Is there bad pizza in the Chicago area?

Sheesh, I just came back from an 8-day trip and must have had pizza (mainly slices) from 8-10 places (western 'burbs and downtown)...not a bad one in the bunch. Something about pizza...Chicago...sausage...a LOT of places really know how to make a more-than-just-edible pizza. I sure wish SoCal would do the same...there are good places, but it's amazing the number of bad to mediocre ones.

It brings to mind the question...how do places like Pizza Hut, Domino's and Papa John's survive at all in the Chicago area?

Many years ago I went to a UM vs. OSU football party. Most of the people were from either Michigan or Ohio. At halftime, in comes the Domino's man with 10 pizzas. Those from Michigan and Ohio dove in. Those from Chicago just drank a lot more. To the Michiganders and Ohioans, THIS was pizza. They grew up on this stuff and they enjoyed it. Sadly, even after all these years, some of these same people still order Dominos.

RSMBob wrote:It brings to mind the question...how do places like Pizza Hut, Domino's and Papa John's survive at all in the Chicago area?

Cheap, fast and known quantity. The bigger question is how do the mom-n-pop shops survive. Mugavero's in northern Des Plaines, claims to be famous for their ribs, but I've never had them. Their thin-crust 'za, though, is to die for. Perfect sauce, great sausage, crisp crust.

I feel exactly the same way about New York -- not a bad pie to be found. Chicago? I've had lots of mediocre to terrible pizza here. I suppose it depends on your tastes, but, for me, I have to dig to find a slice I like.

thick wrote:Many years ago I went to a UM vs. OSU football party. Most of the people were from either Michigan or Ohio. At halftime, in comes the Domino's man with 10 pizzas. Those from Michigan and Ohio dove in. Those from Chicago just drank a lot more. To the Michiganders and Ohioans, THIS was pizza. They grew up on this stuff and they enjoyed it. Sadly, even after all these years, some of these same people still order Dominos.

Well, for Michiganders, Dominos is the hometown pizza, as is Little Caesars. Both chains started in Detroit. I never cared much for Dominos, but I still miss Little Caesars pizza and crazy bread occasionally. It's probably tied in with fond memories of Little Caesars pizza at Red Wings games.

merkay wrote:Well, for Michiganders, Dominos is the hometown pizza, as is Little Caesars. Both chains started in Detroit. I never cared much for Dominos, but I still miss Little Caesars pizza and crazy bread occasionally. It's probably tied in with fond memories of Little Caesars pizza at Red Wings games.

Can't speak for Domino's, but I first ate Little Caesar's in Saginaw in 1978, and it was a FAR CRY from the miserable slop served up in the current LC chain outlets. This was a traditional, hand-made thin-crust pizza of a Midwest style, probably a bit of shortening in the crust, nothing remarkable but well put-together and real pizza, not a prefab disk of dough and goo (although somehow I think they did have the 2 for 1 thing going on; can't recall, as I wasn't buying at age 12). So, I can understand the sense of loss, but not any sense of nostalgia that may be induced by the current LC's product, which is just awful and bears no resemblance to the original, or at least what was on offer 27 years ago in Saginaw.

The most unbelievably terrible pizza I have ever eaten, worse than any frozen pizza, worse even than airline pizza, was from:

Chubby's Pizza
1429 W 18th St
Chicago, IL 60608
(312) 829-5900

It is difficult for me to describe how unbelievably godawful this pizza was. From the half-melted flavorless mealy cheese; to the not-even-hormel-quality pepperoni; to the crust that Totino's would be ashamed to put out; this is the worst pizza I believe anyone will ever eat.

JoelF wrote:Mugavero's in northern Des Plaines, claims to be famous for their ribs, but I've never had them. Their thin-crust 'za, though, is to die for. Perfect sauce, great sausage, crisp crust.

thanks for the tip on this one! I've never even heard of it.

Can't speak for Domino's, but I first ate Little Caesar's in Saginaw in 1978, and it was a FAR CRY from the miserable slop served up in the current LC chain outlets.

