Why We Fight
Above: We
Below: They:
But it was Friday. And that’s pizza night. So I went to the freezer and pulled out the Manhole of Promise, something I’d found at the grimy grocery store the other day: Geno’s East. I don’t want to get into pizza wars here… But for decades Geno’s has been the Ideal, the very definition of pizza. I had my first in 1975 when I visited a friend in Chicago. He was Italian, too, so he’d know about these things.
Above: wingnut James Lileks
Above: actual photo of Geno’s East pizza
It took 50 minutes to cook. It had a pop-up timer. Assuming as we must the diminished standards that apply to the genre, I have to say: worthy of the name. I almost wept after the first bite — a thick lake of sauce, aggressive sausage, perfect crust. I had a vision of myself weighing 300 pounds after a year-long diet consisting of nothing but three of these a day, fat and sweating and glistening with grease extruded through the pores, shunned by all except the dogs that gather to lick my fingers after I have finished with the first pass, and I thought: it would be worth it.
Above: destruction of Planet Earth
Good pizza.
Why we fight.
[Stab us again, Roy.]
Where’s the cheese?
Of course he meant to “Manhole Cover of Promise” because “Manhole of Promise” would be something completely different, which obviously, he he – sweat beads forming – tugs at collars, he would never mean that.
Manhole of Promise, as well as Manhole of Promise 2 and Manholes 3: Even Slipperier were sorely underrated.
But as we can see, Lileks already knows that:
“sweating and glistening with grease extruded through the pores”
I was hungry until i read this.
Christ.
These people can’t even get food right.
“Manhole of Promise”
And they wonder why the waiters, doormen, valets, bellmen, tax drivers, ushers, desk seargents, doctors, lawyers, bankers, clergy, lifeguards, golf pros, tennis pros, real estate agents, gardeners, ticket clerks, grocers, tour guides, bat girls, ball boys, etc. with whom they have daily contact, constantly snicker and roll their eyes.
I love stuffed pizza but being Italian does not help in appreciating it. This is not the pizza your mama from Naples used to make.
I made a thai-garlic-chicken pizza for dinner last night. Used a garlic/parmesan bechemel sauce with fresh lemon grass, chicken sauteed with garlic, onion, bird chilis, wild mushrooms and chopped peanuts. Topped with more lemon grass, fresh cilantro, chopped tomatos and mozzerella, cheddar and asiago cheese. I did use one o’those boboli crusts though. It was damn good…
mikey
Manhole of Promise.
OMG, is the Will Rogers of wingnuttia…*GASP*…GAY????
I mean, this certainly explains why he’s such a persnickety fussbudget, eh?
Gnat, your daddy has some ‘splaining to do.
The other day, I asked a friend what he thought was is best bread in the world. He said Wonder Bread. Must be true because he’s a a white guy.
I had a boyfriend with aggressive sausage once. Turns out he was looking for a manhole of promise instead of bacon and playdough.
mikey, those boboli crusts are great! My fave is a green and white pizza: brush italian dressing on the boboli and layer with slices of mushrooms, pepper jack, avocado, parmesan, green olive, mozarella, artichoke hearts and shrimp if you have it. Quick, easy, tangy, tasty. Mmmm.
I can’t believe I used to eat that stuff. I was just recently in NYC and ate at Posto: thin, tasty crust with a few slightly blackened spots, delicious sauce, but sparingly applied so you could actually taste the toppings, which were of excellent quality. Just enough grease that you could tell it was a pizza. It took barely 20 minutes from the time we ordered until arrived at the table. Filling but didn’t leave you groggy and leaden. Now THAT is a pizza.
I know, I know, de gustibus and all that, but really, what was I thinking all those years I ate those solid-starch-and-cholesterol discuses (and I think a discus actually weighs less than one of those pizzas)?
Hmm, I wonder if the fact that my pizza preferences changed just about the time I saw the errors of my political ways is just a coincidence….?
Manhole of Promise.
OMG, is the Will Rogers of wingnuttia…*GASP*…GAY????
But he looks so straight in that picture!!1!
James Lileks was a decent writer and columnist for the Mnpls Star & Trib and I used to read him a lot in a parallel universe pre 9-11. Back then Lileks wasn’t political. His writing was family oriented and very funny. But 9-11 changed him and changed many media people into insane raving lunatics.
