Restaurant Review: Uno Chiacgo Grill

280 Huntington Avenue, 
Boston, MA‎
(617) 424-1697
www.unos.com


Photo: Entrance

Shortly after arriving in Boston, Me and my friends found ourselves lacking energy. We've been up early to catch a flight this was the first place I saw as we were walking along the streets of Boston. I have this fasination and curiosity about deep dish pizza after seeing it on the first time on the travel channel. On that channel they showed UNO, the original location where this pie was originated from. I was in search of one of these locations in Toronto, but the taste of the pizza was quite disappointing.


Photo: Sampler

We arrives slightly before lunch hour and there was no lineup. We sat down and picked our food quickly.  We first decided on the sampler which had a great variety of finger food.  They sure went away fairly quickly.  There was an avocado perogie, mild chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, some fries and chicken fingers.  They were all lightly fried to a crisp, and my personal favorite would be the mozzarella sticks.  The cheese was ozing out and it was perfectly battered.  Then next would be the avocado perogies, it wasn't that ripe and was well constructed and nothing fell out of it as you were eating it.  The other items was also prepared nicely but these 2 items just stood out.


Photo: Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza

Now onto the main course.  It didn't take too long for the pie to come out.  We decided to get the Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza.  The Ingredients contained Italian Sauages, Mozzarella, Tomato sauce. Very simple toppings but it was filled to the top.  We got the large size for 3 people to share.  When the pizza arrived at the table, the size was quite small.  Once we cracked open the pizza, we saw the amount of toppings inside and how much cheese it contained.  It reminded me of pizza hut.  I was disappointed that on TV the pizza was deeper and had even more toppings, I was hoping about 1 inch thick.  First bite into the pizza it tasted good, but I had such high hopes of being it more like a lasagna than a pizza. As I was chowing down to the end near the crust, I noticed it was more like the crust of an apple pie.  It crumbled and tasted very much like a pastry and mixed well with the tomato sauce.  After another slice I found myself to be quite full now.


Photo: A Slice of the Pie

After this meal, I was satisfied and thought of how different it was to the other deep dish pizza I had last time.  But couldn't find it much different to pizza hut's pizza with loads of toppings, except the crust was constructed differently.  If this franchais was around in Toronto, I would most definitely revisit it, but until I goto Chicago to find another original deep dish pizza joint, I am still not 100% satisfied.  Overall, everything was good, service, food, atmosphere.  The price was not overly expensive and the total bill came to around $35 after taxes and tip. 


Photo: Fresh From the Oven

I would rate it 3/5
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Restaurant Review: Chicago Pizza Kitchen

2338 MAJOR MACKENZIE DRIVE,
MAPLE ON.
Chicago Pizza Kitchen Unit #1
Just West of Keele street.

Phone: (905) 303 - 4030
http://www.chicagopizzakitchen.ca/

This has been my first review in quite some time.  Not that I've stopped eating out, but just nothing really exciting to review.  I've been a big fan of Chicago deep dish pizza after learning about this type of pizza from the travel channel, and trying to locate an establishment in Toronto that serves this type of pizza.  The first time I've tried it was at UNO in New York and it wasn't as good as it looked on television, then I've heard about this place from Redflagdeal's food forum.  This is my second time going to this place, but the first time really didn't count since they are not opened on mondays.  Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me today and had no pictures, but I still decided to give it a review, while its fresh in my head.

This place is really on the outskirts of the GTA and just very close to Canada's wonderland.  The location is pretty good, and looks like lots of regular customers that would goto this place and get delivery.  This place is family friendly, and the staff is very nice when I went on a sunday evening.  They have a very small seating area, about 20 people inside and maybe another 15 on the patio.  Once I stepped in I already knew I wasn't going to be as hungry as I thought I would be because there was no air conditioning on the inside and it was quite windy outside.

The menu is quite good and there is lots of selection and everything is laid out pretty good and easy to navigate and making decisions seem very easy.  I went there for their deep dish pizza so I ordered the Classic which had, sausage, mushroom, green peppers and onions.  All their deep dish pizza are cut into 8 slices, and will take 30 mins to be ready.  In the mean time, we ordered some potatoes wedges with cheese and mayo.  They were fried to a crisp, with lots of cheese and mayo on top, but there wasn't anything special about this dish.  Its missing the pop, or that extra something to make it better, it tasted very plain to the point just like eating potatoes.  I didn't want to fill myself up with that and there was a quarter of the plate left of the wedges.

I had quite an expectation from this place, although I haven't had a deep dish pizza from Chicago, but was thinking it would be as good as New York's UNO.  If your looking for photos, all the pizza's I've seen them serve are actually the same looking as the one on the website.  When it was brought to our table, the waitress served us a slice and noticed that the sauce wasn't very thick, and just fell off the pizza, but there was still lots on it.  There was mini tomato chunks and parsley on top, very home made and watery looking.  When I cut it with my knife I was expecting the cheese to ooze out of the pizza, unfortunately it didn't do that, and I was very disappointed.  Then when cutting down to the bottom, I was expecting a crispy crust and again I was disappointed.  At this point, I didn't even put the pizza into my mouth.  When it went in, it wasn't as good as I would of liked.  I liked the UNO's deep dish from New York much better, and even Papa Johns much better.  After eating 2 slices, it didn't stimulate my taste buds enough, and my appetite was diminishing from the heat and humidity.  I don't like wasting food as I took the rest home.

I've had the chance to use their restroom this time.  I would like to say that its not the cleanist, but it doesn't smell, and all the toiletry was filled up.  For a very small place I would say that is pretty good.  As I left they were very friendly the owner and waitress looked happy and greeted us good bye.  My overall impression of the food wasn't the greatest and I don't think I will go back.  I was originally going to eat there yesterday but was glad I didn't since I was bring a couple of my friends with me.

I would give this place 1/5

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