Nothing really says “awesome” quite like “family friendly brewery.” Such places are the best of both worlds, contributing to the cycle of having babies because you drink, then drinking because you have babies. New Holland Brewing on 8th Street in Holland, Michigan is one such place. Renowned for its beer, it has a comfortable back patio for kids to hang out at and one very attractive menu.

So, we started with two appetizers to appease the little folks and people who eat like little folks (aka me). These were the Pretzels and Beer Cheese, and the Pepperoni Pinwheels. I feel like they definitely missed out on a golden Holland-related opportunity by calling them pinwheels instead of windmills, but you take what you can get. And what I got was two very delicious appetizers. The pretzels where soft and fluffy with just the right amount of salt on them. The beer cheese was oh so lovely.

The pinwheels were like little mini bites of pizza heaven. They were perfectly cooked dough packed with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. Then, as if to say that they needed more, the pinwheels were topped with shredded parmesan and served with marinara. I know it is unreasonable to consider these anything more than deconstructed and repurposed pizza, but I couldn’t help but feel a deep appreciation for how they were done.

For my main course I went with a pizza that seemed almost tailored for me. It was called the Pork BBQ and was topped with smoked pork, peppadew peppers (yes, I said almost), jalapeno peppers, Dragon’s Milk (a beer of theirs) BBQ sauce, and Michigan cheese curds. I ordered without the peppadew peppers because blech, and my pizza came out looking like a beautiful work of art. The dough was a strong start, the sauce added just the right amount of sweet and smokey, while the jalapenos and pork added some kick and umami. But, with that being said you could probably have put those cheese curds on any pizza and they would have made it amazing. They added a thickness, a creaminess and a bold cheesy flavor that is almost upsetting in that it took me until age 34 to eat such a flavor.

New Holland continued the tradition of breweries having delicious and even creative food. It also brought the concept of pepperoni pinwheels and cheese curds as a potential pizza cheese into my purview and I couldn’t ask for much more than that. Oh, and the beer was pretty damn good too.

I will be the first to admit that I had a West Side bias when I made the move to Pasadena. I figured I would spend a whole lot of time on that side of town for meals out, but over and over again Pasadena has impressed me. Perhaps most impressive of all is the pizza scene, with The Luggage Room and Pizza of Venice already tackled by yours truly, I finally set my sights on Pie Life Pizza.

The place is literally a window to place an order with a pizza oven in the back. Outside there are a few picnic-esque seats in an area only slightly wider than a hallway, which is shared by a coffee spot to one side and, strangely enough, a crossfit spot on the other. They offer pizza by the slice, but we wanted to get a couple of full pies. And, since one of those pies was topped with veggies I won’t even cover it here except to say that it went over well with the others.

As for me, I went all in on the “Meaty” pizza. This was topped with pepperoni, sausage and meatballs. I liked that the meats were limited to three so as to enjoy the distinct flavors better. The result was an immense New York-style pizza with huge slices and a perfect dispersement of meats (plus those delicious little pepperonis that you only find at places like this). I dug in and was immediately impressed. It was packed with flavor, and each bite tasted like it had been meticulously planned by the guys in the back to ensure I would find happiness in it.

Now, if you’re in New York and thinking places like this are a dime a dozen you may be right. On the other hand, I was eating with a New Yorker who said, “the pizza was much better than it needed to be.” If that’s not a glowing recommendation, I don’t know what is.

While the Twin Cities are certainly renowned for the Jucy (or Juicy) Lucy, they are not without other culinary creations. I stumbled upon one of these accidentally when ordering from Broadway Pizza. You see, this is a pizza and sandwich place, but one item on the menu was a combination of the two, calling itself the Pizza Sandwich. My curiosity got the best of me and I ordered it.Read more about alpilean.