I think that many are simple opportunists. I don’t think D’Sousa believes a single word he writes. He is just capitalizing on a market that is easy to write for. He has a look in his eye when he talks that says to me “I’m know I’m talking bullshit. I dare you to confront me” Other writers like Lileks drank the Kool Aide, he probably genuinely believes that Islamofascism is an existential threat to America. Still others like Coulter have always been insane.
Apropos of pizza, I should add that anyone who swings by Providence has to head to Wickenden Street and get some slices at Fellini’s. Plus, I always thought Pizzeria Regina was overrated. Furthermore, the best mass-market chain pie is Papa Gino’s, and at least once in a while one must calorically splurge on one of those small-joint greasefests, where the pepperoni has curled up into little bowls full of oil and the cheese has oozed over the crust edges and formed a cripsy burnt, delicious mess.
The greasefest pie (like DePetrillo’s non-pizza-strips* pizza, for those lucky enough to know) goes best with a slummin’-it cheapo American-style lager like High Life or Narragansett— the kind you get in 16-oz cans cuz they’re bigger, and because the aluminum is an important part of their flavor. (I only like those in cans.)
* Pizza strips: No cheese. No toppings. Fantastic. Two kinds: “bakery pizza” (squares of doughy bread with sauce) and pizza strips (from pizza joints; similar but crispier and greasier, and rectangular). Growing up in Rhode Island, I had no idea those things were weird.
I’m with MTS. NYC pizza is where it’s at. Plus, it is quite mobile. I’m a big fan of John’s on Bleeker.
“Very definition of pizza” my ballse.
of course now I have to get a pizzia on the way home tonight – curses.
NYC za is… not something y’all want to wander into. Some of the ugliest arguments I’ve ever seen have been over where in the city one can get the best slice. (Sal & Carmines on Broadway in the 100s.)
Lombardi’s deserves their rep about half the time, depending on who’s making the pies that night. Brooklyn za is largely coasting on rep these days.
The little known secret treasure of nyc za is Lil Frankies in the East Village. Not nyc style, northern italian style. Barely any sauce, incredibly thin dough, thin slices of fresh, real mozz, the best ingredients ever put on pizza.Their pepperoni is quite literally the best I’ve ever had.
Chicago pizza is ass.
Isn’t the real strangeness of this all the spelling of “Geno’s?” I mean, as a Chicagoan, I’m pretty fond of Gino’s East myself, but if I was gonna write a rhapsody about their pizza and how it changed my life, I’d probably check my spelling with a quick Google search.
Only wingnuts and sociopaths consider there to be one kind of true pizza. Every bite of food into my mouth should not be turned into an either/or decision.
EAT IT PIZZA NAZIS!
Ever since Mama Rosie’s in Waltham went under, I can’t find a decent white pizza anywhere. Have to make it myself.
And yes, I’m allergic to tomatoes, so it has to be white pizza thank you very much.
Word to the wise: don’t get allergic to tomatoes. It just sucks so bad!
I read Lileks for a couple of years before I found out he was a wingnut. His command of gaudy minutiae is pretty comical.
I was pissed when I actually read his blog. He should stick to mocking 50’s recipes.
Formula 1 pizza in Rome is the GREATEST!!1!11! Get on a plane now and go there.
Much as I disagree with Lileks’s view of the Big Bad World, I can’t really find a lot of fault with him for it. I read his Gnat stuff and his funny family blogging before 9/11, and it seems likely that his worldview is now informed primarily by fear for his kid’s future. This is something I can understand, though I don’t share it. My kids will grow up in a United States defined in large part by 9/11 and Iraq, just as I grew up in a United States defined in large part by Watergate and Vietnam. I once heard parenthood described as a “never-ending parade of terror,” and I can’t begin to tell you about the visions I’ve had of horrible things happening to my children. A parent has to choose whether or not to let those terrible visions rule his or her life. While I would not choose as Lileks apparently has, I can certainly understand it.
On the other hand, his views on pizza are just an abomination.
Scene: 1975, exterior of Geno’s East pizza parlor, Chicago
Italian-American youth yells toward the front door: “Yo, Fat Tony, c’mere! Some guy from Minne-fuckin’-sota wants ta eat yer manhole! Inn’t dat what you made da punks in da big house do?”
Fat Tony arrives. “Yo, who’s da dweeb? Tell ‘im I got his manhole right’chere!”
