That’s (not) AMORE to Anyone but Chicagoans
ELV loathes deep dish pizza with every fiber of his body. He hates everything about it: the dough, the surfeit of sauce, and the commodious cheap cheese that invariably adorns it.
He hates even the idea of deep dish pizza and wishes every fat Chicagoan that popularized it would walk around with a sign around their neck that says: “I owe it all to the world’s most prosaic food.”
On second thought, most deep dish lovers wouldn’t know a prosaic from a prostate, so perhaps the sign should read: “The Deep Dish Devil Did This To Me.” Regardless, deep dish pies are all that is abhorrent about America’s eating habits: A celebration of quantity over quality, made without thought, art or concern for the human body.
That being said, the deep dish pie at Amore is pretty darn good. Topped with a fresh, bright tomato sauce, not too much cheese, and made to order, these belly busters are surprisingly digestible and tasty to boot.
Enjoying one, for ELV, was kind of like enjoying a song or a comedy routine from some artist we hate. A certain cognitive dissonance sets in almost immediately, and soon, even something as caloric and in-artful as a slice of Amore’s made-to-order deep dish wins you over with a certain charm even he can’t ignore.
But if you get addicted to the darn things and gain twenty pounds….and start looking like this, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
AMORE PIZZA & PASTA
3945 South Durango Drive Suite A8
Las Vegas, NV 89147
702.562.9000
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
April 5th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
You had me going there. I was getting ready to ask when ELV was replaced by B.R. Myers, and then you go into the turn in paragraph 4, and my blood pressure drops back to measurable levels.
You’re certainly correct that Chicago style pizza *can* be all the bad things you describe, but that’s true about any kind of pizza, or just about anything worth eating. Moreover, sure you can gorge yourself on deep dish, but I’m not sure you’d be any better off eating the same weight of New York pizza. In fact, given a choice I’ll take the health benefits of the Chicago-style crushed tomatoes over anyone’s processed sauce.
I like the deep dish at Amore, but I think Rosati’s does it a little better. Still, I have yet to encounter the form executed sublimely outside of the central time zone. If it’s done well enough, I don’t regret the search.
Keep at it. Pretty soon we’ll have you preaching the virtue of turkey burgers.
April 6th, 2011 at 6:53 am
“A celebration of quantity over quality, made without thought, art or concern for the human body.” — sounds more like Hash House A-Go Go. That place is awful. If you want massive portions with the least amount of flavor and dishes that completely lack any remanence of seasoning – HH is your place.
April 7th, 2011 at 11:00 am
As a very new member of the fair city of Chicago, I have had the past five months of winter to sample as many deep dish pizzas as possible. Having eaten at Amore when I was still in Vegas, I remember it was a pretty decent pie, even if you have to wait 50 minutes for the damn thing to come out. It’s no Lou Malnatti’s, but it’ll do on one of those cold, below-zero, Vegas winter nights. Wait…nevermind.