I expected a typical closed-face sub-esque sandwich filled with cheese, marinara, pepperoni and sausage, but what I got was completely different. It was open-faced! These are the Best testosterone booster supplements. And while this seems like it wouldn’t be a big difference, trust me when I say that it was. Why? Because this essentially turned the sandwich into one of those classic French Bread Pizzas we all used to eat back in the day. Yet, this one was not pre-frozen and heated up in a toaster. No, this was something much more and somehow exponentially better. Check these alpilean reviews.

It was the perfect combination of pizza and sandwich, and an order I wouldn’t hesitate to make again. Plus, despite the fact that the sandwich came with a pickle, it was all wrapped up in foil to protect the sandwich. That’s pure ingenuity that the rest of the world should follow.

Once upon a time, a little place called 800 Degrees decided it could redefine fast-food pizza. Needless to say, it was a success. And that success inevitably led to copycats like Blaze Pizza. Surely this is not a bad thing in general because it will ultimately lead to better or more affordable food, but in the short-run I set out to see if Blaze could deliver (figuratively, of course).

I chose make my own pie, which includes all the ingredients you want for a fixed rate of under $9. I opted for the spicy red sauce, mozzarella and ricotta, then pepperoni, Italian sausage and a touch of bacon. It was lacking some of the Italian specialty ingredients like soppressata that 800 Degrees has, but just about everything you could want on a pizza was there. After a few moments in the oven, it was ready for eating.

The crust was both thin and solid, not allowing itself to stay soggy in the middle like its competitor. The ingredients were as awesome as you would expect from making your own pizza. But specifically I could tell that the pepperonis and sausage weren’t the super cheap variety you’d find at Papa John’s.

Blaze Pizza may not be doing a lot to differentiate itself yet in terms of its offerings, but it is definitely a more sterile, cookie cutter type of place than 800 Degrees. For example, the dough is perfectly even and round, while the ingredients are almost perfectly spaced. You can call this quality control if you like it or a lack of individuality if you’re not a fan. Either way, the pizza is quite good and worthwhile.

LA has never been and will never be known as prime destination in the world of pizza. Sure, there are some great spots for a variety of pies, but there is no such thing as LA-style pizza. Nonetheless, LA does its best to make transplants from other pizza cities happy. Take, for example, Masa of Echo Park, which dishes out some of the deepest dishes this side of Chicago.

Moreover, they have a pizza that may as well have been invented for unvegans like me. Simply put, it’s called Lots of Meat and is chock full of pepperoni and sausage, with everything else that makes a real Chicago-style deep dish pizza.

Upon opening the box (my buddy picked up the pie), I was impressed to find that while the pepperoni adhered to the Chicago law of toppings under sauce, the sausage did not. In fact, instead of bits of sausage, there was an entire thick layer of sausage on top of the rest of the pizza. This was both fascinating and delicious. What was especially delicious about is was that it gave the eater (me) an opportunity to appreciate each distinct flavor without them all blurring together. As for the non, meat, my only complaint is that at times the sauce was more like a pile of stewed tomatoes than an actual sauce. If you like whole tomatoes that’s great, but if your saucy like me you may find yourself plucking out some tomatoes.

Either way, Masa of Echo Park was a delicious taste of the Midwest and did not fail in delivering a real deep dish pizza.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a new pizza place opened in Culver City called Wildcraft. Their schtick is the use of sourdough in their pizzas, which is cool with me, but I’m not sure if it entirely qualifies as being wild. Nonetheless, I was eager to try it out and see just how wild and crafty it would be.

We started with an appetizer of their Meatballs. Made with a blend of beef and pork, these unkosher balls were served in a “tomato gravy” and topped with grana padano cheese. The so-called gravy was really just a marinara sauce and quite good. Also good were the balls themselves, having a great texture, flavor and moisture level.

For my pizza, I decided to get a little wild and ordered one called Carnage. This pizza wasn’t symbiotic (that’s for you, Spider-Man fans) and instead came with porchetta, house pepperoni, pancetta, fennel sausage. It was a cacophony of meat, plus provolone and scamorza cheese. Carnage was in the “Red” section of the pizza menu, meaning it came with tomato sauce and communism, as opposed to the “White” section, which I assume came with a vitamin D deficiency.