Lileks: “May I assume your sausage is aggressive as well?”
Er, that should be “funny food blogging,” and pre-2001, I guess it probably wasn’t actually blogging…. but you get the point.
Uh, most pornography about pizza revolves around delivering the pizza to the person you wind up having sex with. Not having sex with the pizza, as Lielks apparently does.
And I’m with Pinko on this one. If you can’t eat the pizza you love, love the pizza you’re with!
What is up with the butt chin?
I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Joe Peep’s NY Pizza, which used to be located on Sunset, just east of the Director’s Guild. The 2nd floor loft had the best hair metal band-era graffiti, and the pizzas would come loaded with so many toppings that a pepperoni and green pepper looked as red & green as a Christmas display (unlike the barren wasteland that is a sad, pathetic Domino’s).
The boboli crusts are worth it – I know purists will scoff, but I just don’t have the time to deal with mixing the dough, letting it rise, etc. Perhaps it’s a residual trauma from the college days, when, as night manager, I caught the alcoholic loser dayshift bum hocking a giant multicolored oyster loogie into the thick crust dough mixer.
Almost as bad as the time I caught the guys at Chicken King cleaning the chicken machine with the toilet brush.
If you’ve never worked in a restaurant … trust me, you don’t want to know what happens to your food before it comes to your table. Just don’t – I mean NEVER – send your food back to the kitchen for a minor reason.
Well, unless you’re Lileks and you secretly want that kind of homoerotic humiliation…
That was funny Judy, sadly, we don’t have much of an Italian presence here in “Land O’ Lakes” country. It’s either Scand-da-hoovian or teh Germans around here. I hear it on good authority from displaced New Yorkers that you simply can’t get cold cuts in Minnesota. That and we put mayonnaise on everything, which is true. I see lots of Minnesotans who will use plain mayo instead of ketchup for their fries, just dunk ’em and enjoy. Not for me, blegh…
North country is the worst, they are all meat and potatoes there. They like their food very bland. A friend of mine once got some bread from a food shelf (she was poor like me) but she was going to throw it out because it was spoiled. I looked and it was San Francisco SourDough bread. She was willing to experiment with whole wheat bread but I guess sourdough was just to much of a culture shock.
“Can I have a Don’s Big Dago?”
“I’ll give you a dago, ya bastid POP!!!!”
I read “manhole of promise” and “aggressive sausage”, and I thought it was Pastor Swank writing this.
I dunno ’bout where youse guys live, but if youse azk real nice in most Brooklyn/Queens pizza shops they’ll sell you a pizza dough or two. Beats the frozen Bobolis, even though the latter aren’t bad in a manhole pinch.
If only he had called it a “Glorious Manhole of Promise”, we could’ve just shortened it to “Gloryhole”.
Would’ve had the same effect.
I almost wept after the first bite — a thick lake of sauce, aggressive sausage, perfect crust.
“My nipples hard, my ass taut, I was in heaven. It was even better than Chef Boyardee, another Italian classic.”
I’m sorry, can we just clarify something – is the cheese under the sauce?
Also, someone should let him know he can blot some of the grease pools off the pizza. You’re not required to eat them.
You can’t get pizza dough in Green Mountain, Mr. Porrofatto. Hell, you can’t even get pizza. So I use bobolis, brush w/olive oil, slice up a tomato I just picked, add some basil I just picked, and sprinkle on a little cheese. Sooooo good. I can’t wait ’til the maters are ripe!
By the way, I think Ween wrote a song about Lileks pizza: “Where’d the fuckin’ cheese go?” The story is Pizza Hut commissioned it, then didn’t use it, for some reason….
I don’t want to start an ugly argument with “a different brad,” because I ALMOST agree with him, but…no…Sal and Carmine’s wonderful pizza (as I type I sit a mere three blocks away from their narrow pizzeria) is not the best pizza in NYC. (Or do you mean literally the best SLICE? I could probably agree that, speaking strictly of by the slice places, they stand with the best.) If you meant, more generally, the best “pizza,” I’d have to go with Grimaldi’s, in Brooklyn near the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ve never been by there and not seen a line snaking down the block…usually you have to wait on line even to order takeout!! This devotion is well earned, and I have to be thankful I don’t live as near them as I do to Sal and Carmine’s, or I’d be the 300 lb beast Lileks speaks of.
