It Must've Been A Good Time

Because it started with this:



And ended with these:



I guess I've got some esplainin' to do about the middle part, huh?

Tuesday was my day off, and I didn't do a whole lot--slept in, surfed the net, listened to some music--the usual. Rob worked that day, but came home and took a long nap.

The plan that evening was to go get some deep-dish Chicago-style pizza and then head over to his old roommate's place for a night of cheap craps and cheap beer. So once he finally drug his lazy ass out of bed, we headed over to Amore's on the West Side (I think it's on Durango, just north of Flaming-O).

The restaurant sits in a strip mall with a bar and a Chinese take-out, with one helluva nice view of the Strip from the parking lot. We got there a little after 8:30, and by 8:45, we had our root beers (no liquor license yet), and had ordered our meal. We were going to go with two individual ten-inch pizzas, but the waitress talked us into a large, saving us a few bucks. Enough to buy an indistinct, almost bland, basket of breaded mushrooms.

As far as our pizza goes, we got it half & half--Rob's half was sausage and onion, my half was pepperoni and mushroom. Then we settled in for the long haul, as it takes almost an hour to cook one of those monsters. We nibbled on mushrooms and warm bread with butter, but paced ourselves, knowing that we had a huge pie coming our way.

The decor of the restaurant was fairly simple--the walls were full of pictures of both Vegas and Chicago icons, we sat on stackable banquet chairs, but the tables were cool as hell. Each one featured a Vegas landmark on the dining surface, blown up full-table sized and glassed in. I *really* wanted to steal the one with the Bellagio fountains, but they probably would've caught us.

After our mandatory waiting period had passed, our waitress brought out a huge piping hot pan full of Chicagoey goodness.

The long-awaited virgin slice.

You see how thick that is? I swear each slice weighed almost a full pound. It smelled and looked great, although at first glance I was a little disappointed in the weak distribution of mushroom slices. But I got over it after my first bite.

The pizza is great--no doubt about it. I enjoyed it immensely. But I'm a thin-crust guy, so the thick crust doesn't do it for me. Luckily, they'd brought a huge bowl of ranch dressing with our mushrooms, so we had plenty left over for me to dip my crusts in, and I was pacified. Rob and I did a little horse-trading and I tried a slice of the sausage and onion, and honestly we both thought it was better than the pepperoni. Next time I go, my toppings du jour will be sausage and black olive. Onions are great, but I think they go better with ham. Years of research has taught me this.

But the question on everybody's mind is, Is it better than Grimaldi's?

And the answer to that is a resounding NO. Not that you can really compare the two, but in the immense pizza universe, Grimaldi's stands head and shoulders above any and all competition. Is it the best Chicago-style pizza? Well, it's pretty damn good, and I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I am an aficianado of the thin stuff, and my experience with deep-dish pizza is limited at best. I guess more testing is required.

Anyhow, Rob and I both waved the white flag of surrender after just two pieces each, boxing up half of it to go.

The remains of the day. Notice that our ranch dressing was served in a cereal bowl.

We were so full that we took a few minutes to digest before attempting to waddle out of there. I think the entire bill came to $34 with tip, which ain't too shabby considering we both got two meals out of the deal. Good meals.

After dinner, we drove over to Chris's place to spend the rest of our night, and all of our loose change, playing five-cent craps. I had a few really nice long rolls at the beginning, but I ended up losing the contents of my wallet and change jar, while Rob managed to make his single dollar buy-in last all night long. Bastard.

Notice the rough-hewn Adirondack-style sideboards, and sitting down to play craps gives the whole experience an El Cortez-like vibe. Well, that and the fact we were drinking cheapass beer.

It was a pretty good time, almost like a party atmosphere because there were about ten people there at one point. I even did a shot of Southern Comfort and Lime juice with the chick whose boobs are featured at the top of the post. I have no idea who she was--I just met her that night.

We didn't give Chris any of our leftover pizza, but he said he was hungry for melons, instead.

As far as the SoCo and Lime goes, it wasn't a bad shot. I've had worse. And it sure as hell tasted better than the skunky canned Miller Lite that Rob had dug up from the bowels of our fridge and brought along. Oh my god it was awful.

Imagine a crappy tasting beer in a glass, then up the ante by going down to your basement, finding a damp and moldy piece of cardboard, and then putting a chunk of it in the glass of beer overnight. 24 hours later, remove it and eat the cardboard. That's what the beer tasted like. It was so bad that I couldn't even finish ONE of them.

But since we were having a good time, and doing occasional shots, we ended up staying way too late. I think it was like 3:45 in the morning before we took off and headed for home. Of course we stayed up and watched the previous evening's Jeopardy episode that we'd recorded, but after that, I went to bed, while Rob stayed up till well past dawn farting around watching TV and YouTube and such.

Because of that, we didn't do the donut taste test yesterday morning. Hell, I didn't get out of bed until 1:00 in the afternoon, and I didn't even see Rob until 4:30.

Maybe if I get some sleep, I'll be motivated to go down and fetch some donuts later this morning. We shall see.

Mikey