So we get in the car and I'm setting up the Garmin... I search for pizza places, and what should pop up, but a Gino's East location closer to the Giordano's we were going to go to! Sweet!
So we're driving, driving, driving on roads we've never been on. Yeah, it wasn't that bad. I mean, we had a GPS telling us where to go, and we're way out in the suburbs... It's not like it was downtown Chicago traffic or even interstate traffic headed toward Chicago (which is a lot more intimidating than it sounds)! We turn into the shopping center that Gino's is in, and circle around the parking lot about 5 times looking for this place.
Yeah, as it turns out, you should trust a the company's website over a Garmin. Apparently you have to pay money to get the info on those things updated! How rude! (My in-laws gave it to us just before we drove to Illinois, so I knew pretty much zip about the thing.) So we gave up, and kept going toward Giordano's. And I have to say, I'm glad we did. I still haven't been to Gino's East, but Giordano's was yummy!
When we got there, and were happy to see they had lunch specials! Only $6.00 for a personal deep-dish pizza (they're QUITE expensive, in case you didn't click the links and look at the menus). I think a drink came with it, too (I can't tell if that's Sprite or water)... But more importantly, we got to pick our own kind of pizza. Jason ordered sausage and I ordered the spinach (which Jason hates)! YUMMM!
Deep dish pizza takes a while to cook, so while we waited, Jason had some "fun" with Ava...
She agrees with everyone else in the world. Lemons are sour. This is the only picture I have of her making a face. I think she might have liked it. Are babies' taste buds completely developed at 10 months?
After that, we fed Ava actual food we'd brought for her... Some jar or something or other, I'm sure. After a while, they brought our pizza out.
This is the face Jason makes when his food looks suspicious: in this case, when he sees tomato chunks right on top. After 8 years, I still can't believe I married a guy who doesn't like tomatoes... After picking them off, there wasn't much sauce left. That didn't make him very happy. But Ava loved the tomato chunks. (That's my baby!)
I thought it was delicious! And I was fascinated by the upside-down-ness of it all!
As you can see, the crust itself is actually very thin and crispy. They put the "toppings" on first (my fresh spinach), then a THICK layer of cheese, then the sauce on top. Funny, huh? It was GREAT. I had no problem downing the whole thing. If I remember correctly, Jason had leftovers, and I think he let me eat them, as he wasn't terribly impressed.
Since then, we've also been to Lou Malnati's, which has a location just down the street from us. It was good, but I didn't like their crust as well. Plus, they are take-out only... which would have been great to know BEFORE we went there to get food. Oops. But that gave us an excuse to go check out this Walmart-like store they have up here called Meijer ("meyer"). It's better than Walmart, but carries the same very large variety of products. I really should shop there more often, but Walmart is SO CLOSE to my house....
Anyway, like I said before, deep-dish pizza is really expensive, so we've only had it 3-4 times. (We also tried a local thin-crust pizza, but that definitely wasn't as good AND it was crazy expensive. I was shocked.) So in an effort to save money, I've made deep-dish pizza twice. The first time was bad. It tasted fine, but trying to get the crust to work was really really really really really really really (etc.) difficult. It worked better the second time. What I learned: don't try to roll out the crust, just press it around the pan.
HERE is the recipe I used, from allrecipes.com:
Mine did NOT look this good (looks like they've added a bunch of stuff), but it was yummy! I left out the fennel seed, because it's gross and the Italian sausage up here doesn't have any in it that I've seen!
So whether you've had authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza or not, this is a great way to change up pizza night!
