I recently got a chance to go to Chicago and actually hang out for about a day before having to do what I went there for, which is work. It’s a pretty cool town. It was unseasonably warm as well, so it was especially nice to wander about.
Our first team dinner was at Giordano’s, so we could try chicago-style deep-dish pizza. The pies take awhile to cook, so you order your food in advance while you wait for it to cook and while you wait for an open table. There are plenty of bars to keep you busy during the wait.
We also ordered a regular thin-crust pie for those not into the deep-dish. This wasn’t particularly exciting to me.
Here’s a plain deep-dish. The size of this pie was huge. It was almost scary. And the depth was also surprising. I had never experienced genuine chicago-style pizza. Plus, I actually don’t really like deep-dish pizzas, in general. But this thing? I surprised myself and really enjoyed it. It’s mostly cheese, and that’s no exaggeration at all. It’s just filled with pounds of melted cheese. There’s a bit of a crust at the bottom and up the sides. But basically, you’re looking at a big hunk of melted cheese. A delicious hunk of melted cheese. I could barely eat one slice. After that, I was pretty much done!
Oh, and right after I got to my hotel, I walked to Hendrickx Belgian Bread Crafter and had an almond croissant. This thing was really different from any croissant I’d had before. I highly recommend it!

Santucci’s recently opened a location in Bella Vista. Apparently, it had been in the works for a long time, and voila, it finally opened! It’s bright and inviting on the inside, and is super casual. There aren’t too many tables, as it seems mostly to be a takeout place.
I read that they hand cut all the potatoes for their fries so I wanted to try out their sweet potato fries. None of the food came out quickly. In fact, all of the food took a long ass time to come out. I guess that’s what preparing every fresh and by hand takes. When these came out, I was a little disappointed with the portion. I thought wow, that bowl, which is the size of a soup bowl, is barely filled with fries. They tasted just fine. But with this type of portion, I thought this could get interesting. But then the rest of the food came out.
This is a personal size pizza. When I envisioned personal, I thought of the small pizza hut sized personal pizzas. Um, this pizza is pretty big for being called “personal”. Unless that said “person” belongs to a sumo stable. I’m thinking these were at least 9×9 if not 10×10. In any case, it was pretty damn big for a personal pizza. We each had two slices and couldn’t possibly eat any more. I was also really expecting a sweet sauce because that’s what everything I had read had said, but I didn’t find it sweet at all. I found it quite zesty and fresh tasting. But this is coming from a person whose favorite pizza sauce is from Franzone’s, and you know that is the sweetest of the sweet sauces around. So to me, Santucci’s sauce isn’t sweet at all! Overall, I quite liked it. But we both loved the crust. It’s not thin, but it’s not thick, and it’s not doughy. It’s a nice mix of chewy with a bit of crispness on the outside. And I’m definitely a fan of sauce on the top pizzas.
I also wanted to try the meatballs. You get four ginormous meatballs and a giant heap of spaghetti with gravy, yeah, I said gravy. The spaghetti looks fresh made too, as it’s a rectangular shaped noodle. These meatballs were awesome! They’re so huge that eating one is pretty much enough. This plate could easily feed four people. There’s visible bits of carrots too, so you know there’s even vegetables in those suckers! They’re cooked well, nothing is burnt, nothing is raw, and you don’t have to chew these very hard in your mouth. We’re big fans!

Outside of Zion National Park, the town actually has a bunch of restaurants and shops. After looking up some reviews, we went to The Flying Monkey. We had no idea what it was, but it sounded cool. Well, they describe themselves as a place for pizza, pasta, beer, and sandwiches.
We went with the pizza and got the pizza lasagna, which is topped with crushed tomatoes, wood oven roasted fennel sausage, roasted mushrooms, ricotta cheese, mozzarella, parmigiano reggiano, basil, and evoo. Oh man, we both absolutely loved this pizza! We loved the toppings, the dough, the crust, everything! It’s cooked in a wood fired oven and so the bottom was crisp but the dough was still soft and doughy. We agreed that this was probably the best meal we’d had on our entire trip. We highly recommend it!