[Meet the Members] Adrock

Screen Name: Adam Young

Real Name: Adam

Came out of the Oven: Hinsdale, IL

Favorite toppings: I am very much a fan of sausage and mushroom. For less traditional pizza, I enjoy plum and Roma tomatoes, pesto sauce, and some of the harder cheese varieties (Romano, Parmesan, and Asiago). Garlic!

First Pizza Club Meeting: July 9, 2009 at Union Pizzeria.

Favorite Deep Dish Pizza: Malnati's, no doubt. I remember the first time I had their pizza, which was my first deep dish, ever, and thinking how amazing the copious amounts of cheese and the chunky sauce on top was. They're consistently good and have yet to disappoint.

Favorite Thin Crust Pizza: Pizano's "thin" crust is not quite as thin as convention would have it, but man, it is ethereally good. When ordering it, the "butter crust" option is mandatory for this guy (they just add yet more butter to a crust that may not really need it). Another thin crust pizza worth mentioning here that vies for champion is the four-cheese plum tomato pizza from Marcello's. It is the lobster of pizza - very, very rich in flavor, and yet not without nuance and delicateness. So good.

Favorite Pizza outside of Chicago: I'm going with Monical's (they are a chain existing mostly south of Interstate 80 in Illinois) - they do a beautiful thin crust, and their french dressing made in-house is an odd but delicious accoutrement on each slice. Also worthy of honorable mention is Quatro's in Carbondale, Illinois. It is just all-around tasty pizza! I especially crave the caramelized pan crunchiness/chewiness their pizzas generally all have, and which is perfectly complimented by the more acidic sauce.

Had Pizza in the Motherland? I will make my way there, but as of yet, no.

What Do You Do When Not Eating Pizza? A strange amalgam of playing bass in rock situations, fishing/hunting, golfing, watching 'period' films, riding my vespa, and camping. Under obligation to manage luxury condos during the week.

Personal Pizza Statement: Great pizza is what makes you happy at the precise moment you eat it - some pizzerias just seem better at achieving this goal with consistency than others.

Edwardo's Natural Pizza [Meeting #97]

Edwardo's Natural Pizza
1212 N. Dearborn Street (Map)
Chicago, IL
(312) 337-4490‎

CPC invaded Edwardo's Natural Pizza on 6/14/10.

According to the information I've gathered from Marla Collin's Husband's review on Slice, Edward Jacobson founded Edwardo's Natural Pizza in 1978 after he split from the Broglio brothers (then the owners of Giordano's). The first Edwardo's Natural Pizza Restaurant opened on the far northern border of Chicago in Rogers Park and a year later, this time on the south side in Hyde Park, he opened his second location. Edwardo's early on sought to carve out a niche wtih a healthier version of stuffed pizza and they introduced a spinach-soufflé-stuffed pizza. They also had hydroponic basil and oregano grown in each of their pizzerias. In the early 1980's Edwardo's tried out a whole-wheat crust (available on pizza orders for an extra dollar) and were also known to make use of San Marzano tomatoes in their sauce.

By 1984, when Jacobson then entered into a relationship with Chicago real estate investors Ivan and Jeffrey Himmel, there were six locations. Soon thereafter, Edwardo's expanded to Minneapolis and Milwaukee. In the meantime, the Himmels's company took over Edwardo's entirely and expanded its food empire to include Gino's East. Edwardo's has suffered some setbacks in recent years, but today there are still nine locations, seven of which are in the Chicago area, with one on the outskirts of Milwaukee and another in Muncie, Indiana.