Yes, the cheese is under the sauce. I haven’t had Gino’s East, but Chicago-style deep dish pizza–with the sauce on top–is pretty great.
If his italian friend was a catholic it better be cheese pizza on friday night. If his mother was a shite catholic like mine. I still eat fish on friday.
wordyeti: My curiosity is piqued. Izzat the old or new DGA? When was this? (Was it in the space now occupied by The Griddle?) As I type I am w/in four blocks of Sunset/Fairfax, I know & have known the ‘hood for many yrs., though you may be sure I wouldn’t have been around during the “hair metal band-era.” (I was around, but wouldn’t have been in hair metal specific locales, though good pizza can transcend such divisions.)
Only wingnuts and sociopaths consider there to be one kind of true pizza. Every bite of food into my mouth should not be turned into an either/or decision.
Werd! I grew up with NYC pizza, preferably by-the-slice, with a fistful of napkins to blot up the excess orange grease. But when I went to college in Michigan I learned to love the thick-crust porthole covers locally known as “Greek Pizzas” — the trick is finding a pizzeria that oils the outside of the crust before baking so that it crisps properly & doesn’t turn leaden under the toppings. And part of the reason I moved to the Boston area is that we can get a decent thin-crust pizza delivered right to our door, from one of a dozen or so local joints, and if it’s not quite the pizza I grew up with it’s plenty good enough to keep me both fat AND happy.
Our dogs, incidentally, have all figured out the meaning of the magic word delivered, and when I use it on the phone — in whatever context — they run & sit by the front door, quivering in anticipation of ‘pizza bones’ (crusts). Our guys are not exactly picky about their meals, but when a misguided acquaintances brought over a Domino’s red-sauce-and-bread-wheel, they turned up their noses. Yes, even a little dog is too smart to eat the stuff Domino’s sells…
On the other hand, a bagel is a bagel is a sacred trust, and the various grain-based toroids they sell under that name even in urban neighborhoods where they should know better are just wrong. Bruegger’s was the closest to a real bagel I could find around here, and now that the nearest store is a 40-minute drive, I just don’t have much use for cream cheese any more.
I’ve never heard of this guy, but good god why would you read this drivel and why would he think that anyone but his own mother (and maybe not even her) would be interested in every aspect of his life. I was waiting to read a vivid description of the satisfying crap he took afterward.
Don’t waste your time on this kind of nonsense – go out and have a life of your own, including finding the perfect pizza. Gawd, now I have to take out the brain bleach just to get to sleep.
Goddamnit. It’s “Gino’s” with an “i” not “Geno’s”
made a thai-garlic-chicken pizza for dinner last night. Used a garlic/parmesan bechemel sauce with fresh lemon grass, chicken sauteed with garlic, onion, bird chilis, wild mushrooms and chopped peanuts. Topped with more lemon grass, fresh cilantro, chopped tomatos and mozzerella, cheddar and asiago cheese. I did use one o’those boboli crusts though. It was damn good…
mikey
Eh, Mikey, piasano — I dunno how to tell you this, but that ain’t pizza. It sounds tasty, but it ain’t pizza
If there is a God, the “Geno’s” East Pizza that Lileks pulled out of his freezer is a Chinese counterfeit of Gino’s East Pizza and has been laced with diethylene glycol, melamine, and tainted fish antibiotics.
Eh, Mikey, piasano — I dunno how to tell you this, but that ain’t pizza. It sounds tasty, but it ain’t pizza
Sure it is. Hell, the first true pizza was olive oil on Passover loaves.
ignobility,
Yes, when the Manhole Promise is broken and defeated, and the sausage is little more than whimpering meek-meat, the Boboli will do. On the downside, with no Domino’s nearby in Green Mountain, you have precious little opportunity to contribute to building Catholic utopias in Florida.
i’m from chicago and deep dish pizza – especially from gino’s (NOT geno’s) absolutely sucks. thin crust is where it’s at.
and not that nyc crap, either. new york pizza is best described as ketchup on cardboard!