The result of this mix of assorted cured pig meats, cheese, sauce and dough was quite delightful. I enjoyed the sourdough, which added an interesting twist to the pizza, and I loved that each slice had to be folded in order to be eaten because of the shear weight of meat. In addition, I appreciated the use of provolone and scamorza cheeses instead of the typical mozzarella. This helped give the pizza an additional complexity of flavor that regular mozzarella doesn’t usually offer.

The only trouble with the pizza was the price tag. Yeah, I know it was good, but $16 for my Carnage $8 for the Meatballs means Wildcraft won’t exactly be a go-to pizza place if I want to preserve my savings account. Despite this, it is certainly worth checking out and I couldn’t be happier to have an upscale pizza place like this in my neighborhood.

EDIT: This Sammy’s is closed, but you can still get their decent pizza around LA and Vegas.

In dire need of portable food while in Studio City, I wandered into Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza. Apparently Sammy’s has locations throughout Southern California and Nevada, but this was the first I had ever seen or heard of such a place. I took a quick look at the menu and while there were a couple of mildly interesting pizzas, most were pretty basic. Faced with such choices, I went with old faithful: pepperoni.

Here, though, the pepperoni was called “All-Natural Pepperoni” and cost a whopping $11.50. I know that seems crazy, but the only things cheaper were regular cheese and margherita.

About 10 minutes after ordering, my pizza was ready. At around 9′, its size did not make up for its price. The pepperonis looked good and tasted pretty good too. And overall the pizza tasted pretty good, but it really didn’t stand out as special in any way. I hate to harp on the price tag, but I’ve simply had better pizzas for lower prices. There isn’t really much more to say beyond that.

For those of you unfamiliar with places of high altitude, allow me to explain the results of finding yourself far above sea level. The first thing you’ll notice is a shortness of breath, when a short walk up the stairs leaves you breathless. Next, you’ll find yourself in a constant quest for water, as the altitude saps the water from your body and leaves you dehydrated. Such is the case in Breckenridge, Colorado, sitting at 9600 feet above sea level. While I had previously thought such altitude issues only applied to humans, a pizza from Giampietro taught me this was just not the case.

In the mood to just relax at the condo for the night, we picked up Sicilian Deep Dish pepperoni pizza from Giampietro and when I opened the box, I immediately saw danger. In transit, some of the cheese from the top of the pie had stuck itself to the ceiling of the pizza box. I can’t blame Giampietro for this, as I have no idea how my family handled the pizza in the car, but it was not a good sign.

When I took a bite from my first slice, though, I realized that this pizza was suffering from the same dehydration as me. The crust was way dry and if not for the copious amount of cheese, it would have been difficult to take down. The sauce and pepperoni were tasty, but the dough really broke this pizza. I usually love deep dish, too, so this is not some general complaint about deep dish. it is only a complaint about arid deep dish.

In strange twist, though, we had quite a mass of leftovers after this meal, so I microwaved some pizza the next morning for breakfast. I ordinarily hate microwaving leftover pizza, as it often winds up soggy, but that was just what this pizza needed. While I lamented the loss of some of the pizza’s crispiness, I welcomed the newly hydrated crust with open arms and mouth.

I didn’t linger in Breckenridge long enough to see if there were any other viable pizza options, but just be warned that if you order from Giampietro, you may want to have a microwave on hand to save your pizza from altitude sickness.

EDIT: I haven’t been back since they moved into a real place, but the experience here was so special I’m not sure it’s worth it.

