Junk Food Nation, I turned on my talk radio last night in my car to a sports station, and being in DC, the topic was the Redskins.  And the hosts, whoever they were, were just yelling at each other over some hashed out topic (QB controversy, coaching regime, etc.)  Just. Yelling.  YELLING. For a good fifteen minutes straight, from one commercial break to the next.

Now we’ve all been in shouting matches before, where you’re just so angry that VOLUME is the only way to win. That’s what was happening last night – two hosts, inanely blathering about a topic that has NO right answer, just screaming at each other… I had to turn it off. Good lord.

I enjoy a good fight and can drop hurtful comments like none other, but shouting matches? I feel like shouting matches are really passe at this point.  Does anyone, in their adulthood, REALLY just flat out YELL at people anymore?  I mean, unless you’re crazy? I feel like no matter how emotional you get, you should be able to reign it in before you get the point of actually needing to be louder than the other person.

Think about it – whenever you see two adult dudes just yelling at each other, you think, “Well, here we go – someone’s about to get killed.” Hell, you think the same thing when two females are screaming at each other. Male yelling at female, female yelling at male, adult yelling at kid – your instant thought in ANY real situation is, “Dude, that person is NUTSO.”

So please. Stop yelling, weirdo.

Junk Food Nation, I went to another pizza joint recently – a Chicago-style pizzeria called District of Pi.

The District of Pi

District of Pi just opened recently; I want to say within the past two months. Again, I wanted to avoid doing restaurant reviews on this blog, but I think I’m ok here: (1) In my mind, pizza is still fair game in a junk food blog, I don’t care how organic it is, (2) I’m not going to review decor, appetizers, wait staff, etc.  Just the pizza, and (3) STEP OFF I can do whatever I want.

Math = pizza. Er, no.

District of Pi’s loves the Pi symbol as a homophone for pie (as in Pizza).  Yeah…it’s sort of clever… if you’re a nerd.  Which I am… but even to me, it’s only marginally clever.  Moving on.

The rundown

So these were the selections.  DoP allows for substitutions at no cost, so if you wanted the Lincoln Park with no zucchini but instead with red onions – bam! Replaced at no cost.  Pretty cool.

Being the glutton I am (and the people I was with were similar), I immediately zeroed in on the Kirkwood. When my friend Shelley suggested replacing the red peppers (vegetables?  Pffffft) with pepperoni (meat? Hurray!), and then adding sausage (um, yes please) the deal was done.

The Money Shot

And here it is! The Kirkwood deep dish pizza – with mozzarella, pepperoni, basil, meatballs and sausage. I’m not going to go into a large discussion about what defines a Chicago-style pizza. Just follow your eyes – it has a thicker buttery crust, and inside there’s a lot of sauce, cheese and other other yum yums.

The cross section

Here’s the cut-away. As you can see, good amounts of sauce, decent size chunks of meat, although I’m not sure if we’re seeing the meatballs or the sausage here. The thing to notice is the high crust – it acts like a circular walled pie crust retaining wall to hold everything in.  Plenty of seasoning on top – basil, oregano, etc.

Dirty plate, perfect slice

The first thing I noticed about the pie was the sauce was really really wet.  I’ve been to Chicago before, and sure there are variances between different pizza places – but this sauce was really unstable.  I was lucky to get this picture in before everything slid apart…

Big ass meatballs

…like this.  This happened by me ROTATING THE PLATE A QUARTER INCH. I guess I’m used to a firmer sauce no matter what style of pizza I get.

The picture above does give you a better view of the contents, however.  Bottom right is one of meatballs piled on this pizza, while right above it is a good sized chunk of sausage.  You can tell exactly why this is knife-and-fork pizza (or stand-over-the-sink-while-eating-pizza).

Glistening with meat juice

The pepperoni and cheese actually form the base layer in the pizza itself – adhering to the crust, it provides a platform for the sauce, meatballs, sausage that are heaped on top.

Sidenote: I’m not a great photographer; I’m not sure if I could even tell you what actually “makes” a good photo versus a bad one – but damn it all if I didn’t capture just how juicy this pie was!  Look at that meatball!  You can tell it melts in your mouth.  I’m drooling.

Er...it's like a crime scene

When it was time to dive in, I did so with full gusto. The review? Delicious.

For me, a good pizza needs a good sauce taste, and this provided it. Strong with the basil and oregano taste, this sauce was tomato-ey and full of flavor, a good level of salt.  NOT bland like so many pizzas I’ve had in my life time.

The sausage was spicy enough and noticeable. The beef meatballs were very juicy, soft, and had a good beefy flavor – I really liked them. The pepperoni was standard, and the crust itself was hearty in its taste and texture, with a nice crunchy feel to it that wasn’t too hard to chew.

My only complaint would be that the sauce was extra runny.  My buddy Rob has had a lot of Chicago-style pizza having gone to college there, and he agreed – we both would’ve preferred a firmer sauce.  But flavor is king to me, and the Kirkwood (with all of its replacements) held up.  I’m more of a New York thin crust type pizza connoisseur, but I have to say I really enjoyed this Kirkwood. Good job, District of Pi.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy