If it's your birthday, you gotta have cake right? So I've been told. But what if you don't really like cake that much? What if you like blueberry pie?
Celebrating my birthday in Chicago got me the following:
a) my favorite pizza - Giordano's
b) favorite band - The Police
c) in my favorite ballpark - Wrigley field
d) my favorite dog - Portillo's
Portillo's (pronounced Por-tee-ohs or Por-till-ohs depending on your preference) has a great dog. I think it's missing celery salt, but other than that it's fantastic. The hot dog has just the righ seasonings to handle the ridiculous amount of toppings required for a true Chicago Dog:
Mustard, Relish, onions, tomato slices, a pickle.
Portillo's also has an invention that somehow I'd missed in the past, but my friend Jessica introduced me to.
The Chocolate Cake Shake
Yes... it's a piece of chocolate cake, frosting and everything blended into a chocolate shake. A whole piece of cake - in a shake. Cake - shake - got it?
Brilliant!
I'd still prefer the Blueberry Pie Shake.
...maybe it's just me?
July 18, 2007
July 14, 2007
7 pounds of perfect
It's been a fabulous couple of weeks since I last posted, so here's what's going on.
1) I turned 40
2) my birth mother adopted me
3) I got to eat Giordano's Pizza in my home town
If you've been some place that advertises "Chicago Style Pizza" and it's not Giordano's, they are wrong. Plain old dead wrong.
OK, OK - I'm wrong.
There are a plethora of Chicago Pizza places in and out of Chicago. Most of them simply serve a deep dish pizza which for my money isn't as interesting as a really good, very thin pizza.
Giordano's serves stuffed pizza. STUFFED I tell you!
There's a perfect medium crust at the bottom. It's not too thick and not too thin. I'll put it this way, you don't feel like you've eaten an entire loaf of bread after just one slice of pizza, and you don't feel like you had a cracker or a tortilla or something.
Then there are the toppings, or in this case - stuffings. On this my 40th birthday, I chose sausage all by itself. (an obvious metaphor to be sure) The sausage is perfect. It's not some little crumbles nor is it a great ungainly patty like some other joints (Lou Malnati's, Gino's East). It's a perfect nugget of perfectly seasoned pork goodness.
Another paper-thin crust seals in the 7 pounds of cheese (medium pizza) with the other stuffings and is then topped off with a generous ladle of perfect sauce. The sauce is neither too sweet, salty, or spicy - it's just perfect.
That sucker is baked for about 30 minutes and then placed with love on your table. I always eat too much of it and make myself sick, but what a way to go.
My point is that this is Stuffed pizza - the way it should be. You can have all the Chicago pizza you want and it's just not Giordano's stuffed pizza.
...maybe it's just me?
1) I turned 40
2) my birth mother adopted me
3) I got to eat Giordano's Pizza in my home town
If you've been some place that advertises "Chicago Style Pizza" and it's not Giordano's, they are wrong. Plain old dead wrong.
OK, OK - I'm wrong.
There are a plethora of Chicago Pizza places in and out of Chicago. Most of them simply serve a deep dish pizza which for my money isn't as interesting as a really good, very thin pizza.
Giordano's serves stuffed pizza. STUFFED I tell you!
There's a perfect medium crust at the bottom. It's not too thick and not too thin. I'll put it this way, you don't feel like you've eaten an entire loaf of bread after just one slice of pizza, and you don't feel like you had a cracker or a tortilla or something.
Then there are the toppings, or in this case - stuffings. On this my 40th birthday, I chose sausage all by itself. (an obvious metaphor to be sure) The sausage is perfect. It's not some little crumbles nor is it a great ungainly patty like some other joints (Lou Malnati's, Gino's East). It's a perfect nugget of perfectly seasoned pork goodness.
Another paper-thin crust seals in the 7 pounds of cheese (medium pizza) with the other stuffings and is then topped off with a generous ladle of perfect sauce. The sauce is neither too sweet, salty, or spicy - it's just perfect.
That sucker is baked for about 30 minutes and then placed with love on your table. I always eat too much of it and make myself sick, but what a way to go.
My point is that this is Stuffed pizza - the way it should be. You can have all the Chicago pizza you want and it's just not Giordano's stuffed pizza.
...maybe it's just me?
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