You make a call and show up in a back alley 45 minutes later. When you arrive, your guy comes out carrying about five pounds worth. You hand him your cash, then take your purchase wherever you want and inhale it. If this sounds like a drug deal to you, get your mind out of the gutter. Unless your drug is pizza, in which case you should head to this back alley in West Hollywood immediately. This is the way it works for Hollywood Pies, the sketchiest pizza place in LA you’ve never been to. You may have eaten their pizza, and you may have even picked up their pizza, but you have never been there because there is no “there.”

Two food-loving friends and I converged upon the back alley of Hollywood Pies last night to get a taste of their Chicago-style pizza and to experience one of the most unique food purveying concepts ever devised. Joel had called in our orders in advance because there was a 45-90 minute waiting time for these Chicago-style pizzas. 45 minutes is actually the minimum amount of time I have ever waited for a pizza in this style, which is almost a casserole in style. Many pizzas were named after old Chicago gangsters, which only helped perpetuate the feeling that we were somehow involved in an illicit activity while waiting for our pizzas. Joel and I split a large Capone, which consisted of whole milk mozzarella, mild Italian sausage, margherita pepperoni and house-made Italian meatballs for 24 bucks. On top of that, it was also slathered in sauce and imported pecorino parmesan cheese. Danny ordered the small Hollywood (a lesser-known gangster), which was filled with those meatballs, plus house-made ricotta for 12 bucks. It also had the same sauce and parmesan as the Capone.

After making Hollywood Pies aware of our arrival, we were handed our hefty pies by a friendly pizza-handler. When Danny struggled to carry the things, he told us that the large weighed in at a full five pounds. Awesome!

But where to eat? And how? Chicago-style deep dish is the only pizza in which I not only fully condone a fork and knife, I expect it. But we were miles away from home with no place to seat and no utensils to use. We wandered out of the alley, found some concrete slabs to sit on and then went to work. We lost a few toppings while separating the slices to eat, but managed to lift some giant slices without the need for utensils. Success! When I bit in, I was greeted with that old familiar taste of Chicago deep dish. Starting from the bottom, the dough was thick, but cooked through perfectly. You could tell these guys really cared about their pizzas, as there was a bit of a mesh lining on the bottom of the box to prevent any potential dough sogginess. It had a sort of crumbly texture, but no sign of falling apart. The dough also had a pleasant buttery taste to it. Working my way inside, the mozzarella was gooey, melty and pretty much what you hope for with any pizza.

Then there were the meats, which filled the pizza perfectly. The sausage was definitely mild and hard to distinguish from the meatballs, although they both tasted great. The pepperoni, however, was amazing. It was thick, flavorful and did justice to Chicago’s historical relationship with meat. The three meats really balanced each other out and were so evenly dispersed that there was never any issue with having too much or too little meat. I was also amazed to find that their combination with the mozzarella didn’t give me a sodium overload. This sometimes seems to happen with Chicago-style pizza and I was glad to see that Hollywood Pies had avoided this pitfall.

Finally, the sauce and the parmesan cheese were like the perfect icing to my cake of a pizza. The sauce had a nice little spice kick to it that was just kind of saying, “Hello, I’m dancing on your taste buds,” without doing any sort of fire damage. It was actually so subtle that it didn’t distract at all from any of the other well-balanced ingredients. The parmesan, while delicious, was ultimately just parmesan cheese. It was certainly a necessary component of the pizza, but didn’t stand out at all.

My only problem with this entire undertaking was that I had little to compare this delicious pizza to. It felt a little lighter than the Chicago pizza of my memory, but perhaps this is just conjecture. There is no doubt that they nailed the uniqueness of Chicago-style pizza and captured some great flavors. Yet, I can’t help wondering how Hollywood Pies would stack up against some of Chicago’s greats. Fortunately, though, they don’t have to, because here in Los Angeles Hollywood Pies is currently the king of Chicago-style deep dish and I fully expect to be back again soon.

Given that you are taking the time to read this food post on this meat blog, I’m going to assume that you enjoy eating delicious meals with great company. We all have friends and family members with whom it is an absolute pleasure to share great meals and last night I had the special opportunity to do just that.