Grimaldi’s, or Not-Patsy’s, or whatever the hell it’s called, is okay. (The lines are mainly due to the picturesque and accessible location.) But Gavin M. knows whereof he bites. DiFara’s pizza is so sublime, I swear I see Jesus Christ in every (thinly sauced! wood-oven charred! buffalo-mozzarella be-stringed! remarkably affordable! served in a blessedly hipster-free environment!) bite. I hope this recurrent manifestation of the Savior causes no problems with the Hasidic neighbors.
a different brad, you interest me strangely with your talk of Lil Frankies (sic somewhere, surely). I ate there a couple years ago and the pizza tasted like Kingsford Instalite, but perhaps they’re under new management.
And why does anyone think Lileks can distinguish decent pizza from his own manhole? I’d listen to him on this about as much as I’d heed his advice on making a really good carne guisada. Or pleasuring a woman to climax.
I’m surprised no one picked up on this
Remember Fargo by the Coen brothers? When Marge and her hubby go out to eat and they sit shoveling great mounds of food into their mouths? THAT’s Old Country Buffet. It’s a smorgasbord and I don’t know if it was actually an Old Country Buffet that they went to in the movie but that is what the place is like. It’s a feeding trough where suburbia goes to gorge and people really do heap mounds and mounds of food on their plates, several of them. A vomitorium can’t be far behind.
BTW, here is what I think he had:
Gino’s East makes deep dish pizzas available in grocers
“i’m from chicago and deep dish pizza – especially from gino’s (NOT geno’s) absolutely sucks. ”
Hmm, you spelled Gino’s right, but the rest of your story doesn’t check out. Nobody who has had deep dish decides, “Hmmm, no I don’t like all this cheese on my pizza. Give me something stiffer and more bread-centered.”
No (sic). There’s an old italian place called Frank’s this is an outgrowth of. I don’t know if you got them on a bad day or are insane, but you are very, very wrong in your assessment. It’s almost not pizza by american standards, but goddamn is it good.
If there are no nearby pizza joints, prepared bread dough is another way to go. My supermarket bakery usually has some in their case. And you can always find frozen dough in the freezer section. That hot yeast action will overpower the whines of any purists.
“Hmm, you spelled Gino’s right, but the rest of your story doesn’t check out. Nobody who has had deep dish decides, “Hmmm, no I don’t like all this cheese on my pizza. Give me something stiffer and more bread-centered.””
I live in Chicago and I also can’t stand deep dish. In fact, nobody I know eats the stuff – it’s all the tourists looking for an “authentic” experience at the Pizzeria Uno near Michigan Ave. Gimme thin crust every day…
Izzat the old or new DGA? When was this? (Was it in the space now occupied by The Griddle?)
Not sure – haven’t been by there since I broke up with an girlfriend who I used to accompany to the free SAG screenings at the DGA… It was in the row of storefronts across from what is now the Blockbuster. Joe Peep’s made a big deal out of the fact that they trucked in the water from NYC to make their dough. Personally, I thought the crust was no real big deal, but the sauce was definitely tasty. They went out of business years ago.
Best pizza in L.A.? Probably at San Gennaro in Brentwood … it’s just off Sunset and Barrington, and is the kind of place where the food is cooked by a fat Italian woman who yells at her sons who work there as waiters, waving the ladle in her pudgy fist and splattering the walls with marinara sauce. It’s a good place to see Dom DeLuise loading up on the ravioli quattro formaggi in a delicate lobster-cream sauce, next to a tablefull of slicked-hair West Coast Guidos sending over complimentary bottles of chianti and brandishing pinkie rings the size of Gibraltar…
ok since we are all giving out our Favorite Pizza joints here are my Seattle favs-
Stellar’s in Georgetown
Northlake Tavern in the U District
Minnesota Republitrons like Lileks would love to check out a decent pizza joint. They really would. It’s just that once you’ve shelled out for the inevitable hummer in the parking lot, there just isn’t ever any money left over to go inside and actually try the pie.
So it’s best to just go with the frozen pizza. Safest for everyone, really.
Galactic —
Yeah, Northlake piles it on….about four pounds worth. But if you can get through the plywood crust it all sits on, you’ve got some damn good incisors!!
Really, there is no place in Seattle that has outstanding pizza. Seafood we got. Pizza, not so much.
Thanks for the update yeti. Between the apt.bldg. &
The Chalet GourmetBristol Farms, then. Used to be a health food store there.(Gaack, those places smell awful, maybe that’s why I never hit Joe Peep’s, though I still don’t remember it. Spent much of the hair metal era in the Swish Alps, though.)New Yorkers I know say Damiano’s Mr. Pizza on Fairfax is the most NYish parlor in L. A. Who knows?
