27th
You Must Crust
What to do before an gripping Romanian abortion thriller? Clearly, one must eat loads of comfort food to stomach the emotional roller coaster ahead (btw, the movie was astonishingly good). Crust has been much talked about in Chicago food media, but it’s worth the hype and while I exhibited the formerly lame attitude of “I’m sick of everyone talking about it so I’m not going to go,” I have since converted to being bi-curious about organic. My pizza here, the Carbonara, is a stunning mixture of egg, pea shoots, roasted slab bacon (the words ‘slab’ and ‘bacon’ have never been so beautiful together), and parmigiano-reggiano. The pea shoots are just a ingenious touch of green and crunch in this other wise rich and creamy pizza. Also, it never hurts to have perfectly gooey egg yolk as a topping.
My friends had these, the Mexicali blues - wood fired shrimp, monterey jack cheese, bechamel, pico de gallo, cilantro and lime. The flavor combinations were right on and defies any Taco Bell sensibilities about the phrase “Mexican Pizza.”
And the Shroom - shaved cremini mushrooms, goat cheese, bechamel, tossed baby spinach & lemon vinaigrette. Look at the way the spinach just overwhelms the pizza! I thought this was probably the weakest of the three, because the mushrooms couldn’t hold their own against the attack of the green.