I always remember what Bob Garfield, columnist for Advertising Age, wrote when Little Caesar's fired their longtime ad agency, Cliff Freeman & Partners, who had been responsible for many clever and amusing ads. "Little Caesar's says, like every restaurant client, that they want to put the emphasis back on the food. This means that they don't understand the great service Cliff Freeman did them by distracting people from Little Caesar's food for 30 years."

gleam wrote:The most unbelievably terrible pizza I have ever eaten, worse than any frozen pizza, worse even than airline pizza, was from:

Chubby's Pizza
1429 W 18th St
Chicago, IL 60608
(312) 829-5900

It is difficult for me to describe how unbelievably godawful this pizza was. From the half-melted flavorless mealy cheese; to the not-even-hormel-quality pepperoni; to the crust that Totino's would be ashamed to put out; this is the worst pizza I believe anyone will ever eat.

In the spirit of the World Series of Poker, which was held this past week here in Las Vegas...

OK, Gleam.

I see your Pukey Pilsen Pizza, and raise you...

Sonny's Pizza
2431 N Western
(773) 772-1092 (phone number included only in the spirit of thoroughness....not to call ahead for a pie, for Christ's sake)

Boldly advertising "Delicious Pizza by the Slice", Sonny's was patronized by me well before the minor culinary revitalization of the area around Fullerton and Western (well, at least before Honey1's appearance on the scene.) That pizza was so bad, so utterly devoid of any qualities one could even remotely ascribe to a foodstuff bearing its name, that I actually became enraged and needed a whiskey to calm down. This was right before my band was to play at Quencher's, so a whiskey was on the agenda anyway, but still... A crust resembling play-doh, ice crystals in the sauce and cheese (some processed American blend, by the way) and a watery tomato paste redolent of sugar and black pepper. The fact that someone was charging money for this abomination - actually preparing it and selling it - just flipped a switch deep inside me, forcing me to yell at the guy at the counter. As befit the whole ordeal, he let me finish telling him how crappy his food was, gave a shrug, and walked to the back, presumably to complete whatever Faustian transaction he had going on when I came in.

To answer the OP's question: Yea, verily, there is bad pizza in the Chicago area. Very bad. So bad that a Pizza Hut or Papa John's pizza placed next to it would be, by comparison, a D.O.C. Pizza Margherita from Da Michele in Naples. I've had some great pizza in Chicago (most recently at Spacca Napoli last week) some good pizza (Piece on a good day, various Italian bakeries -- D'Amato's, Masi, Sicilia, etc.., and Cafe Luigi, to name a few) a lot of mediocre pizza, and a few instances, such as the one above, in which my only possible response was unadulterated rage, leaving me no choice but to loudly castigate the pizza maker (I hesitate to use "pizzaiolo") and staff (if they, perchance, asked how I liked the pizza) for their crimes against good taste, for their insult to the good people of Naples. I would usually accompany the verbal outpouring with a dramatic gesture: in plain sight of the customers and employees, carefully (as though I were handling something unholy or evil) and calculatedly, the "pizza", whether a slice or whole pie, would be deposited in the garbage with one economical maneuver, a punctuation mark to signify the utter worthlessness of the establishment's efforts.

Lest any of you think me a bit prickish for acting thusly (whatever could give you that idea??), let me qualify: I would only let 'em have it in this manner if I were asked how I enjoyed the pizza. The most extreme example of this scenario (which I think I've written about before) occured at Robey's Pizza on Roscoe. I received my order (small pie with onions) took one bite, and, quickly realizing I had the culinary equivalent of Brundlefly in my mouth (ie, an unnatural, freakish creation deserving of a mercy killing) I began to gather my things and was all set to make a clean getaway (presumably to the nearest Maxwell St. Express or perhaps the couple of blocks to Scooter's on Belmont) and put this ugly experience behind me. The girl at the counter, though, just couldn't let sleeping Rabbis lie.

Girl: Did you want to wrap that up to take home?
Me: No thanks.
Girl: Umm... did you want something else?
Me: No thanks, I'm just going to leave. Bye, now.
Girl: I don't understand... you're not hungry? Are you waiting for someone?
Me: No... (????) Thanks, goodbye.
Girl: Well, tell me!! Was anything wrong??
Me: (sigh) Sweetheart, I could shit a better pizza than that.

