Re: Pizza

As a born, bred, and ex-bus-driving Chicagoan (tip of the hat to "New York's Ralph Kramden" ), I'd like to set the record straight on "Chicago-style pizza." There are only a handful of pizzerias in Chicago that make the real thing.

The real thing:

• Unique, slightly crunchy, deep dish crust
• Solid layer of great sausage over the crust
• Layer of cheese
• Layer of stewed tomatoes sauce (lots of solids)
• Great spices in the "sauce" and sausage

Originally, there were only 4 pizzerias that offered the above:

• Uno's ("One")
• Due's ("Two")
• Gino's, East
• Gino's, West

More recently Malnatti's, a long time, very good Italian restaurant in Chicago, sells pre-made, uncooked, frozen, similar pizzas via phone and the web. Malnatti's sauce is too runny, sweet and not spicy enough to my taste.

The big thing, across the board, is the quality and quantity of the sausage.

It is such a big thing in "Chicagoland", that even the flat pizzas in Chicago tend to have more and higher quality sausage. There's a place in Evanston, for example, the name of which escapes me, that sells the best flat sausage pizza I have ever tasted.

"But, you didn't mention cheese or pepperoni pizza?"

That's correct; I did not.

BTW:

• If you're looking for delicious, exotic pizzas, I recommend the Morgul Bismarck in Boulder, CO. :-|
• The Due's restaurant, syndicated chain's pizza bears no resemblance to Due's, Chicago, or any of the other 4.
• I would not be surprised to find out that (a) there were more than these 5 selling authentic Chicago Deep Dish (Pan!) pizza, or (b) there were scads pretending to. I’ve been gone from Chicago for some time, and my resident pizza expert (my brother) has also left.