Giordano's March 17, 2010

By my third night in Orlando, I wanted to do something unique to the Orlando area. I read about a restaurant that servers Peanut Butter and Jelly cheeseburgers and went in search of the restaurant. Either the GPS unit led me astray or the restaurant didn't exist anymore, but when I got to the location, there was only an Olive Garden and a Burger King at the location. I continued driving down the street and spied a Giordano's Pizza and parked.

Giordano's is a Chicago chain specializing in Chicago style deep dish and stuffed pizza. For those of you who don't know the difference, a deep dish is a pizza served in a very deep dish while a stuffed pizza is a deep dish pizza served with another crust on top. The stuffed pizza usually consists of (from the bottom up) Crust, toppings and cheese, another crust, and sauce.







I ordered an ice tea and a medium Special Stuffed Pizza which consists of Italian sausage, green peppers, mushrooms and onions. I intentionally ordered the medium (normally for 3-4 people) so I would have leftovers the following night. My pizza came out about 30 minutes later piping hot and smelling delicious. Stuffed pizzas take approximately 30-35 minutes to prepare so get ready for a wait. The wait is so very very worth the time, though.




The great thing about Giordano's or any really good pizza place is the fact that they use real mozzarella instead of some cheese product. Notice the intense stretch of the many strands of mozzarella cheese on the picture of the slice of pizza. That's real mozzarella baby and it's a thing of beauty. I'm drooling just looking at it right now.




The cold leftover pizza was still tasty, but I've come to the conclusion that stuffed pizza aren't as good as regular pizza the day after. The toppings and cheese were still heavenly, but the crust became hard and crumbly. Stuffed pizzas are good the day of and not so good the day after.

I could easily see myself indulging in stuffed pizza again and I'd probably drive 35 minutes to get one, but unfortunately, Chicago is a tad bit more than a 35 minute drive.