The Chicago Pizza Club decided to go to the Gold Coast location in Chicago due to its central location for our members. Tonight we ordered the following pizzas:

• Fresh Spinach stuffed pizza
• Edwardo's All Meat Combo stuffed pizza
• BBQ Beef thin crust special pizza

There's been talk that the quality of Edwardo's has been dropping in recent years and this visit leads me to believe this is true. I'd have to say it is definitely the weakest of the major Stuffed Pizza chains in Chicago. The crust on the deep dishes were generally crisp but also pretty bland. The sauce was overly sweet and the cheese didn't really stand out at all. The meat toppings on the stuffed (sausage, pepperoni, bacon and Canadian bacon) were middling at best, and in the case of the sausage, downright embarrassing. The Spinach stuffed pizza was definitely the highlight of the evening, but that's not saying much. The BBQ Beef special (with sliced Italian beef, Monterrey Jack cheese, red onions, green peppers and BBQ sauce) was ordered on a whim and was entirely missable.

Whether our pizza tonight was a reflection on the state of Edwardo's pizza in general or on the location we chose to go to remains to be seen. But honestly, I don't think we'll be making too much of an effort to find out.

Petey Pizza gives Edwardo's a 3.77.

Pizano's Pizza & Pasta [Meeting #96; Meeting #22 revisited]

Pizano's Pizza & Pasta
864 N. State Street (Map)
Chicago, IL
(312) 751-1766

CPC invaded Pizano's Pizza & Pasta on 5/11/10.

Oh what a difference 4 years makes. In February 2006, with 21 meetings already under its belt, the Chicago Pizza Club hit the interwebs with a review of Pizano's. The shitty pictures and complete absence of any description of the pizza in that post show how far the pizza club has come. Back then, CPC was a group of friends who liked to go out for pizza. Today, we are a sophisticated pizza eating and reporting operation.

Pizano's is the child of Rudy Malnati, Jr., who is the child of Rudy Malnati, Sr. Rudy Malnati Sr. was the early manager at the original Uno's and later became a partner in the business. Working with him at Uno's was his son from his first marriage, Lou, who would eventually go on to open his eponymous pizzeria. Rudy Sr. eventually married another lady and had another son, Rudy Jr., who was substantially younger than his half-brother Lou. It seems that Rudy Jr. and his father's first family are not besties so rather than go into the family business, he simply went into the family industry instead, founding Pizano's in 1991.

I routinely identify Lou Malnati's as my favorite deep dish pizza in Chicago. But I've had a few misfires there, especially at the Lakeview location. I have never had anything but delicious deep dish pizzas from Pizano's and the 96th Meeting of the Chicago Pizza Club kept my streak alive.

The 7 members came hungry so we ordered three pizzas. Up first was a deep dish "Hey Hey" Jack Brickhouse Special, which comes with sausage and mushrooms. Like every deep dish pie at Pizano's this one featured a killer crisp butter crust and a tangy sauce of chunky tomatoes. The sausage outstanding and the mushrooms were there in sufficient quantity to announce their presence even while paired up with the sausage.

The second pizza was a deep dish Mark's Special, which comes with sliced tomatoes, basil, and fresh garlic. Again, this one had a potent and delicious flavor combination on a perfect butter crust. Personally, I would have liked a little more basil, but I know others in the group disagreed and thought the proportions were spot on.

The last pizza was a thin crust with pepperoni. A few years ago Oprah and her special friend Gayle anointed Pizano's maker of the best thin crust in Chicago. Pizza love is certainly subjective, but I fail to see what criterion they were using that could possibly have had them reach that conclusion. That's not to say the thin crust is bad; it's actually pretty good. But while the deep dish pies are cooked in pans that may well have been used on opening night at Uno's nearly 60 years ago, the thin crust pizzas are not cooked in such character-building cookware. The result was a soft crust that was disappointing. Another knock on the thin crust is that the spectacular sauce from the deep dish pies is nowhere to be found, replaced by a thin sauce that doesn't have much of an impact.

Hiccups with the thin crust aside, this was a night of outstanding pizza. We had two medium deep dish pies and one large thin and a few of us would have gladly eaten more. While the CPC has improved immensely since its last visit to Pizano's, I am happy to report that the pizzeria is still putting out some insanely good pies.

Petey Pizza gives Pizano's a 9.17.