Best pizza in America, hands down, is to be found in New Haven, Connecticut… at Pepe’s, Sally’s or Modern Apizza. Fact.
As for this “Manhole of Promise/Aggressive Sausage” Freudian slip: I’m more convinced than ever that there isn’t a warmongering Republican reactionary wingnut who isn’t utterly, miserably closeted… and compensating for it by acting like a warmongering, reactionary wingnut.
That’s not pizza, that’s bread with a jar of spag bol on top.
OK, so who’s got the gumption to go and use the phrase ‘manhole of promise’ in the anal sex threads at Feministe or Pandagon?
Don’t look at me – I already put my foot in it once, so to speak.
I’m proud to live by what I consider to be one of the great slice shops, but for my money the best pizza is Patsy’s on 117 and 1st. Coal fired, ancient, incredible. Just don’t go to one of the chain, as they licensed the name but are otherwise not connected.
“aggressive sausage”
I mean, you couldn’t make that up. Nobody would believe you.
The boy certinly has issues wih manholes
all right – how do you put in a link around here?
http://lileks.com/money/money/mexico/4.html
Fuck yeah! DIFARA’s bitch. Chicago style sucks.
The best pizza I ever had was at Totonno’s in Coney Island. Nathan’s for breakfast, three rides on the cyclone, Booklyn Cyclones baseball, then dinner at Totonno’s. Wow, what a day. That creamy, fresh mozzererlla, those nice spots of char from the 100 year old coal oven. And an autograph picture of Joey Ramone above the table.
Here in Boston it doesn’t quite get to DiFara/Totonno’s quality, but last week I had a well done pepperoni at Pizzeria Regina in the North End. 80 years old, and they only clean the oven once a year…now THAT’S how you cook. Gooey, melty cheese, dripping with olive oil (and an extra drizzle of hot pepper oil for me), pepperoni crisped up at the edges, that crispy yet pliable crust, charred a bit here and there from the ancient oven. mmmmmmmmmmmmm It’s defintely a top 5 pie, no doubt. Bosotn doesn’t have much good pizza, but the best here is as good as almost anywhere.
Oh, and the cheese is under the sauce people. Chill.
Deep dish has its merits, but it’s not really pizza. It’s a casserole. I’m not a big fan of that greasy, short-bready crust.
Trenton-style Tomato Pies fucking rock. DeLorenzo’s!
“I made a thai-garlic-chicken pizza for dinner last night. Used a garlic/parmesan bechemel sauce with fresh lemon grass, chicken sauteed with garlic, onion, bird chilis, wild mushrooms and chopped peanuts. Topped with more lemon grass, fresh cilantro, chopped tomatos and mozzerella, cheddar and asiago cheese. I did use one o’those boboli crusts though. It was damn good…”
That sounds fucking disgusting. Keep your hippie crap away from my pizza.
Pizza should have tomatoes and basil. Maybe cheese if its fresh mozzarella or high quality, full fat aged. If you honestly have to live it up, pepperoni or sausage, but these will make the crust soggier.
If you put chicken on a pizza, you should be shot.
THIS is what pizza looks like:
http://static.flickr.com/92/250630165_6ea48ab3f7_o.jpg
Boston doesn’t have much good pizza, but the best here is as good as almost anywhere.
It’s good, but why should we trust your opinion on Chicago style pizza? After all, you Boston people don’t know if Boston Cream Pie is a pie or a cake. 🙂
No one in Boston eats Boston Cream Pie except tourists.
It’s not delivery, it’s DiLusional.
“I live in Chicago and I also can’t stand deep dish. In fact, nobody I know eats the stuff – it’s all the tourists looking for an “authentic” experience at the Pizzeria Uno near Michigan Ave. Gimme thin crust every day…”
I find you all terribly odd. I was born and raised in the Chicago area. Deep dish just for tourists? No way! Of course, my favorite deep dish is provided by any of the fine Giordano’s restaruants in Chicagoland. A chain, yes, but what a chain! I delievered for Giordano’s back in high school, and my fridge was always full of sweet delicious deep dish screw-ups.
chicago has some great food but deep dish pizza sucks.
and if you have to eat frozen, trader joes isnt too bad.
if you’re in the philadelphia area try these places.