I left immediately but not hurriedly after I said this, much in the same manner as Michael Corleone, who walks rather than runs out of the restaurant after shooting Sollozzo and Capt. McCluskey. This was the precise moment before there was any opportunity for the girl at the counter to respond, my (admittedly vulgar, but necessarily so) comment hanging, suspended in mid-air amidst a room full of mouths left agape (a response to my boldness, no doubt, tempered, perhaps, with a bit of admiration) and children on the brink of suppressed laughter, hands over mouths, no doubt due to my daring use of the "s" word in finishing the discourse between the counter girl and myself. Had this been a scene in a film, the pleasant background music would have come to an abrupt halt, accompanied by the classic "needle scratch across the surface of the record" effect.

Who was that masked asshole food snob??

Pizza is the kind of food that, even with inferior ingredients or less than ideal baking conditions, can be transformed into at least something passable or acceptable to eat. A modicum of care and/or creativity on behalf of the pizza chef is required. Which is why, when I order pizza and receive a truly awful product, I become angry. Such food indicates a total contempt for the customer and a lack of any soul or passion or connection to a craft by the restaurant or cook. I feel cheated, taken advantage of, and even dehumanized to a certain extent. Such establishments should be ashamed to even call their product pizza. Just as Cheez Wiz and Krispy Kreme and grape "drink" (as opposed to juice) distance themselves in name from the real thing, so too should places like Sonny's, Robey's and Chubby's be forced to label their food as "Peetsa" or "pizza-like byproduct" or use similar nomenclature in the interest of truth in advertising. For every Marie's, Vito and Nick's, Pat's, Old Chicago, Candlelite, or other establishment serving Chicago style pizza made with care and skill (even I, hardly a fan of Chicago thin crust, can easily tell the difference between the superior and inferior examples within this style) there are, unfortunately, many more establishments seemingly content to cut corners in every aspect of their pizza making, serving one interest only: the bottom line. It is a fundamental lack of pride in craftsmanship, a disconnect between production and consumer, which pervades the American service and manufacturing industries in general. Just as oil companies charge $3.00 and up for a gallon of gasoline (because they can get away with it), just as one cannot find a gallon of bleach (3 quarts, thank you very much) or a pound of coffee (13 ounces, sorry, buster...) anymore, so too will Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza Slut and their ilk use the crappiest flour, tomatoes, cheese and toppings they can find to still be able to legally call their product "pizza" and foist these gastronomical abortions upon unwitting and convenience-obsessed consumers everywhere. For the same reasons, perhaps, many independent pizza shops in Chicago (and elsewhere, of course, but we are talking about bad Chicago pizza here) feel they can compete with the big boys by going the cheap, careless route, and it shows -- every time someone buys a slice of glass-case, heat lamp "pizza" which, more often than not in my experience, is akin to sweet tomato paste on a doughy matzoh slathered in some sort of partially hydrogenated "cheeze food product." RSMbob, no offense, but if you say you had 8 or 10 examples of what you thought was good pizza from random places in the western suburbs or downtown, you must either have the luck of the collective Irish populace or a very low personal standard of what constitutes good pizza. When I lived in Logan Square, I must have ordered pizza from at least 15 pizzerias in my general part of the city before I found one I would order from again. And even then, this pizza was merely adequate (ie, a basic standard of fresh dough, real cheese, and a balanced tomato sauce). There are the few pizzerias who do Chicago thin crust well and then, frankly, there's the rest - mediocre at best and pretty bad most of the time. It only takes a trip to Spacca Napoli, Piece (when they feel like trying) or one of the neighborhood Italian bakeries to throw into sharp relief the yawning chasm that exists between good and bad pizza in Chicago.

Again, Bobby baby, you asked, so I feel like I should tell you. There is a lot of bad pizza in Chicago. There is some great pizza in Chicago. I will not eat a Domino's or Little Caesar or Pizza Slut or Papa John's pizza - their lone strategem, the reason for their success, lies in the brand name. That is, Papa John's pepperoni pizza in Rogers Park will be more or less identical to the pepperoni pizza from a Papa John's in Fresno, Sarasota, or Guadalajara. It's the safe choice, the consistent standard of mediocrity one may rely on far from home or around the corner, eliminating the anxiety and consumer doubt of trying something new or different. The sad part is that pizzerias in Chicago should be able to exploit this inherent blandness and mass-marketed pizza by using better ingredients, offering better service, and generally serving their neighborhoods and customers with more care, more soul, and better food. Instead, most have chosen to go the opposite way: use the cheapest shit they can find and charge the most they can get away with. If I'm faced with the decision between a random, neighborhood pizza joint in Chicago or a Pizza Hut, I am most sad to say I would invariably pick Pizza Hut. I've been burned far too many times, wasted too much money, and gotten angry for no reason thanks to inferior, crappy pizza in Chicago. At least with the big chains, the mild disappointment is a given and no further committment is required. In the cases of Naty's, Bacci, Tore's, Pisa, Big Tony's, Got Pizza, and dozens more local pizzerias, I expected better and got worse. I came away frustrated and hungry and looking for a torta milanesa.