[Pizza News] Nella Pizzeria Napoletana sans Nella

Nella Pizzeria Napoletana (review) is still up and running and packed as ever. However, there might be a little bit more room now that they've lost the services of their namesake pizzaiolo.

Per this Chicago Reader article, Nella has been booted (or left, whatever). They are still open for business, but we have no word yet on how good the pizza is without the main talent there to steer it. Also, it appears the second location on Taylor street is a no-go. I have always suspected I didn't like Spacca Napoli as much because I never had her make my pizza. I suppose I will find out if I still like Nella Pizzeria Napoletana as much without her.

Uncle Tykie’s Prairie Fire Grill and Pizzeria (Chicago Preview)

Uncle Tykie’s Prairie Fire Grill & Pizzeria
213 N. Main Street (GoogleMaps)
Athens, IL 62613

Neil from the pizza club has found a vehicle to sell his years –in-the-making pie recipe (note: the only problem being that it is located 191 miles south of Chicago in Athens, IL.) For this CPC meeting we met at Neil’s apartment in Old Town for a facsimile of the pizzas soon to be served in Athens. As the commercial scaling of the pizzas may result in a slightly different preparation method, this review will focus strictly on the preview pies served to the CPC.

The hand-stretched, irregularly shaped crust is transferred from a cornmeal dusted peel and cooked directly on a stone. Much like the recently previewed Pizzeria Serio, these pizzas don’t fit squarely into any one of the traditional styles. The pizzas served were a hybrid of New York, Neapolitan with perhaps even a bit of New Haven style thrown in. The thin crust has a crisp, substantial base with slight bit of chew between the actual crust bottom and the toppings. The edge of the pie had a firm outer rim with a soft, airy inside.

As mentioned, these are not the actual pizzas served at Uncle Tykie’s in Athens so it is worth pointing out the similarities between the two. The dough and sauce recipe are the same, as is the asiago and pecorino romano hard cheese combination. This evening Neil prepared the following five pizzas for the CPC.

• Margherita – garlic, basil, fresh mozzarella, asiago, pecorino romano and tomato sauce
• Baseline Special – sausage, garlic, basil, fresh mozzarella, asiago, pecorino romano and tomato sauce
• Chicken Doesn’t Belong on a Pizza? – roasted chicken, artichoke, garlic, fresh mozzarella, asiago, pecorino romano and tomato sauce
• Pancetta – pancetta, onion, mushroom, fresh mozzarella, asiago, pecorino romano and tomato sauce
• What’s Left – pancetta, onion, mushroom, red pepper, fresh mozzarella, asiago, pecorino romano and tomato sauce

Observations:

Shuffling multiple pizzas out of a small non-pizza oven resulted in some inconsistencies in the finished product. This night the oven held up well for the first three pizzas, while numbers four and five suffered from a lack of crisp on the crust’s bottom, as the stone lost some of its temperature.

The pancetta was by far the stand-out topping of the night with a hearty amount of salty, fatty goodness. This was Neil’s first foray into using chicken as a pizza topping and although the texture was spot-on, the heavy poultry taste and lack of saltiness shows that he still needs some refining in the preparation. As his search for the perfect sausage continues, Bob Evans breakfast sausage was used as a substitute with surprisingly palatable results.

Viewing these pizzas as the proof of concept, they displayed Neil’s passion for pie as well as some serious potential for a future in the pizza business.

[Special Report] Pizzeria Serio

Scott Toth, the chef and a co-owner in the soon-to-be open Pizzeria Serio, emailed CPC a few months back inviting us to come check out his new restaurant. Because these things alway take longer than anticipated, it was only yesterday that he was able to show me around and let me sample some of his food.

