East of Chicago

I'm finally getting around to publishing this review.

East of Chicago now offers a Chicago style pizza in our area, so my family decided to try it. I've seen Chicago style pizza on TV, but I've never actually tried one. As I'm sure most of you know, Chicago style pizza is a "deep dish" pizza with the sauce on top.

I know what you are thinking - "but you like the cheese browned". And you would be right!

But, I thought, you never know until you try it. Right? Right.

So we called up East of Chicago and ordered a Chicago style pizza with peperoni and sausage.

Twenty Five minutes later we had piping hot pizza!

Looks fairly good. But I just didn't care for it. It seemed to saucy to me and the crust was too greasy.

I couldn't get passed the sauce being on top and yes, I was missing the browned cheese. Just not much to say about this pizza. I rate it a 5.

Bella Italia Pizzeria

I commented in my last post that there aren't many pizza shops around my village. In fact, a lot of the pizza places seem to be in the chip shops (fish and chips). Not only do I try to stay away from the big chain pizza places, I also try to pick out shops that are actual "pizza places", not chip shops who also happen to sell pizza.

Again, many places have no presence on the web - all you're given is a name and address from a local directory. I found a place called Bella Italia Pizzeria in Kempston - surely, they're a pizza shop, and not a chippy. Well, kind of. They do have a big pizza oven and one guy devoted to making pizza, but they also serve fish and chips.

Rather than my usual ham, mushroom, and onion, I went with the Parma (# 7 on the menu). I really was hoping the UK pizza drought would end, but no luck. Another sub-par pizza. It had all the makings of being great - but it just didn't happen. I had high expectations for the crust - as it was hand tossed. However, it was far too thick with no noticeable flavour or texture. I really like when you have a nice soft crust that has a bit of crispness on the bottom. This was just soft and flavourless, and had absolutely no browning on the bottom. As with my pizza from Pizza Max, there wasn't enough sauce on it to even provide a hint of what it might taste like.

The parma ham (aka prosciutto) was not quite what I was expecting. I can't say I've seen parma this shade of brown. The taste was fair, but I've certainly had much better.

I'm attaching a scanned image of the pizza portion of the menu to give everyone an idea of the "set combinations" as well as the options for toppings. Not only is it interesting to see what's available (i.e.; mussels, crab sticks), it's also interesting to note what isn't on the menu. Can you figure it out? For those of you wondering, rocket is arugula.

The pizza
















The menu




















The rating

Pizza Max

Based on the previous entries by sister, the US is by far much better at pizza than the UK. I've had two pizzas since my last entry in January - first up is Pizza Max in Olney.

I really try to stay away from the chain pizza restaurants, but I didn't want to cook dinner one evening, and this was the closest pizza shop around. Unlike my sister, who has 8 or 10 pizza places to choose from in her small little town, this part of the UK just doesn't seem to have many pizza shops. Or - if there are, they're not advertised very well (which is a good possibility - it seems most places have absolutely no web presence!). Anyway, I've got to drive at least 20 minutes to find a pizza shop.

The first challenge was to find the shop - it's hidden back off the side of a small walkway between buildings. Once found, the second challenge was ordering. Having been to several pizza shops now, I've learned that you can't just go in and order a pizza with ham, mushroom and onion. There are "set" combinations, usually named and numbered. You have to find the combination that's closest to what you want, and then "add" whatever it is missing. In this case, I told the guy what I wanted and he found the closest match on the menu, and then suggested I add the onion as an extra topping. Crazy, huh?

As for the pizza itself, the pluses were: it looked good and it was fairly cheap. The minus - taste. The crust had no flavour and I would put money down that it's not made on site. I've had better pizza crusts from frozen pies I get at the grocery. I'd like to comment on the sauce, but there wasn't enough on it to really give me an idea of how it tasted. It appears as though they put some sauce on the dough, and then scrape it all off - and all you're left with is the little bit that has found it's way into the nooks and crannies. As for the cheese, not high quality and little flavour.

Pizza Max is a take-away shop only; it was interesting to sit and people watch whilst I waited on my pizza. At one point, a group of 4 boys came in - probably around 16 - 18 years old. They all had on their ear-flap hats and were carrying around their open cans of Carlsberg (with the rest of the beer in a plastic bag). They sat and drank until their pizzas were ready. You sure wouldn't find that happening in the US.

The Pizza:
















The rating:

Smucker's Cafe

Our next pizza review is a pizza from Smucker's Cafe. I know what you are thinking. Smucker's? They have pizza? I thought they only had jelly. Nope. Now when you go to the Smucker's Store and Cafe, they have pizza! In fact, they have a wood-fired oven that they bake the pizza's in.

I've heard several people say that their pizza was really good, so I told the kids today to put on their shoes and coat and let's go try some new pizza!

So we headed to the Smucker store. Here are a few pictures incase you've never been there.

This is as soon as you enter the building.

And this is their Cafe.

Here is their wood-fired oven with the bricks around the opening.

And the last picture.... our pizza.

We ordered half with pepperoni and sausage and the other half sausage, but we got half pepperoni and sausage and the other half pepperoni. That was really disappointing because the sausage was really good!

When we got our pizza it smelled so good!! We could smell the wood-fired oven and reminded us of a campfire. I'm not much for pepperoni, but these were okay. I would rather of had the sausage. It wasn't spicy, it was actually kind of sweet.