"I know it was you, Chicago Pizza. You broke my heart."

Reb

Worst Pizza ive had in past 2 years is the Dominicks Friday $5/large 1 topping pizza. My boss at work decided he was going to buy pizza for the group and off coarse he bought the cheapest garbage around. The pizza sauce is tasteless and bland and they really skimp on the topping (ie 1-2 pieces of sausage per slice).

Whenever you go into a Dominick's on a Friday do not be tempted by the $4.99 pizza deal.. Total unedable garbage...

hungryrabbi wrote:The best post ever.

Yeah, Rab, but--

Piece?

Fortunately, as of this year, you actually can do better (and do) in citing local examples to make your case than What If They Gave A Pizza And No Seasonings Came?

Even though I am no fan of average Chicago pizza (and will not eat slice pizza out of the dehydrator, ever, any more), I see where RSMBob's coming from relative to the rest of middle America-- even when it has cardboard crust and naugahyde cheese, a Chicago pizza will have a certain robustness, a spicy kick, in the sauce and meats that you don't find in the rest of America where, like so many other foods, pizza has become absurdly sweetened. It's much like the Chicago hot dog in that respect-- even a lousy one at least starts with certain natural advantages next to the extra-mild bologna-dogs people eat elsewhere.

Re: the Sonny experience

Possibly due to many of us having similar experiences (having an empty stomach upon arrival at Quenchers, and Sonny's being next door, and the ensuing dissappointment) Quenchers has started serving food at night sometime within the past year.

This includes their own pizza menu, which lists a chicago italian beef pizza that has giardinera on it and is pretty darn good for bar food (especially given that its in a bar where you could previously choose to fill up on free but very salty popcorn or risk Sonny's).

The beer selection is also quite good (which was our reason for visiting twice in two days while we had out of town guests and the Map Room was redoing their tap system).

Quenchers
Fullerton and Western
http://www.quenchers.com/ (with some outdated info)

Given the recent love for the Hop Leaf on LTH, folks might be interested in expanding their beer tasting to this other worthy destination which I believe is the first of the better beer bars in Chicago (and of course has the added advantage that the Map Room is a nice, between-beer walk away at Armitage and Hoyne).

The only bad pizza I've ever really encountered in Chicago is from places that tend to litter entire neighborhoods with menus and special offers. If a place has to go to such lengths to generate business, my only conclusion is that the end product is not enough to do so. This is a broad generalization but I can't recall seeing flyers and menus from any of my favorite pizza joints.

Mike G wrote:Yeah, Rab, but--

Piece?

Fortunately, as of this year, you actually can do better (and do) in citing local examples to make your case than What If They Gave A Pizza And No Seasonings Came?

Even though I am no fan of average Chicago pizza (and will not eat slice pizza out of the dehydrator, ever, any more), I see where RSMBob's coming from relative to the rest of middle America-- even when it has cardboard crust and naugahyde cheese, a Chicago pizza will have a certain robustness, a spicy kick, in the sauce and meats that you don't find in the rest of America where, like so many other foods, pizza has become absurdly sweetened. It's much like the Chicago hot dog in that respect-- even a lousy one at least starts with certain natural advantages next to the extra-mild bologna-dogs people eat elsewhere.

Mike,

Yes, Piece. Indeed. Pizza should have flavor, robust flavor, at that, agreed. Spicy? Seasoned? Not to my palate. You've tried Spacca Napoli, right? I taste a balanced, harmonious mixture of charred bread crust, sweet/fruity San Marzanos, nutty olive oil, tangy, creamy cheese, and, err.. basil-y basil. If I want to jack it up, there's black and/or hot pepper. To me, when they're on their game (which is more often than not) Piece gets the tastes and textures pretty damn close to a superior east coast pie - the pliant bread crust, good quality tomatoes, low moisture (ie, non-fior di latte or bufala) but good quality "moots" and a nice balance of all the elements thereof. On paper, I should hate Piece - the fratboy brewpub element, the cell-phone to customer ratio, the prices at the bar, the fact that they took broccoli rabe off the topping menu because people were getting confused, etc... but the fact remains, it's a tasty, well done (if not entirely authentic) pizza. I like it.

