DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Pizza in the Cleveland area..how would you define it?

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Even Detroit has a signature taste and crust......

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I would at least take a Marco's.

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I cannot stand Cincinnati pizza. I have a theory about this, of course. Pizza is personal for me in a way that other foods are not. I had no problem at all embracing Skyline Chili* in Cincinnati because I had never eaten anything like it growing up, and as such I had no previous attachment to chili. I suspect that if I had grown up in Texas or if my mother had a family chili recipe passed down from generation to generation, then I might have felt different about Skyline. But I did not even like chili much (I don’t like beans), and so I was open to the Skyline experience (also there was a Skyline open late right across the street). I felt the same way about the 23-pound double-decker sandwiches that they served at Blue Ash Chili (every restaurant in Cincinnati, at heart, is a chili parlor), same with Montgomery Inn ribs, same with the various German restaurants in town, same with lots of other Cincinnati foods. Hey, I lived in Cincinnati, and a guy’s gotta eat. Even when it came to Ice Cream, which I have strong opinions about, I didn’t judge the quality of Graeter’s Ice Cream. I just ate it by the carton.

*I do realize that, for many, Skyline Chili is a line in the sand for many people. I can’t blame people for being anti-Skyline, really. It is hard to explain just how overpowering a presence Skyline Chili (and Skyline type restaurants) is in Cincinnati. I believe chili is more visible in Cincinnati than Buffalo wings are in Buffalo, bigger than clam chowdah is in Boston, more important to the locals than Philly steaks are in Philadelphia and, dare I say it, more overpowering than barbecue is in Kansas City. The whole town smells like chili. Last time I went to Cincinnati, I punched “Skyline Chili” into my car GPS system and 27 of them popped up within an eight mile radius, and that does not take into account the many Gold Star Chilis, the Empress Chili, the Dixie Chili, the Blue Ash Chili, the Camp Washington Chili, on and on and on forever. Point is, Cincinnati chili is in your face at all times, and the only two logical ways to respond to such an onslaught is either to revolt against it or capitulate to its secret powers (what is that secret ingredient? chocolate? cinnamon? heroin?). To be bluntly honest, I capitulated without much of a fight.

But I could not stand the Cincinnati pizza. Woud not touch it. The two reasons for this are clear:

1. Cincinnati pizza sucks.

2. Pizza is fundamentally different from other foods.

The first is obvious. The seconds fits my theory, which is that everybody who loves people (a.k.a. everybody) has a perfect pizza in their mind, the pizza that all others are to be compared with forever. Now, people come to this ideal pizza in different ways, at different times in their lives. For some, though, the ideal pizza is the just really good pizza they have ever eaten. That’s how it is for me. My ideal pizza is King Cole pizza in Cleveland, Ohio. Now, I say that with some hesitation because I have not eaten King Cole pizza in more than 30 years. Truth is, I suspect that if I went back to King Cole and tried a slice of pizza now*, I would be madly disappointed and would have to fall back on the old-person dream that the pizza had changed and it used to be much better, or what I like to call the “Burt Lancaster You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean back then,” defense.

*I had always thought the King Cole pizza on Mayfield closed down many years ago. But I looked on the Internet and it is still listed in phone books.

But the point, in my case, is not what King Cole pizza tasted like, no, the point is what I REMEMBER it tasting like. I remember a thin, bendable, bubbling, crust, hot cheese that stretched out like a tape measure when you pulled it away from the home base, crisp pepperonis and so on. I remember it as the kind of hot that would burn the roof or your mouth only in a good way. I remember it as the kind you had to bend in the middle to keep it from falling apart like the Yankees in Seattle.

Now, hey, I certainly like other types of pizza too, from gourmet to Totino’s in a the frozen section — I’m a staunch disciple of the joke that pizza is like sex, when it’s good it’s really good, and when it’s bad it’s still pretty good. But in the end they all fall down for me when placed up against my pizza nonpareil, my memory of King Cole pizza was I was 8 years old.

Now, hey, I realize this is an accident of geography more than anything else. I am readily admitting here that if I grew up in the greater Chicago area, Chicago deep dish pizza probably would be my ideal pizza and I would mock all other kinds.* If I grew up in New Haven, I might like that Pepe’s Pizza with like no sauce (I’ve only heard about this, and I’m not sure I like the concept). If I grew up in St. Louis … no, wait, that’s where this discussion ends I can’t imagine that I would have ever liked that Ritz crackers with tomato sauce thing they call pizza in St. Louis.

But my point is that Cleveland pizza was entirely influenced by New York, and I was entirely influenced by Cleveland pizza. That, for me, is what pizza is supposed to taste like.

*Is this true? Would I be a Chicago pizza snob if I had been raised on the deep dish? I honestly cannot say. Here’s my latest attempt to add a word to the dictionary: I call this an “Akili Question” or just an “Akili.”

Akili (Ah-KEE-lee). Noun. A question that people believe they can answer intuitively but one that, actually, has no answer. Akilis lead to endless and fun arguments. The word derives from the utterly unanswerable question: “Would quarterback Akili Smith have been a good football player had he been drafted by a team other than the stunningly clueless Cincinnati Bengals?”

