[kasey_junk]

Someone really needs to do a numerical study and food history on deep dish. There is a giordanos (one of the big local deep dish chains) around the corner from my house and I would estimate no more than 1 in 3 pizzas coming out of that place is deep dish.

And I can’t remember a single time I’ve been with a group of Chicagoans and they’ve decided to order deep dish with the exception after drinking at Pequods.

As someone who was raised elsewhere but has lived in Chicago a long time I’m fascinated how deep dish became externally associated with Chicago while internally it’s so poorly received. It would be like going to Southern California and finding out no one eats fish tacos.

Conversely Chicago hot dogs and (until recently) Italian beef are legitimately different and better in Chicago, widely acclaimed locally, but largely ignored outside of the city. So weird.

[Larrikin]

I too would like this study because thin crust is objectively worse than all the other popular styles of pizza in the US and it always felt like there was something else going on when I would see it at events, never at parties or on tables.

Deep dish is unique and has a legitimate claim to being one of the better forms of pizza. Nothing about cracker crust thin crust can compete with NY style, Italian styles, or any of the other styles of pizza. It basically competes with the rectangle pizzas from school lunches and is cut and served similarly.

The thin crust is better crowd came across to me when I lived there as a few different groups.

Gaslighting food b/vloggers on the internet looking for something to write about because so much has already been said about the actual best food in the city, the same as the ones that say Cheesesteaks are worse than Brocolli Rabes in Philadelphia for example. Or the recent trend of saying that American cheese is not the worst cheese created because it melts, which all deli cheeses also do. Smash burgers at home are better simply because you can use a different type of cheese.

Suburbanites trying to show they were better than people actually from Chicago and tourists.

Event planners who were cheaping out because they could order 3 crappy thin crust pizzas for the price of one deep dish pizza. Thin crust was basically the only type of pizza you would see at tech events unless the company was trying to show off how much money they had.

Deep dish is heavy so it was not always a go to food when I was hanging out in Chicago, but when people wanted pizza nobody I met from Chicago ever said "No don't get deep dish, get thin crust"

Personally I view Chicago dogs as the ultimate form of the hot dog and think they are pretty good. But a sausage with just mustard is still better. I usually would only get them when I was showing someone around from out of town.

Italian beefs are just a wet worse version of a cheesesteak. They aren't bad and people who never spent time in Philly might enjoy them, but they were just another confirmation point to me that sandwiches aren't that good in Chicago.

Actual Chicagoan's opinions weren't always better though. I wasted so much time going to different Harold's Chicken Shacks before realizing that it wasn't true that some are better than others, people just cover the bland chicken in the sugar sauce.

[kasey_junk]

I have spent a lot of time in Philly (and more importantly Delaware which has better Philly cheese sandwiches) and I will never agree a Philly cheesesteak is better than a beef.

That said I don’t think Chicago is a particularly good pizza town. Tavern style is fine but I agree the idea that it in someways redeems the Chicago pizza scene is also not true. But the best pizza in NYC is not a slice either so perhaps it’s just the nature of pizza that regional variations only detract from the form.

But a Neapolitan style pizza, with good ingredients, from a proper oven and an operator who can really do it is much harder to execute.

[Larrikin]

I agree not all cheesesteaks are created equal. When I lived there, there was still the corner $5 cheesesteak that wasn't that good but was only $5. But Joe's to me ruled supreme over everyone else. I've been back with people who thought they were just fine but not great from a place like Jim's, but then understood the hype after going to Joe's. It was such a good call for him to drop the racist name after the previous guy died. I still would take a corner cheesesteak over an Italian beef.

I always thought that if there was an evil pizza genie, if I could only ever eat one type of pizza but could eat pizza only when I was in the mood, I would choose deep dish. If I had to eat pizza everyday I would choose a NY style. If I could choose any style at anytime when I wanted to eat pizza, I would choose Detroit.

And if I had to live overseas, I would choose an Italian style because there is a conglomerate that strictly regulates it with a bunch of rules and most other takes on pizza have been pretty bad. Devilcraft has been the only pizza place I've been in Tokyo that has a decent non Italian style.

[kasey_junk]

I thought Joes closed?

[Larrikin]

They shut down the original location in one of the most inconvenient places in the city to get to and now operate in one of the more popular neighborhoods in the city. I felt lucky that I just happened to go a few weeks before they announced the closure.

[tptacek]

I don't know what to do with the rest of the claims you make here after saying all deli cheeses also melt like American cheese, which they absolutely do not. Go ahead and throw a bunch of provolone in a pot and turn the heat on and see how long it takes to separate.

I don't understand the Italian beef / cheese steak comparison, either. The only thing they have in common is cow between bread.

[Larrikin]

Provolone melts exactly as well as American when layered on top of a burger or any other hot sandwich. I don't know why you're throwing it in a pot? If you're trying to make a cheese sauce why wouldn't you use cheddar instead of American cheese slices?

Italian beef share many of the same components as cheese steaks besides the beef like the onions and peppers. The meat is also cut similarly. It's really just a couple differences in preparation that makes them different sandwiches.

[tptacek]

I'm not saying you can't use provolone or Swiss on a burger or that American is somehow categorically better, I'm just saying that deli cheeses do not all melt as well as American does. Cheddar melts even worse than provolone! It's simply not emulsified the way American is. You are spreading cheese misfeasance. Mischeesance! I will not have it.

I'm a Chicagoan and like, the only thing I really care about, other than a more accurate sandwich taxonomy that doesn't place an Italian beef on a line of sandwich development with cheese steaks, is that (1) Chicago pizza as understood by Chicagoans is cut into squares, and (2) it's better than the deep dish stuff, which is a novelty. Is a NY slice better? Sure, whatever, IDGAF. We have the superior tacos, that's all that matters.

The meat in a beef is not only not cut the same way or cooked the same way, it's also not the same meat! The only "components" in a beef are braised beef (braise a ribeye roast and they will put you in jail) and giardiniera, maybe simmered bell pepper if you're a weirdo. There aren't onions on a beef. Definitely no cheese. Was there cheese on the beef you got? That wasn't a beef, they were trying to steal your kidneys. We have signs about this all over town, did you not notice? And there isn't giardiniera on a cheese steak.

[Larrikin]

Al's offers cheese on all their sandwiches. One of the last beefs I tried I tried it with cheese for the first time and it really didn't do much to improve it for me.

Texturally they are similar but you're right the meat is prepared differently. I never had a beef that was prepared with the care that you see on first season of The Bear and had given up trying to find a good place after my first year after finding not much difference in the places I went.

But I disagree with you about the cheese still. Provolone melts and spreads just as American does. You can make a smash burger with provolone and the burgers fuse together just the same. It will also taste better

[tptacek]

None of the Al's other than the one on Taylor is a real Al's! The rest are fronts for organ thieves.

I'm not even saying you can't make a smashburger with provolone. But it doesn't melt and spread like American cheese does. It can't. And if you try to melt cheddar in a pot without an emulsifying agent like cornstarch, it'll oil out. Gross! That's why people throw slices of American in with the cheddar (though we're a citrate household; citrate is American cheese extract, and it'll melt anything. Brick of parm. Celery. Masonry bricks.)

I don't have a strong opinion on beef vs. cheese steak; I might even prefer the cheese steak except I've never had one and not felt like grim death afterwards, going to bed with Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight" playing in my guts. All I'm saying is they're different sandwiches.

[kasey_junk]

Point of order. It’s definitive that a ny slice is _not_ better than a chicago deep dish _because ny slices are the worst_. It’s not a statement of support for weird lasagna, it’s commentary on the practice of eating grease rugs.