Toth is a former technology employee who, like many others, decided he wasn't finding the exact pizza he wanted and started making it at home. After trial and error, he had hit upon a recipe that produced consistently good pizza and then decided to open a restaurant. He grew up in Michigan and New York and he was craving the sort of pizzas he grew up eating. His pizza isn't exactly a Neapolitan pizza; it's the evolution of it that you can find in New York that has a lot of similarities, but focuses on making the crust more sturdy and is more generous with the toppings. The particular pizza he served me was oblong, like a New Haven pizza, but I think that was more accidental than intentional.

His new oven is an EarthStone and he likes to cook his pizzas at high heat for a brief period. Although the oven is gas fueled, he does have wood which he will add to it if some issues with the hood can be sorted out. The space itself is very large with seating for 75 in the downstairs and an extra 50 upstairs. Toth is hoping to be able to provide some craft beers on the 6 taps and create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable having a few drinks after the pizza is eaten.

Pizzeria Serio will have some salads, appetizers, and deserts, but the main focus here is on pizza. There will be two sizes (12 and 16 inch) and his goal is to make a pizza that has a more substantial crust while still maintaining some bubbling. Although his stated goal is to get rid of the "floppy" corner seen in just about every pizza cooked in this style, I'm not sure that's actually possible. Still, this crust was impressive in both texture and flavor. I ate a pizza that was half sopressata/red onion and half pepperoni/mushroom. My pizza was perfectly cooked and as we dug in, I really enjoyed the familiar sopressata from Graziano's and an excellent spicy pepperoni. The mushrooms were fresh and although Scott loves red pepper flakes on his pizza, he served me this one without any additional toppings. We also tried a few slices of his cheese pizza and it was similarly impressive. I should also mention how perfectly my pizza was complimented by my bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola. He plans on serving the pure cane sugar variety of a few sodas, including Fanta.

The plan now is to be open this weekend and await a liquor license. We'll be back to review Pizzeria Serio in a few months, but from this preliminary visit we are impressed with the quality of their product and expect that their neighbors will start flowing in to dine here. If you're looking for a new place to try on Saturday, Serio will satisfy your cravings for a well-made pie.

Annual State of The Pizza Club / Chuck E. Cheese [Meeting #95]

Chuck E. Cheese
1730 W Fullerton [GoogleMaps]
(773) 871-2484

CPC invaded Chuck E. Cheese on 4/17/10.

Another year, another State of The Chicago Pizza Club meeting. This time, in order to revel in our pizza proficiency, we decided to go to Showbiz Pizza (where a kid can be a kid). Shocked and saddened to find that our favorite childhood pizzeria/arcade/bacteria pool was bought out by Chuck E. Cheese, we instead chose this venue for our annual meeting. However, a little research shows that Showbiz Pizza was actually the one that bought Chuck E. Cheese and then decided to brand all their restaurants under the Chuck E. Cheese name. Bizarre.

Of course, there has to be a reason to gather all your close friends at such a place, right? Well, we decided it would be my (2nd) 30th birthday! This got me a crown, with extra tokens stuffed in it, a cool balloon with tokens weighing it down to the table (thanks for stealing those, everyone), 3 pizzas, 20 tokens for everyone that came, and unlimited pop all for $14 apiece. I also got to participate in the birthday show with all the little kids. At first, Chuck E. was a little standoffish with me. I tried to high-five him and he left me hanging. However, after seeing my enthusiasm for the birthday celebrations he warmed up to me and made it a memorable (fake) birthday. He's not so bad (for a rat) after all! Of the on-stage characters, I think Pasqually the singing chef got my vote as favorite because he's the only human on the stage.

I was kind of disappointed in the arcade game selection. There were some serious ticket-winners, such as Shoot The Moon, but they weren't very exciting. There were a few pop-a-shots and football games that were a lot of fun as well as the classic skee ball, but no good video game racers, fighters, or shooters. Perhaps the worst omission is that there was no whack-a-mole game anywhere to be found. I noticed a Bozo Grand Prize Game in the corner, but only after I had burned all my crown tokens attempting to shoot the aforementioned moon for mad tickets. After pooling all of our tokens (and purchasing additional ones thanks to MCH's coupon), we had 2500 tickets. This went towards the purchase of 3 foam rocket launchers and a Nerf football. Awesome.

