Second City Pizza Tour

This weekend my BFF was visiting me here in Chicago. When I saw a half off deal for a Second City Pizza Tour on buywithme.com I snatched it up, thinking it would be something fun for two pizza loving gals to do.

First stop on our tour was the original Giordano's on Rush Street where we ate a slice of cheese stuffed deep dish. Look at the obscene amount of cheese in one piece. Insane. I was not all that impressed to have to eat my pizza on the side of a street with homeless people walking by, asking for money to buy food. Awkward.

The second stop was at Gino's East, which I never knew, is full of graffiti! I liked the atmosphere of this place, even if the writing everywhere makes it a big grungy looking.

Here's my hugh jass piece of cheese deep dish. The cheese to sauce ratio is much different than Giordano's. At Gino's there's way less cheese and way more tomatoey rather than garlicy sauce, plus the crust is made with cornbread rather than white flour.

Honestly, deep dish of any kind is pretty much my least favourite type of pizza in the whole world. I don't think it should even be called pizza. To me, it's so heavy that it reminds me more of lasagna than anything else. There is just SO much cheese it's ridiculous. It hurts my arteries thinking about it. All of this doesn't stop me from eating it once in a while though!
Everyone asks what place in Chicago makes the best deep dish. I have to say that I preferred Giordano's when it was hot and Gino's when it was cold. So there, no clear answer for you! I think the all time best deep dish I've had was the first kind I ever tried at at Pizzeria Due.

Next stop was La Madia, a more upscale place that pairs pizza with wine. Now, this is my type of place! I'll have to stop back here when I'm not pregnant because the walls of wine were making me drool.
This pizza was amazing, although a bit too greasy, but definitely my favourite of the day. We tried three different kinds... triple pepperoni, goat cheese something, and mushroom something. This would be a nice date night place.

The last stop on the tour was State Street Pizza, which has a small eat in area, but is more of an order a slice at the take out window kinda place. We were so stuffed we took our pieces to go, but had a bite when we got home and honest to jeebus, it tasted like DIRT. It was some sort of spinach goat cheese pizza on whole wheat crust and even the husband who will eat anything said it was the worst pizza he's ever tasted.

I really cannot recommend taking the Second City Pizza Tour, mainly because of the steep $48/person fee. I don't even think it was worth the half off price that we paid, although it was a fun way to spend an afternoon. Basically the guide leads you to four different pizza joints, gives you maybe one or two pieces of information about each restaurant, then eats pizza with you. I'd say skip the tour and eat at La Madia for the same price, including cocktails!

I guess one good thing about the tour is that we took lots of leftovers home because there's no way you can eat that amount of pizza in such a short period of time!