As far as the Chicago pizza relative to the rest of middle America argument.... well, that might have held water 10 years ago, but today, there's really no excuse for not having the ingredients or know-how or equipment to make a proper pizza. What with the Food Network, the bread and pizza cookbooks, the slow but definite shift towards better bread in general, if people want to make a better pizza, they most certainly can, be they on Taylor Street or in Olathe, KS. That being said, I haven't had too much experience eating pizza in the greater midwest (although the pizza place in Northfield Minnesota, run by a Greek, was pretty good - a bread crust topped with a green peppery tomato sauce, gyro meat, and onion... mmmm.. square cut, too... weird.) and I only know that Pizza Hut was founded in Wichita. If that's your standard for what pizza should be... well, then... shit, I don't even know.

Pizza should be robust in flavor, but as a result of the basic ingredients having inherently flavorful qualities. Overly spicy pizza to me signals that the cook is trying to hide something. As far as Chicago hot dogs - yes, they are made with the extra snappy spicy taste that trumps Farmer John or Ball Park or what have you. Again, though, I believe that even the smallest burg will have one supermarket with access to Kosher dogs. And, really, Vienna makes a decent product, but a grilled Heeb Nat or Shofar frank with deli mustard.... that's the platonic ideal of frankfurter, I would think.

Reb

hungryrabbi wrote:a grilled Heeb Nat or Shofar frank with deli mustard.... that's the platonic ideal of frankfurter, I would think.

Reb

You would be incorrect.

stevez wrote:

hungryrabbi wrote:a grilled Heeb Nat or Shofar frank with deli mustard.... that's the platonic ideal of frankfurter, I would think.

Reb

You would be incorrect.

You're right, Steve... The ideal Frankfurter would have to be in Frankfurt, nu?

Rab,

Yeah, there's the pizza people should be making all over America now...

...and then there's the Papa Murphy's pizza that was urged on me last Christmas in Wichita as the best pizza in town. Which was sort of like French Toast with cheese and ketchup on it.

Spacca Napoli you don't gotta sell me on, but Piece, I've tried liking it several times but bland is the only word that comes to mind. As Bill SFNM said, bread should be flour, yeast, water and salt, and I swear they only use the first three.

Geez -- how could I forget the worst pizza in Chicago?
Uno's franchised crap such as you get at the airports.

The franchise Uno's Grill stuff is merely bad -- a dim mirror held up to the original: no taste to the tomatoes but canned-ness, sausage lacking the disc and lacking in spices...

But the airport version of Uno's? Generic bread-dough crust, minimal cheese, Italian sausage as designed by someone in... oh I can't come up with a place that has less tasty sausages.

Avoid avoid avoid.

It's amazing they're allowed to sell that swill in Chicago airports.

hungryrabbi wrote:

stevez wrote:

hungryrabbi wrote:a grilled Heeb Nat or Shofar frank with deli mustard.... that's the platonic ideal of frankfurter, I would think.

Reb

You would be incorrect.

You're right, Steve... The ideal Frankfurter would have to be in Frankfurt, nu?

Yes, perhaps there...or maybe they are the 4/lb. natural casing Vienna's I just picked up at E & M. As has been outlined here in the past, Vienna makes several grades/sizes of their hot dogs. Some are natural casing and some are not. Some are spicier than others, etc. I started buying these particular dogs at the beginning of the summer and they have changed my whole outlook on the type of hot dog I want for my own personal grilling, which is an entirely separate subset of dogdom from the ones I prefer in my hot dog stand dogs.

Now back to pizza ramblings (can you believe the extent of my self control not to have jumped into that morass?)

stevez wrote:///Maybe [the ideal hot dogs] are the 4/lb. natural casing Vienna's I just picked up at E & M.

