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| - Our server: "Remember what your momma said... Shake n' Bake, and Lou Malnati's is The Devil."
I've actually had the Big Three while I've been in Chicago: Gino's East, Lou Malnati's, and Giordano's and out of the three Gino's is my favorite. The reason? The cornmeal crust. I love that additional hit of texture and toasty corn flavor. The heartiness of the crust holds up the best with the hefty amount of toppings that are on a Chicago deep dish pizza.
So, we tried to eat here on a weekend but:
1. There was a 1 hour wait for a table for two
2. The parking lot was full and we were a little irked about having to use a valet even though it was free (Call me weird but I don't like having strangers drive my car even if it's just to park it)
So, we decided to eat somewhere else and come back later.
Fast forward to a month or so later, we decide to eat here on a random Tuesday night in August but as a party of 5. The more pizza the merrier!
No wait, plenty of tables available. Also plenty of parking and no need for a valet. Whew!
The other benefit about dining here on Tuesday is that all desserts are half price! So, we made a conscious effort to save room for dessert despite ordering a ton of food for dinner. Since the deep dish pizzas will take 30-40 minutes to make, we started with a few appetizers (Artichoke dip, spinach mozzarella sticks) and shared the buffalo chicken mac and cheese. I wasn't a big fan of the artichoke dip but I enjoyed the crispy crunchy breading of the soft mozzarella cheese and spinach sticks. The buffalo chicken was equally enjoyable, with crispy crunchy breading, tender juicy chicken, and 2 different types of pasta with creamy cheesy sauce.
We split the Chicago fire, meaty legend, and spinach Margarita, all small size. With all the appetizers we probably could have been good with just 2 deep dish pizzas but I did enjoy having all the variety. My favorite of the three was the Chicago Fire. My slice had an entire shelf of sausage layered on top of the pizza, and I enjoyed the sauce, cheese, red onions and super spicy peppers (I think they possibly used Hatch chiles?). The meaty legend had a generous amount of meat on it but all the flavors ended up being a bit too salty for me. The spinach Margarita had very nice fresh ingredients but I think the delicate flavors were at odds with the hearty nature of Chicago deep dish pizza itself.
For dessert, we had the beignets ($2 on Tuesday!) and tiramisu ($3 on Tuesday!). Out of the two I enjoyed the tiramisu more for the beignet I had was a little gooey/very slightly undercooked on the inside and had a hard crust on the outside. There was a bit too much cinnamon sugar on it for me and it actually tasted more like a round churro than a beignet. The tiramisu was a wedge shaped piece, creamy, lightly sweet and dense.
Our server was awesome and he was funny, cool, and did a great job checking up on us and refilling drinks.
Our total with all that food ended up being around $25 per person including tax and tip for a party of 5.
I'd definitely come here again for that deep dish when there's no wait for a table.
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