full Frontal Pale Ale (an american pale ale).  The beers were quite good, as was the pizza.

One of the great things about a good Neapolitan pizza is the short amount of time it needs to bake.  Our pie came within 10 minutes of us placing the order and it was perfectly baked.  The crust was perfect.  Crunchy on the outside with a soft, chewy inside, really an ideal blend.  We ordered a red pizza with olives and mushrooms.  These weren’t my choice, but I was with a vegetarian friend and I’m not a picky eater at all, so I let her choose.  I could have done without the olives as they don’t compliment the flavor of the pizza very well.

The tomato sauce was tangy and fresh tasting and the cheese was pretty average mozzarella.  As the pizza cooled off it tasted worse and worse.  I feel like good pizza tastes a lot worse when it cools off compared to cheaper pizza.  Probably because cheap pizza never tastes that great to begin with.

I digress.  Piece is a very fucking cool place that can seat a ton of people, serves great brew and pizza at a good price and has plenty of TVs to watch Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks games on.  If I lived in Chicago, I’d pay Piece a visit several times a month.

Father and Son, Logan Square, Chicago IL

The Original Father & Son Restaurant opened in 1947 and it seems like time has been good to them.  Now with 3 locations in Chicago, the supposedly serve up some of the best deep dish in town.

Going in to this whole deep dish thing, I was worried that I would end up with way too many leftover slices or a huge stomach ache every time I ate somewhere.  Luckily these guys offer a decent sized 12-inch which I ordered with green peppers and sausage and put me about $17 in the hole.

This stuff wasn’t as deep as I was expecting but it was plenty deep to fill up the bellies of 3 hungry adults.  As my first real experience with true deep dish pizza, I can honestly see why some people prefer this over a thinner style pie.  Deep dish pizza truly is a pie in every sense of the word.  The ends of the crust form a wall of flaky, crunchy, crusty goodness that hold in the pizza which has the toppings baked under the sauce.

The sauce is full of flavor.  In fact, the whole thing packs so many flavors, it became really hard to distinguish the different ingredients in the pie.  The cheese was gooey and did not congeal very quickly, even after a little car ride after the pick-up.  As far as the toppings go, I really didn’t have any idea what would be good on this type of pizza but I’ve always seen/heard deep-dish ordered with sausage, so I did half sausage, half green peppers.

The sausage kind a pretty big let down which came under the sauce in fairly large chunks, but not the flat slivers I was expecting.  While the sausage “pebbles” were small, they were still chewy and juicy which is all I can ask really.  The green pepper side of the pizza was ordered for a vegetarian friend of mine, and I honestly preferred that side of the pizza anyway.

All of the deliciousness aside, in the middle of my second slice I bit into a fucking rock.  Yes, a god damn rock pebble that you’d find on the street, the side of a pea.  I was damn lucky not to break a tooth, and it made the rest of my meal a very nervous one.  How the fuck does a street rock get baked into a pizza?  I’d give this place pretty high praise for making some really tasty pie, but this shit is fucking retarded.  If I had broken a tooth, I’d go back there and rip them a new asshole.

Unfortunately, I won’t be going back to this place.  That shit is unacceptable.

Bears, Bulls and Deep Dish Pizza

I’ve never had a proper apprectiation for Chicago style pizza or “deep dish” pizza.  I remember exactly my first taste of said pizza was Dominos Deep Dish back in the early 90′s.  The commercial was catchy.  I believe it was tied to college basketball in some way and the song had the beat from Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”  The stadium was stomping and clapping the beat, and the hook was something like “DOMINOS DEEP-DISH!”

this CANT be good

Other than that, I can’t honestly say I’ve had a good Chicago style pizza.  What’s offered around here is what I consider crap.  Bottom’s Up is some of the most overrated pizza I’ve ever eaten and I’ve tried both their thin crust and their gi-normous, grossly thick “slices” (I like to call them “slabs”) of deep dish pizza topped with anything from crab meat to Gulden’s brown mustard.  Overrated and overpriced.   My friend ordered a single pizza one night with 3 or 4 toppings and it ended up being over $30.  If you top your large pie with any kind of seafood, that’ll run you $10.95 per topping.

And none of this stuff even remotely resembles the true deep dish pizza of Chicago that I’ve seen in pictures.  That stuff is HUGE.  So I turn to one of my verbal heroes, the voice I hear in my head when I try to write entertaining shit about pizza or really anything in life, Anthony Bourdain.  I’m going in to the windy city with a very narrow mind.  A pizza racism of sorts.  And if Bourdain, a New Yorker through and through, can find a way to enjoy Chicago’s monstrosity, then surely I can.

I took it upon myself to book a trip to Chicago next weekend as a couple friends will graciously host my pizza-eating ass in the heart of the city.  I will arrive around noon on Friday and will run through the city’s best pizza until Sunday night.  I’m setting my goal at 5 different pizza joints, but I can’t expect my friends to be as pizza-obsessed as I am.  Three will be good enough.

Oh ya.  Go Blackhawks.  Those throwbacks are sick.