The pizza...well...you know, it disappointingly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I only had one slice, pepperoni pizza. The best part was that the sauce was mildly spicy; I wasn't expecting any strong flavors for a pizza that is marketed and sold to over-sugared children. The crust was sturdy, though flavorless. We also got a sausage pizza and a cheese pizza.

As for Chicago Pizza Club, although I failed to give a speech I would like to note that we remain the best Chicago pizza blog ever and that our blog continues to have increasing readership. Fiscally, we had a rough year in that our revenue was exactly zero dollars. However, like all Americans living in this difficult time, we tightened our belts and are happy to report we only spent zero dollars this year. Therefore, we are able to continue the club into the 2011 fiscal year.

[Pizza News] Fare Thee Well Orvieto, We Hardly Knew Ye

And so, just like that, we bid adieu to Orvieto.

Due to a terrible location and not at all to the quality of the food served, Orvieto has closed. We recently reviewed it and thought it was a good pizza. Apparently, we don't have the sway we used to have.

The full story is here.

Orvieto Pizzeria And Wine Bar [Meeting #94]

Orvieto Pizzeria and Wine Bar
2200 N. Ashland Ave (GoogleMaps)
Chicago, IL
(773) 395-0066

CPC invaded Orvieto Pizzeria and Wine Bar on 3/30/10.

Continuing a small trend of visits to pizzerias using gas ovens, we headed to the relatively new Orvieto Pizzeria which opened in November of last year. Housed in the same space as Green Dolphin Street, a jazz club, Orvieto Pizzeria and Wine Bar occupies the eastern half of the building. The interior is somewhat confusing; there is a sleek looking kitchen producing great food that clashes with a large number of flat screen HDTVs set out in a bar-like atmosphere. I found myself enjoying this contrasting decor, but then again, I would rather watch sports than talk to my friends. I'm not sure if it's a date spot or a place to come watch the MMA fight.

The chef, Nino Coronas, is from Sardegna (Sardinia), an island off the mainland of Italy. Orvieto represents his first American turn as executive chef. He worked at both Pizzeria D.O.C. (review)and Trattoria D.O.C. prior to their sale. Coronas calls his pizza just regular Italian thin crust pizza and noted that he credits his crisp crust to his cooking technique and use of 00 pizza flour. He has settled on my favorite sandwich shop, Bari Foods, which is also an Italian grocery store with a nice meat section, to provide his sausage. Being that Sardegna is an island, one might expect a multitude of seafood offerings at Orvieto. Seafood is indeed their specialty and Coronas told me that he plans on adding even more options in the summertime and plans on doing a seafood pizza as well.

It's a long trip from Italy to the Chicago. I would have packed socks and underwear, maybe a book; Nino brought his oven with him. The pizzas are cooked at 675 degrees in a Moretti Forni oven in their open kitchen. They have recently opened a North American branch and are headquartered here in Chicago. These ovens are gigantic, but there's no denying that they are attractive pieces of machinery. His 13-inch pizza cooks in here for 6 minutes before it's sliced and brought to the table.

We ordered the following pizza:

• Rustica (sausage, onions, mozzarella, tomato sauce)
  
• Calabrese (sopressata, tomato sauce, mozzarella, gorgonzola, jalapeño)
  
• Al Tartufo (white pizza, truffle oil, mushrooms, mozzarella, speck)
• Patate e Rosemarino (yukon potatoes, rosemary, mozzarella)
• Prosciutto Cotto e Funghi (prosciutto cotto, tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms)
  

