Food review: Classic deep dish specialty pizza

Restaurant: Little Star Pizza (San Francisco)
Food description: Deep dish pizza with sausage, mushrooms, green bell peppers, and onions
Food rating: 7 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

I love deep dish pizza, so I was super excited to try the pizza at Little Star. They are known for their deep dish pizza and they did not disappoint. The crust on this thing is amazing. It was cooked perfectly, rich and buttery and savory and crispy. Yum, I could eat this crust by itself so getting all these toppings with it feels like an extra treat. The toppings they use really went great together. The sausage they use is really delicious, I almost wish they put more on, but I think that would have probably been overkill. The sauce was really good, I do wish they had stewed the tomatoes a bit longer, it tasted a little too fresh to me, I think in pizza, you really want that cooked tomato taste which is quite different albeit equally delightful from raw tomato. The mushrooms and bell peppers kind of disappeared under the sausage but the other stuff is so good that it didn't really matter. I would definitely get this pizza again.

Food review: Italian combo pizza

Restaurant: Little Star Pizza (San Francisco)
Food description: Thin crust pizza with pepperoni, salami, white onions, green bell peppers, black olives, pepperoncini
Food rating: 6 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

I like deep dish pizza more than I like thin crust pizza. I think the reason is because I don't like soggy crusts. Not to say that all thin crust pizzas will have soggy crusts but I think that with thin crust pizza the chance of the crust being soggy is much higher. Anyway, the point is, this pizza had a soggy crust so I didn't like it. I could barely finish one slice. However, all the components of the pizza were really good, the pepperoni and salami were great and the kitchen didn't skimp or overdo the meat part either, the white onions were a little undercooked for my taste but the green bell peppers and pepperoncinis, besides making the dish look really colorful, added that nice, crispy freshness that I like on my pizza. I think the bell peppers help me pretend that my pizza is somewhat healthy for me. The sauce they use is really good, much better than your average pizza joint sauce--you can really taste the fresh herbs in this one. So while this pizza didn't taste terrible, if they could only give it a crispier crust it would have been much, much better.

Food review: "The Favorite" deep dish pizza

Restaurant: Patxi's (San Francisco)
Food description: Chicago-style deep dish pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives
Food rating: 8 out of 10
Times ordered: 4

After coming to Patxi's several times, I just found out that I've been saying the name like a tourist--it's actually pah-cheese, while I've been telling everyone it's pat-skeez. Stupid I know, but it's in my hood, and I have a social responsibility to know the correct pronunciations of all the decent places (like Frjtz and Moishe's Pippic). Ok, so back to the pizza. I'll admit I'm no pro on Chicago deep dish pizza, but pro or not, this is damn good pizza. And what a departure from the lame-excuse-for-a-salad I'd just eaten. I've had a few of their other specialty pizzas and so far, this one's my favorite (they did a good job naming it correctly). Although it takes 40 minutes to cook, it's worth the wait knowing that you're getting a freshly made pizza that's consistently very good. It's also one of the few things that can get me to eat canned black olives. The pizza crust is the key to why this pizza is so good. It's crunchier and flakier than regular pizza dough, sort of like a pie crust. The flavor is much more rich and buttery and is tasty enough to eat by itself. That being said, almost any toppings you put on the pizza will work. They're layered upside down from normal pizza: pepperoni, mushrooms, and cheese on the bottom, and sauce and olives on top. Normally I like the pepperoni to be on top of the sauce, so that it can have those nice crispy edges, but I didn't mind this execution at all. The tomato sauce is the next best thing. It's tangy, but not too sweet, and has lots of spices in it, and none of that canned flavor that I can't stand. There's no shortage of cheese, perhaps maybe a bit overkill on the cheese, because it drowned out the mushrooms completely. With the thick crust and all that cheese, each slice is really hefty, and must be eaten with a knife and fork. Unfortunately, the pizza tends to be a little too watery from all that tomato sauce, so by the second slice, it's all soggy. I imagine deep dish pizza is like this by nature, but soggy is still a little annoying. That's a minor detail though, and doesn't prevent me from continuing to come back. So if you're in the mood for some comfort food and aren't on a diet, pah-cheese's pizza will take care of you good.