Many sports questions, I believe, are really Akilis: Was Babe Ruth better than Barry Bonds? Would Tiger Woods have dominated Jack Nicklaus in Jack’s prime? What happens it you put Jim Brown or Otis Taylor or some other physical marvel from forty and fifty years ago in today’s game? Nobody really knows, but it’s fun to scream at people about it. Then there are a lot of non-sports Akilis out there too. You know what I love? I love reading those books that take a moment in history and takes a look at the alternative, like: What if Lee had not attacked at Gettysburg? What if the Germans had discovered the atom bomb first. And so on. I should do a book of sports Akilis, don’t you think?**

**Although, maybe I should finish the one I’m working on now. Hey, yeah, did I mention, that I am writing a book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds? Comes out in March. William Morrow is publishing. A subsidiary of Harper Collins.

Anyway , it just so happens that Cincinnati pizza tastes precisely the way a pizza is NOT supposed to taste. This is my opinion entirely, but I will say that I know a lot of people from Cincinnati who do not like Cincinnati pizza.

All of this leads back to the question: What is the key factor in great pizza? Well, I think this is an Akili too. There is no answer. You could certainly argue for cheese — Rosey thinks cheese is the big ingredient — because a pizza with bad cheese cannot be rescued with sauce or a good crust or anything else. Toppings are a big factor because no matter how good the crust or the cheese may be, if the order was for toppings you don’t like — say green peppers, black olives and pineapple — then you probably won’t eat it. Sauce is huge too. It’s hard to do a really good pizza sauce, to get just the right amounts of tomato, garlic and zip while avoiding any of that Boyardee aftertaste.

Even the shape of the slice matters … little squares of pizza feel wrong and un-American* in a harsh school cafeteria way and should be outlawed across the land.

*OK, I have to ask this: Now that Sarah Palin has galvanized people, where the heck did all these “Hockey Moms” come from? Hockey moms? Really? Is this really a factor in places outside of, you know, Boston, Minneapolis and Calgary? More to the point, my question is: We have had “Soccer Moms” for a while. Now we have “Hockey Moms.” When the heck will the Moms of America start getting involved in, you know, American sports? Baseball Moms? Basketball Moms? Who’s with me?

But, in the end, when it comes to what makes pizza great, I have to go with the majority. It’s about the crust. A pizza with crust that is too doughy and chewy (I’m looking straight at you Little Caesar … it’s no wonder you gave two for the price of one), a pizza crust that is too crunchy like a St. Louis cracker, a pizza crust that is so thick that you can hardly taste the sauce, these things just don’t work for me.

I think that eating pizza is as much about memory as it is about taste. Good pizza, like a familiar summer song, can take you back years. And even now, for me, pizza with exactly the right kind of crust can take me back to those days when afternoons seemed so bright you had to squint, when there was a lump in bed because my little league mitt was breaking in under the mattress, when the sight and smell of Dad walking in with a greasy pizza box sparked the same feelings George Bailey had when his brother Harry walked in the door. Of course, I could be over-romanticizing pizza. Wouldn’t be the first time

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*Is this true? Would I be a Chicago pizza snob if I had been raised on the deep dish? I honestly cannot say. Here’s my latest attempt to add a word to the dictionary: I call this an “Akili Question” or just an “Akili.”

Akili (Ah-KEE-lee). Noun. A question that people believe they can answer intuitively but one that, actually, has no answer. Akilis lead to endless and fun arguments. The word derives from the utterly unanswerable question: “Would quarterback Akili Smith have been a good football player had he been drafted by a team other than the stunningly clueless Cincinnati Bengals?”

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I just had Danny Boys for the first time in December...

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I don't live in Cleveland, but in the Youngstown area, there's no real specific kind of pizza that you get.

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Then there is "Chicago style pizza" which, like you noted, is usually 4 inches thick and is loaded with cheese, and often comes with the pizza sauce on top of the cheese...

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Four inches! That's too big to fit in my mouth.

[insert the obligatory "that's what she said" comment here]

I grew up in Brunswick/Medina/Toledo. I ate Pizza Hut & Domino's from time to time but really enjoyed the "place down the street" more. I remember Marco's from the Toledo area. There used to be this locally owned place on 42 and Fenn Rd in Medina, can't remember the name, that was great stuff.

And now that I live in Chicago, I get to enjoy their "local style". Here's the thing, you can find all different styles of pizza here too. I used to live by this "New York" style place in Lincoln Park called Luigi's Pizza. Man, that was some good shi...stuff. All the "Chicago style" places are pretty good too.

In my opinion, I think there are four kinds of pizza:

New York (classic, thin with limited toppings)
Chicago (thick, sauce on top and TONS of toppings)
Chain Style (medium thickness, mass produced and cardboardy - can be good but needs lots of beer)
California Style (Off-the-wall organic tree-hugging toppings = Venison, seaweed, feta cheese and tomatillo sauce)

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There used to be this locally owned place on 42 and Fenn Rd in Medina, can't remember the name, that was great stuff.

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Probably Romeo's Pizza. That's still really good pizza!

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Around Akron/Cuyahoga Falls, it's either Luigi's or Rocco's.

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Rascal House is my favorite local pizza. Zeppe's is good too. Don't know if either are particular to Cleveland, though.

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Rascal House is, Zeppes is a chain. We have one on RT14 in STreetsboro.

Speaking of Racal House(college places) the Rathskeller in the basement of the student center at Kent State is awesome. Sometimes they sell it at the MAC Center during basketball games for a dollar a slice. I am always good for about 5 slices


KING

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i can't do chicago style... too much.. stuffed/deep dish pizza is just too much...

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Guido's is pretty good,but the Cipriano's never run coupons..I hate getting a pie without a coupon.
Sicilano's right down the road by Giant Eagle is decent,pick up only though.

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YUCK! Pizza Hut is nasty stuff. Crust so greasy I could fry a chicken with it.

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Probably why I like it so much!