The pizza came out quickly and we dove right in. I think it was fortunate that MCH was working with a new camera today because it gave the pizza a few minutes to cool just enough for the crust to firm up. My overall impressions were largely positive. The crust is a little bit chewy, but this is a small flaw in an otherwise great crust. It holds up well, has a touch of salt in it, and had a very good texture. The only drawback was that the tomato sauce on the red pies overwhelmed the crust a bit, particularly the sausage pizza. I think most of us found the Calabrese to be the big winner of the night. The fresh jalapeño accented what was already a good pizza. The Bari sausage was, as expected, an excellent mild sausage. From a prior trip, I can say that I enjoyed the pasta and would certainly come back here just for the pasta and meat dishes. Orvieto has wine and pizza specials depending on the day; Monday is $5 10-inch pizza and Tuesday is half-priced Italian wine bottles. They also have all-you-can-eat pasta on Thursday, but unless you're running a marathon I found the regular portions to be more than adequate. On any given night, Orvieto is a good bet.

And now, I leave you with a few fun facts about Sardinia:

1. There are proportionally more centenarians in Sardegna than anywhere else in the world. Must be the olive oil and ocean air.
2. They speak Sard there. It's an amalgamation of all languages from civilizations that have inhabited the island.
3. There is apparently a small island of miniature albino donkeys just off the coast of Sardinia. I'm not kidding.

[Special Report] Revolution Brewing

Revolution Brewing
2323 N. Milwaukee Ave (GoogleMaps)
Chicago, IL
(773) 227-2739

I recently went to Revolution Brewing with Randy, one of the reviewers at the Chicago Bar Project website. For the uninitiated, Chicago Bar Project does reviews of Chicago bars. I'm not sure if there are more pizzerias or bars in this town, so their project is pretty ambitious and their website is pretty comprehensive. In addition to just writing reviews of neighborhood bars, they also have organized events where you take trolleys to different bars.

Because Revolution Brewing is trying to make high-quality food as well as great beer, we decided to team up to review their pizza and the bar. The review for Revolution Brewing is already posted here on their website. In brief, I have been here a few times now and while I am slightly underwhelmed with their beer thus far, the bar itself is very nice. It's custom built and an excellent use of their space. I'm not too worried about the beer given the pedigree of the brewers; I'm sure they'll make me a hop-overloaded IPA soon enough. My favorite beer, and last beer of the night, was the Eugene porter.

It was nice that our server pointed out to us that all meat products are from Boe's Farm in Ottawa, IL. We noted that the sausage is made at the brewery. Their oven has a large fire and appears, at initial inspection, to be a small wood-burning oven. A closer look reveals that while it has an open mouth, it's a gas oven with flames in the back that radiate the heat to the front of the oven where the food is baked. The pizzas here are cooked at about 500 degrees for 7 minutes before they are served.

On this trip, we tried two pizzas:

• Duck confit with gorgonzola, pistachios, rosemary, red onion, and tomato sauce
• Italian sausage with mozzarella and tomato sauce

The crusts were the same on both and kind of confusing. The edges were great - light, well-cooked, and almost flaky. However, the portion which was topped was not really up to the task of holding up the toppings and became soggy and limp. I thought it was between pizza and focaccia. The sausage was better than I had hoped for; it is among the better sausages to grace a pizza in this sausage loving town. I had a lot of problems with the duck confit pizza. We both felt it was too salty - not to the point where it was inedible (we finished it), but enough that it became a chore to eat. The duck itself was too salty, suggesting the cure was applied for too long or was too salty to being with. In addition, Revolution questionably adds gorgonzola cheese, which only augments the salt from the duck. The pistachios and other toppings, besides the rosemary, were hardly noticeable on this pizza, drowned out by salt.

At this point, I find the sausage pizza a success because the sausage itself is outstanding, but the duck confit needs some work. They have 10 pizzas on the menu plus a special. There are a few here that seem appetizing and I'd be interested to try them. I'm not sure if we'll have an official meeting here, but the overall package at Revolution Brewing is very nice for a beer lover like myself. I went on a Wednesday evening and had to wait 30 minutes to get a seat at a table or the bar. Clearly, I'm not the only one enthusiastic about an excellent brewery opening up in town.