My friend Raffi and I bond greatly over very important things like food and football. Last night, he, his co-worker, and I went to a pizza restaurant in Chicago called Bricks. Bricks is located on a stretch on Lincoln Ave. with few other businesses and, as opposed to having a window-front, simply has an arched red awning over a staircase that leads down to the restaurant. Raffi and I are firm believers that you can judge a restaurant by its cover and even though the outside of Bricks is inconspicuous, it calls out at you and makes you think and/or say, “DAMN, this place is going to be GREAT!”

Inside, Bricks is a dimly lit catacomb with two rooms: the front, smaller room boasts a bar with a few tables while the back room is about 2-3 times the size and a bit more open. There is a general, but not overwhelming New Orleans theme to the restaurant and bar with paintings on the walls and light jazz music playing in the background. Its ambiance makes it a great place for a 3rd+ date or night out with a significant other but is probably too intimate for a 1st or 2nd.

The menu features a series of specialty pizzas as well as an option to build your own. With none of the specialties fulfilling my unvegan palate, I opted to go with a 10″ pepperoni and fennel sausage pizza. My two friends ordered un-unvegan specialty pizzas (they had meat but also gross, pizza-ruining vegetables) and took advantage of the half-off bottle of wine Tuesday special, splitting a bottle. I went with water instead of my usual Diet Coke (because I know you care deeply, I didn’t want to risk not being able to fall asleep, which had happened to me the night before from drinking a glass of Diet Coke too close to bedtime).

My friends’ pizzas arrived before mine. I let them stare longingly at their plates for about 1.5 seconds before demanding that they start before mine came because the only punishment more cruel and unusual than waiting for pizza to arrive after you order is having it right in front of you, but being paralyzed in waiting for that of your friend’s. From there, my pizza took what was probably five minutes (clearly they cared much more about delivering quality unvegan pizza instead of some quick veggies), but felt like hours to come as I stared despondently at their plates wishing I was eating pizza instead of waiting for it.

When my pizza finally did arrive, it took all my willpower to snap a picture of it for this post before digging in voraciously. I fulfilled my responsibility, though, and then tore into the pizza like I was Joey Chestnut. I usually eat my food pretty fast but am in a whole other stratosphere when it comes to pizza. When pizza is good (and pizza is always at least good but can come in varying degrees of good through transcendent), I don’t even mind burning the roof of my mouth. For the next two days, the blistery sensation that comes from this is less painful than it is a pleasant reminder of how great my pizza was.

Although my friends had a head start, I had fully caught up with them by the end of the second slice and lapped them as I finished my third. The pizza was very, very good. The ingredients were fresh and of high quality, its thin crust was of perfect texture, and it was cooked well-done which is a style that I prefer because of increased crunchiness. The sausage and pepperoni were especially succulent and I approved of the sauce : cheese : crust : toppings ratio which I won’t describe in numbers but will say that I know perfection in this realm when I eat it.

After I had finished four of the six slices, I had a decision to make. I absolutely love leftover pizza for breakfast and I was generally content. I was not, however, so full that I could not finish. Eating one slice and saving one would not be an option because one slice for breakfast would leave me unsatisfied and wanting more. I opted to channel my inner Louis CK (“The meal doesn’t stop when I’m full, the meal stops when I hate myself!”), I powered through the final two slices, leaving an empty plate that signaled domination for all (the waitress and my two friends) to see.

My friends ultimately finished their pizzas and I helped them out a little bit with the bottle of wine at the end. I do not have a fully developed opinion of whether Bricks is the best thin crust pizza in Chicago or is second best to Piece in Wicker Park, but the two are in a very close competition for the title. I imagine that at some point I will know for sure which is better (because my opinion is of course fact when it comes to pizza). We all left Bricks very satisfied with our mild food comas and will assuredly return one day.

-Another post from @RGSpiegel, often found wandering the vast expanse of his own blog.