new york pizza, shmew york pizza 10/10/09

i've temporarily retired burritos from their position as my favorite thing and replaced them with pizza. (i'll figure out my obsessive behaviors with food later.)

i recently went on a trip to chicago, followed immediately by a trip to new york. because new york is famous for its pizza and chicago is famous for crooked politicians and organized crime pizza also, i had to compare the two back to back.

new york pizza is so famous that people who've never been there talk about how good it is. whilst in new york, i tried several pizza places. i went to the favorite places of everyone i asked (and everyone really does have their own favorite) and some that were just convenient. i blotted the grease on some slices, i left it on others. i tried it plain with cheese, i tried it with toppings. i folded it in half and held it in my hand, i ate it with a knife and fork. i tried everyone's suggestions and came to this conclusion about new york pizza: big fucking deal.

chicago-style, on the other hand, is the ashlee simpson of pizza. it might have come along later than its big sibling, but it's a marked improvement of its predecessor. where new york pizza gives you first-degree grease burns and goes limp in your hand, windy city pizza takes its place firmly and confidently on a plate. its buttery crust is a marvel all its own and the pizza actually tastes better the second day than the first.

there's also no mythology about chicago pizza. nobody goes around talking about chicago's tap water as some sort of magic potion that makes it phenomenal. it's just phenomenal all by itself with regular old crappy cook county water. so i had chicago-style pizza today, made with crappy california water.

this picture doesn't really convey that the slice weighed two pounds, so you'll just have to believe it. the crust was loaded with cheese and garlic before being topped with a chunky tomato sauce.

if i were one of those who used words like "zesty" to describe tomato sauce, this is where i'd use it. the garlic was fresh and this is starting to sound like a yelp review.

anyway, the only bad thing about this meal was the crappy dressing that was on this salad. the dressing gets an F-, but i ate the salad anyway because one needs fiber when eating two pounds of cheese.

i'd like to recap what i've eaten in the past few days: french fries, burgers, ice cream, pizza, pizza.

maybe i'll get my act together for dinner tonight and eat steamed asparagus with some lipitor, but i can't make any promises. unlike chicago politicians, i don't promise to change much of anything.