I'm not sure about the crust. It was definitely not greasy, but I'm wondering if they make it. It seemed like maybe it was a frozen crust or a prepackaged crust. It was good where you had the toppings on it, but when you got to the very edge of the crust, it was on the dry side.

My son wanted to rate this pizza an 8, but because of the crust I've got to give it a 6.

Pizzazzio's

Here in Orrville there are plenty of pizza shops, but none that I absolutely love. You know, one that you would run out and get a pizza in zero degree weather. But among the Orrville pizza shops, my favorite is  Pizzazzio's. And even though it is my favorite, I'm still not sure if it's pronounced Pi (short i)-zaz-e-o's or
Pi (short i)-zawz-e-o's. Or maybe neither one of those is correct. Anyways, it's my go to pizza place when I don't want to travel outside of Orrville.

This pizza is half sausage and half sausage and mushrooms. They put on plenty of toppings and they use fresh mushrooms, which is always a plus in my book. The cheese is somewhat browned and the crust is not greasy. I don't care for crust that has grease dripping from it. The sauce could be a little sweeter, but it's not bad and they usually put on plenty of sauce.

I rate their pizza a 7.

Dalessandro's

This is a new pizza place that opened in December in Orrville. They always seem to be busy. In fact, when I called our pizza in they told me it would be an hour wait. One hour! My daughter didn't know how she was going to wait that long. She of course was starving! But that's kids.

This is actually the second time we have gotten pizza from Dalessandro's. The first time was right after they opened, probably the second day. My family did not care for it, mostly because the cheese was not browned at all and it just didn't look good (to us). We thought we'd wait and try them again once they were up and running for a little while.

So last night was the night. After the "long" hour wait, we went and picked up our pizza to bring it home to eat. We ordered half with sausage and pepperoni and half with just cheese. It did look better than the first time we had it, but still the cheese was not browned.

I must tell you, there sauce is out of this world! If I was rating them on sauce alone - there's would get a 10! It is sweet and very thick and they give you plenty on the pizza. But, I'm rating the whole pizza. The edges of the crust was good, but in the middle of the pizza it tasted soggy. The toppings were good and plentiful, although their selection of toppings is minimal.They do not have ham or pineapple, which our family loves ham on our pizza. And sorry to our neighbors in England, no corn, tuna or prawns.

I'm sorry to say that I would only rate their pizza a 5.

We probably won't order their pizza again but if someone else was buying, we'd eat it.

Papa Gigi's

Here it is, the first transatlantic pizza review. As my sister said in the Tomaso's review, we really have no formal qualifications to do this - we're just here to share our opinions and spread a little pizza love around the world.

Up first is Papa Gigi's in Bedford. Papa Gigi's is a small store-front pizza shop serving up pizza and pasta, soda, beer and wine (hey, it's Europe, everyone has wine). It's strictly delivery or take-away, there is no seating. I tried to take a picture of the place, but it didn't turn out because it was too dark outside.

If you've not had pizza in England, you might be surprised at some of the topping choices. It wouldn't be a British pizza shop if sweet corn, tuna, egg, and prawns weren't available.

I told the family back home that the next time I ordered a pizza, I'd get one with corn. Fearing the worst, I loaded up with two pizzas; one with corn, one without.

Pizza 1 - ham, mushroom, onion, chilli flakes















My "usual" pizza is ham, mushroom, onion, and banana peppers. If only it were that easy here in England. I've never seen a banana pepper here. I told the man I wanted some hot chilli's (yes, chilli is spelled with two l's here). My choices were jalapenos (the "j" is pronounced, as in jam, sometimes called jallies for short) or chilli flakes (crushed red pepper). I went with the chilli flakes.

You might notice the ham is julienned; can't say that I've seen that before. The onions had a nice crunch to them and were very tasty. The ham was ham, and the mushrooms were fine - nothing spectacular. I couldn't taste the chilli flakes at all - either they were sprinkled on too sparsely or they forgot. The cheese was browned - always a plus in my book - but didn't taste as good as it looks.

So far this was an average pizza, earning a 5 on our pizza scale. But we're not done yet. The sauce and crust will make or break a pizza, and Papa Gigi's lost points here. The sauce was very tomatoey. I would have liked a few more herbs in it and a bit more sweetness. The crust, despite being a bit chewy, had a nice texture, which gives it promise. However, even though it didn't look burnt, it tasted burnt. Perhaps a product of the pizza oven?


Pizza 2 - mushroom, onion, sweet corn















Pizza two was a veg option, with mushrooms, onion, and as promised - sweet corn. Some family members thought this sounded rather disgusting, others thought it might be pretty good. As for me, I can now say I've tried it, but I have no desire to order it again. Unlike most vegetables, I like corn. But this corn was a bit watery and didn't mix well with the pizza.

Overall, Papa Gigi's gets a 5. It's not bad, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.










To go along with my pizza, I had a diet lemonade. Lemonade in the UK is not a juice-drink made from lemons. It's a soda, very similar to 7-Up or Sprite. Keep that in mind if you come visit and go to a restaurant. If you order a lemonade and expect to get what you'd get in America - it isn't going to happen. I've never seen a "proper lemonade" here.




















** 10 Jan update - After having some Papa Gigi's cold pizza for breakfast, I've changed my rating from a 4 to a 5. It really did taste much better in the morning - and I found the chilli flakes!