I agree that Regina’s in Boston is overrated. I like to go to Ernesto’s on Salem for a slice, but only during lunch when they have lots of stuff made up fresh and its really hopping. If you go in after 6 its the cold leftovers and you have to wait for a commercial before someone will even think about helping you. Their eggplant and ricotta is melty-mouthy
I keep hearing great stuff about New Haven though. Have to check it out.
To riff on what a couple of people mentioned upthread, Seattle really doesn’t have good pizza.
And I like Chicago-style pizza, or whatever you want to call it. Sue me.
Arturos on Houston at Thompson St., my friends. The best. Or John’s on Bleecker St.
But in LA, Lamonica’s in Westwood is OK.
Seriously, y’all, why’s everyone afraid of doing real pizza dought?
Here’s the trick – come home from work, dump 1 1/2 cups flour in the food processor, add 1 packet of Quick-rise yeast (or 1 tablespoon from the jar), a teaspoon of salt. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to 1/2 cup of the hottest water you get get out of the tap. Turn on the processor and pour the water/oil mixture through the hole in the lid. Let the ball of dough roll around in the processor for a couple minutes.
Dump ball of dough out into a big tupperware bowl, snap the lid on. Change out of your work clothes, pour yourself a drink, watch the news.
2 hours later – you have pizza dough.
noen, you’ve obviously never been to the Iron Range. Probably more Italians than Swedes up there.
Pizza Snob, I was going to rip you a new one for being a snob, but on reflection, I realized you couldn’t get me to drink an Anheuser Busch or Miller product if you held a gun to my head. To each his own snobbery.
Good lord, people, isn’t this how the Iraqi Civil War started?
Besides, everybody knows Macs are better than PCs, Xboxes are better than PlayStations and, uh, Crips are better than Bloods. On the other hand, Miller Lite is not less filling, nor does it taste great.
Seattle has good pizza! Amante’s Pizza, on Olive, is good; over in Wallingford/Udistrict, Pudge Brothers is also taaaaasty. Plus, they have white/Greek/non-tomato-sauce sauce options for those of us that can’t eat tomatoes.
Throw a slice of pizza, go to jail.
What the hell is “Geno’s East”?
I’ve lived in Chicago all my life, and so did my father, and so did my grandfather. And none of us has EVER heard of a pizza place called “Geno’s”. But then again, we’ve never referred to a pizza as a “Manhole of Promise”… or even viewed a “manhole” as something with a positive connotation.
Perhaps that’s how Republitards spell “Gino’s”?
And James… maybe you, Rev. Ted, and Mark Foley can all get together, share a hot sweaty “Geno’s East” frozen pizza, and discuss how great your manhole of promise tastes.
Jeebus Crisps Allnightly. Feckin’ Geno’s?
Pour some ketchup on cardboard why don’tcha
When in Queens…….
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpatrizio/85352735/
Nick’s on Ascan Ave. and Austin Street
C’mon, Seattle people! Stella’s (Stellar) and Tutta Bella make damn fine pies. And don’t forget Hot Mama’s and the Wallingford Pizza House.
Some people get right-uppity about the purity of the ‘za. I’m usually too baked to notice.
The thing to understand about Lileks (certainly about all wingnuts, but Lileks in particular) is that he’s SCARED. He’s scared shitless. He’s not even shy about it. He’s got his “bug out box” that he maintains (and certainly preparedness is good) in the event of an attack, and he’s ready to bolt for Fargo at the first sign of trouble.
That’s what’s behind HIS wingnuttiness at least. I’ve read his stuff since he was in college, and he’s truly a very nice guy. But when it comes to politics he would be happiest under the rule of a fascist: someone who would maintain Order, keep the pizzas running on time, and silently disappear anyone who might threaten to shake up Lileks’ safe little world.
His terror can be seen most clearly when reflected off his offspring. I am loathe to refer people’s children at all except that Lileks has made a point of featuring her in his blog and therefore I will risk saying simply that he projects all of his terror onto her and becomes all the more angry and defensive on her behalf. In Lileks’ view the President is always right, the answer is always simple and violent, and as long as everybody follows their instructions and doesn’t succumb to well-intentioned but shallow Left-Wing Idealism, why we all might surivive teh Terror.