What/where is E&M? I ask because I've been somewhat stymied in my search for the perfect hot dogs for home, and would love to know a good purveyor. (Hoping the answer won't make me bonk my head with an "of course that's what E&M is--how come I didn't realize?" Which it might.)

hungryrabbi wrote:That being said, I haven't had too much experience eating pizza in the greater midwest (although the pizza place in Northfield Minnesota, run by a Greek, was pretty good - a bread crust topped with a green peppery tomato sauce, gyro meat, and onion... mmmm.. square cut, too... weird.) and I only know that Pizza Hut was founded in Wichita. If that's your standard for what pizza should be... well, then... shit, I don't even know.

Would that be Basil's or his evil twin? Ah, one of my fonder memories of Northfield.....

riddlemay wrote:

stevez wrote:///Maybe [the ideal hot dogs] are the 4/lb. natural casing Vienna's I just picked up at E & M.

What/where is E&M? I ask because I've been somewhat stymied in my search for the perfect hot dogs for home, and would love to know a good purveyor. (Hoping the answer won't make me bonk my head with an "of course that's what E&M is--how come I didn't realize?" Which it might.)

E & M (or Elegance in Meats) is a nice little butcher shop in Northbrook (formerly on Dempster in Skokie). They've got a broad selection of meat (Choice, generally) and a pretty good selection of house-made prepared foods as well. It's my go to place for skirt steak (as well as the aforementioned hot dogs). The rest of their stuff looks pretty good, too, although their prices tend to be a bit high. I guess you get what you pay for. I generally go elsewhere for most of my meat, but for the two items I mentioned, it's E & M for me.

Another good choice for decent hot dogs is Romanian Kosher Sausage on Clark.

Elegance in Meats (E & M)
3135 Dundee Road
Northbrook, IL
847-480-6328

Romanian Kosher Sausage
7200 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL
773-761-4141

Thanks, Steve.

stevez wrote:
Another good choice for decent hot dogs is Romanian Kosher Sausage on Clark.

Wow, is that place still in business. It's been a long time since I've been there, but it used to be a lot better than decent.

Mike G wrote:Rab,

Yeah, there's the pizza people should be making all over America now...

...and then there's the Papa Murphy's pizza that was urged on me last Christmas in Wichita as the best pizza in town. Which was sort of like French Toast with cheese and ketchup on it.

Spacca Napoli you don't gotta sell me on, but Piece, I've tried liking it several times but bland is the only word that comes to mind. As Bill SFNM said, bread should be flour, yeast, water and salt, and I swear they only use the first three.

Mike, it looks like Wichita, based on a quick web search, has several places attempting to do serious pizza - a couple of trendoid pizza bistros and one older school, family place which advertised both New York and Chicago styles. The pictures on the websites for these establishments feature pizza which looks halfway decent, in fact - puffy, bready crust with a nice array of interesting, "gourmet" toppings (of course, in typical Midwestern fashion, the New York slice at the family joint is loaded to the hilt with meat, extra cheese, and vegetables, but still...).

So as far as Papa Murphy's, I would have to say: Consider the source. Were the people who were praising Papa Murphy's (the name should have been your first tip-off that something was rotten in the County of Sedgwick) to be trusted as far as knowledgable, tasteful food recommendations, or are they gastronomic Yahoos who don't care what crap they plunge down their provincial gullets, as long as there's a lot of it and they can pay with a coupon from the Penny Saver? Point being, it looks like the tide has already begun to turn in Wichita, and options for pizza beyond mass market pablum and closer to La Cosa Vera are coming into play. I don't know if I'd like to associate with the Yuppie scum towards whom these establishments are being geared, but if it means a decent pizza, I can wait 'til the parking lot to take out my aggressions. Just as a strip mall in Henderson was the last goddamn place on Earth I'd expect to find a pizza straight out of Campania (yet, there it was -- perfectly delicious, too), maybe Wichita is leading the charge in making the term "Good Midwest Pizza" an oxymoron no more.

As far as Piece's pizza being bland - I suppose it's a bit on the plain side, but I like to taste the base ingredients - crust, tomato, olive oil, mootz - before I get a hit of any one spice or topping. And with a bread crust, it's a whole hell of a lot easier to add a little salt or pepper than it is to take the Crisco, margarine, or vegetable oil out of a Chicago crust once it's at your table.

Reb

stevez wrote:

hungryrabbi wrote:

stevez wrote:

hungryrabbi wrote:a grilled Heeb Nat or Shofar frank with deli mustard.... that's the platonic ideal of frankfurter, I would think.

