So being as I'm still by my lonesome here, decided to give this "Chicago" pizza a try.
http://www.homeruninnpizza.com/ Checked them out, been around since '47, won all kinds of awards, yet never heard of them...and I was born and raised in Chi-town, teethed on excellent pizza...
So now they are selling frozen in Publix. Have to give it a try. Welllllll.....if any of your are expecting "good" Chicago style thin crust out of the freezer case, forget it on this one. Sausage and pepperoni. Now, Brooklyn really shines on the pepperoni (I'll give the New Yorkers kudos there!), but the Italian sausage is where us Chicagoans take pride. And this stuff, though good looking on the za (that's shorthand pizza), tasted like...nothing. With good, properly spice sausage, you taste it throughout the whole piece. The pepperoni? Nearly tasteless. The sauce? Oh, it had a nice bite at first, but quickly faded. The cheese part was pretty good, but that is secondary in my book. We want the meat, and it had better be good. The crust was actually decent for a frozen za, but, remember, the crust is only the holder for the toppings. As long as it's not inedible, I could care less about crust, just not too much of it, like the OTHER traditional Chicago za's, the deep dish.
This is what I grew up on...Aurelio's, the original in Homewood, the suburb next door to where I grew up. The absolute best Chicago thin crust in the world, bar none...
http://aureliospizza.com/about.php My favorite (and only one I ever ordered!!) was the sausage. Every za was cut into squares, and each square had a BIG piece of melt-in-your-mouth Italian sausage smack dab in the middle, the sauce was spicey and stayed with you, the fresh mozz perfect. As you can see, they have branched out far and wide, but when I was a kid, the Homewood store was it. Man oh man, the za was so good I'd eat until I almost got sick! And BTW, when you say Italian, the I is pronounced a long I.
This is Joe Aurelio, always stopped by to chat with my Mom and Dad...
My brother and I always wondered who that guy was...
So if you like Chicago thin crust za, and you see Home Run Inn in the stores...pass!