I feel sorry for him, because he seems like a nice enough guy, and is certainly funny (unlike every other wingnut ever born). But even a review of his published works – mostly books that pick apart ads and recipes from the 1950’s and 60’s – reveals someone whose humor is born of a snarky mockery of the Boomer childhood for which he will forever yearn. One local reviewer referred to him as ‘hateful and nostalgic,‘ which is colorful but apt. His childhood has been taken away, and he can’t have it back, so nyahh, it was stupid anyway!
He was a liberal in his youth, and it’s a pity he can’t return to the courage of those earlier convictions. But being progressive takes courage, and courage is sadly lacking among the 101’st Fighting Keyboardists…
Grimaldi’s, or Not-Patsy’s, or whatever the hell it’s called, is okay. (The lines are mainly due to the picturesque and accessible location.) But Gavin M. knows whereof he bites. DiFara’s pizza is so sublime, I swear I see Jesus Christ in every (thinly sauced! wood-oven charred! buffalo-mozzarella be-stringed! remarkably affordable! served in a blessedly hipster-free environment!) bite. I hope this recurrent manifestation of the Savior causes no problems with the Hasidic neighbors.
Amen.
DiFara’s is hand’s down the best pizza evah!!!!!!
When I saw the pic atop the post, a tear ran down my cheek. Bravo.
That sounds fucking disgusting. Keep your hippie crap away from my pizza.
If it tastes good, it tastes better with a pizza bread underneath.
Since you ask… Why yes, I have been known to make pizza with black pudding as the central ingredient.
Just in terms of nomenclature (I’m a transplanted Chicagoan, and the original deep-dish at the first Giordano’s at 65th and California banished the New York pizza of my youth forever)–the fact that they actually market a frozen pizza named Tombstone has always been a source of amazement.
Now, of course, it pales into insignificance.
Oh my god. The following is an (only slightly) edited repost of Lilek’s Rhapsody in Pizza:
“[Lilek’s wife] was out…but it was Friday….So I went…and pulled out the Manhole of Promise, something I’d found at the grimy grocery store…I have come to believe that it’s all good. Even the bad stuff….I had my first in 1975 when I visited a friend in Chicago. He was Italian, too, so he’d know about these things. It would be years before I’d have another, but when I took the train from DC to Minneapolis I’d have an all-day layover in Chicago…It never disappointed….The best deep dish ever anywhere…Ten bucks…It had a pop-up timer. Assuming as we must the diminished standards that apply to the genre, I have to say: worthy of the name. I almost wept after the first bite – a thick lake of sauce, aggressive sausage…I had a vision of myself weighing 300 pounds after a year-long diet consisting of nothing but three of these a day, fat and sweating and glistening with grease extruded through the pores, shunned by all except the dogs that gather to lick my fingers after I have finished with the first pass, and I thought: it would be worth it.”
Tomorrow: tips from Sen. Vitter on changing the baby’s diaper.
New Yorkers I know say Damiano’s Mr. Pizza on Fairfax is the most NYish parlor in L. A. Who knows?
For NY atmosphere, I’d have to go with the (possibly now extinct) Mulberry St. pizzeria on Canon in Beverly Hills. Owned by (alleged) comedian Andrew Dice Clay, it was frequented by enough mobsters that we had it under constant surveillance … they never seemed to notice that the Acme Laundry Van across the street never seemed to move…
For pure California atmosphere, it’s hard to beat buying a slice at Big Daddy’s on the Venice Boardwalk, and chomping it down on one of the surfboards-made-into-tables whilst enjoying the wildlife skating by….
Chicago pizza is teh awesome! Stuffed or super thin cracker crust. NY pizza looks like it needs some Viagara. Too limp, too greasy. I’m an ex-pat Chicagoan and I can’t find good pizza anywhere. I go home and get some Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s and I weep with joy.
Dennis Miller said something that disturbed me in a video I saw today over at Crooks and Liars. He pronounced Lileks’s name as “Lee-lex.” All this time I’ve been saying “Lie-lex” (when I absolutely had to say anything at all about the guy), because “lie” just seems like it belongs there. But Dennis has probably met the guy and engaged in a mutual round of each pretending to find the other amusing and everything.
Anyway, Lileks probably prefers Jeno’s Pizza Rolls anyway. Just heat ’em up and pop ’em in your man hole, or pie hole, or whatever you call the thing.
In a thread with homosexual overtones, I cannot help but think of other things when I see “mutual” anything between two guys.
I’m sorry, I’ll go sit in my corner now.