Reb

You would be incorrect.

You're right, Steve... The ideal Frankfurter would have to be in Frankfurt, nu?

Yes, perhaps there...or maybe they are the 4/lb. natural casing Vienna's I just picked up at E & M. As has been outlined here in the past, Vienna makes several grades/sizes of their hot dogs. Some are natural casing and some are not. Some are spicier than others, etc. I started buying these particular dogs at the beginning of the summer and they have changed my whole outlook on the type of hot dog I want for my own personal grilling, which is an entirely separate subset of dogdom from the ones I prefer in my hot dog stand dogs.

Now back to pizza ramblings (can you believe the extent of my self control not to have jumped into that morass?)

Steve,

Well, much like all pizza roads lead to Bella Napoli, I was merely trying to make the point that if we are to conflate authentic with good, we should follow our noses to the namesake city of everyone's all "American" sausage. That being said, do the 1/4 lb Viennas you're talking about differ greatly from the regular 1/8 lb Vienna beef franks? I mean, I thought they were a decent frank, but nothing to bark about, honestly. In fact, when I first started learning about the full spread of condiments on a Chicago dog (the "garden" that said frank is "run through") I even assumed that Vienna Franks were some sort of local joke - a really awful hot dog that had to be jazzed up beyond recognition with all sorts of wacky toppings. In fact, I still have that question - when Chicagoans boast about the number and size of pizza toppings or hot dog condiments, my first thought is always, "what are you trying to hide?" Well, with pizza, it's obvious - birthday cake masquerading as pizza. But the hot dog thing comes more out of a specific tradition rather than an inferior meat. Go figure. As far as Kosher dogs, I always assumed (there I go again, making an ASS out of ME... hardy har har) that it was a given, the superior quality and ballsier, more Ashkenazic tastes (garlic, spices, a "beefier" hit, if you will) of Kosher franks. This isn't meant to further ingnite your defensive Chicago Jingoism, either, Steve (Chicajingoism??) as both Best and Shofar are made in the Windy City and are delicious franks. To me, the ideal frank is a kosher brand (Isaac Gellis, Heeb Nat, Shofar, Best, etc... ) slow grilled for a few hours til nicely colored all around and ready to pop like a cannon when bitten into, with some steamed kraut and spicy mustard on a soft white bakery roll. Pretty much what one encounters upon walking into any East Coast Jewish Deli, along with an assortment of Knishes on the grill and sometimes onions in sauce. I prefer the 1/8 lb size too - 1/4 lb Viennas might have the right combo of spice and casing you prefer, but that's a bit too close to Knockwurst size for me. The slimmer frank, when matched with the kraut and mustard, allows the eater to get, in one bite, the contrasts between the soft bread, tangy, only slightly crunchy kraut, the zing of the mustard and the beefiness of the Kosher dog. The tomato/pickle/relish/celery salt etc... spread is kinda cute and a wacky gimmick, I guess, but it's really overkill and puts too much between me and my sausage. Call me a purist, I guess, but when it comes to hot dogs and pizza, for me, less is more (I never like more than one topping on a pizza, and sometimes I eat hot dogs au naturel or with just mustard. Mustard and kraut is as far as I'll go.) But I guess futzing around with hot dog tradition allowed a place like Hot Doug's to come around and do very well. Something to be said for both sides, I guess...

Reb

hungryrabbi wrote: do the 1/4 lb Viennas you're talking about differ greatly from the regular 1/8 lb Vienna beef franks?

Not wanting to prolong the hot dog thread hijacking, I'll just briefly say yes. The Vienna dogs I am talking about have that garlicky, snappy taste one would associate with a kosher dog. That's why I like 'em. And the dogs at Romanian Kosher Sausage are...well...kosher. Both seem more handcrafted than any dog that comes pre-packaged at the deli/supermarket.

the full spread of condiments on a Chicago dog... The tomato/pickle/relish/celery salt etc... spread is kinda cute and a wacky gimmick

A Gene & Jude's dog with 3/4 of the total available toppings.

Don't believe everything you read.

And of course, when you do get whole pickled tomatoes, etc., such as at Superdawg, much of that stuff is meant to be eaten off the hot dog, not on it. Like the fries above.