How things can change, over the years.
Today was, well... not the best of days, and some good, hot italian food just sounded like one of the things to make any and all of us feel better. I mean, let's face it- there's something about a belly full of warm food that gets you to relax and pass out on the couch when nothing else possibly could, yeah? On the other hand, though, what we got left a bit to be desired...
We put in a pretty sizable order- enough to keep us in food for hopefully at least a day- a large pepperoni, an artichoke and chicken stromboli, some bruschetta, ziti and a Chicago-style pizza that just hit all the right notes in my mind. I was really looking forward to this one, oh yes. I consider a Chicago-style pizza to be right up there with the rack of barbecue ribs and the cheeseburger as foods I never try to pass up.
So we put in the order, and it'll be about an hour for delivery- that's understandable, because it's about rush hour, and they're getting hit with the afterschool and afterwork crowd, and it's a good hunk of food. I figure most of the waiting is going to be the Chicago-style pizza, because those things take forever to cook, anyways.
Finally, the food gets here, and... well, we get a harbinger of how things are going to go- the bruschetta that was ordered wasn't included in the delivery, so the driver had to run all the way back to Paw Paw and bring it. Things seem okay, but then I come out, expecting to see a nice, tasty deep-dish pizza that might not be as good as something from Pizzeria Uno or Lou Malnati's or Giordano's, but it's hot and local and it must be mine!
I pop open the box and... huh.
That's... that's not a Chicago-style pizza of any variation- it's certainly not a deep dish, and it's definitely not a tavern-style. It honestly just looks like... a regular pizza, with a thick crust, that looks like it's just been baked to absolute blazes with an extra-done crust that's by now already solidified into a solid block of dry, burnt dough- the cheese and sausage are the same way. It was incredibly hard to bite through, and about the only really edible part was the inner two thirds of the crust that had the sauce on it. I gave up after about the equivalent of one and a half slices- it's too much work for not really enough food, and after struggling with it, I just throw in the towel.
This pizza just is not edible unless your name is Jaws and you work for a Bond villain or you're willing to gnaw on it until you can bite through it and crunch it up.
On the other hand, though, the ziti and the stromboli are both big hits with the rest of the family, and the pepperoni pizza is pepperoni pizza- it's good and tasty and fine just the way it is, and the bruschetta goes over very well even after they had to run all the way back to Paw Paw for it.
When weighing everything together- the inedible pizza, the forgotten bruschetta, and on the opposite side the actually good food that they did bring... I say it averages out to a three, right in the middle. Maybe it's just a bad night, maybe this is just that dish the kitchen can't manage to do very well. I just miss the old Amore's where the food was awesome and that's all that was needed.
We'll give it another try in a while, but it's looking like your best bet for pizza in Paw Paw is going to be Pizza Hut for a good while. read more