I can tell you what I had the weekend before that I’m still obsessed with. I had a gig in St. Louis. Nice people, St. Louis, but I’ve never seen an entire city fuck up a pizza so bad. I get a ride from the airport to the hotel. We pass by an Imo’s pizza, which is a large chain there, and the guy starts getting a boner for this pizza place. So I go “Hey, how’s this place,” and he goes “awwww, dude, that place is the best in the city, you gotta go there. It’s an institution.” They make it St. Louis style. When I looked at it, I thought I was on some kind of hidden-camera prank show. The cheese they use, Provel, is part provolone cheese product, part Swiss cheese product, and part white Cheddar product. When it melts, it’s just kind of a gluey consistency, and when it dries it’s just kind of plastic. It stinks — like, literally, it smells bad. The dough, they probably fucked it up as bad, or worse, than the cheese. They make their pizza with no yeast, so I would like to say it’s like a cracker or a round matzoh, but it’s like a really shitty stale cracker. And then they have barely any sauce on it and it seemed like it came out of a can 50 years ago. I’ve never seen a place miss all three elements of the pizza.
It's a rare ay that I condone any form of Pizza style bashing, I love them all, but in this rare case I have to agree with the views of Judah Friedlander, St Louis should stick to arch construction. I thought I had a bad pie my first time there, but after seeing those plasticized rounds of processed cheese food on my pie everywhere i went, I was done.
I have never had St. Louis pizza after all these years, nor any of my reviewers submit a St. Louis review to the site, so I do not think I can comment on this!
Yet I will! Because I feel the need to comment on every post here simply to mention my own site!
Seriously, pizzaexpert. Your self-referential comments are getting really old. Hardly any of them advance the discussion at hand and are simply obvious ploys to remind us of your pizza-review site.
We get it. Now can you either make relevant, insightful comments here or just can it?
It's rare that I will stick up for St. Louis, but I lived there for nine months and have a very small soft spot for Imo's and provel cheese (which is actually a processed cheese product a la American cheese). Imo's does not serve a high-quality pie, but that's not really its purpose. It's a cheap, widely available pizza that can be made by people who are not particularly invested in their cooking skills. And provel has a nice tang to it that I don't crave, but also try not to miss whenever I'm in St. Louis.
Friedlander hits it right on the head with this one -- provel is awful and has no place on pizza. In fact, I think I've said that before on this blog. Good to hear someone with some sense put it out there.
@Adam: send pizzaexpert's comments to /dev/null in the future. You're the moderator after all!
Whether your sitting at Imo's, Two Nice Guys on Manchester or ordering it Mama Lucia's frozen from Schnuck's -- there's no denying the flavor of a st. louey-style pizza gentlemen. It is frankly, sublime.
Mr. Freidlander, clearly no gastronome...has some palate issues!
Hate is a pretty strong term. Personally, I do not care for St. Louis style pizza. There were a few Imo's pizza restaurants that opened in the Kansas City area back in the 90's. I think they are all gone now (there might be one left somewhere in the city). St. Louis style is a take off of what I would call the traditional Midwestern American bar type pizza. It is thin, party-cut, and relatively cheap, both in price and in taste. And of course, they use Provol, which I do not like. It serves a purpose, I guess, but for me, I would much rather sink my teeth into a Chicago deep-dish pizza any day of the week. At least they use real mozzarella and provolone cheese.
checked out dudes site because you called him out, definitely will fail. He's FAR from a pizza expert. That has to be one of the lamest attempts at a comment. I just want to comment that i can't comment on this, just a comment so everyone knows i run a shitty site and talk out of my ass.
Adam, I can only plead that you refrain from posting anymore St. Louis pizza reports before noon. It's too much for my brain and my G-I tract. Maybe Alice Waters should visit St Louis for an intensive organic foods seminar. If there's an upside to this pizza abomination, its that there were no photos accompanying the article. Considering some of his unusual choices for top pizza in America, maybe we should take up a collection and send Alan Richman to Imo's. BTW, in my day, "imo" was a derogatory description of any suspect product.(As in imitation)
1st mistake - I had Imo's for the first time in 1991.
2nd mistake- got pushed into moving here in 2001
OK, I'm a dumbass, Anyway, I always said Imo's pizza was glue on cardboard, with ketchup with for a kick. Fair enough, but I also said many many times that Imo's tastes like shit. This was brutally unfair, shit didn't deserve to be insulted like that. I hereby offer my sincere apologizes to shit for repeatedly making that cruel comparison.
Adam I think it is your duty to make a trip to St. Louis and try some of our fantastic pizza. Don't listen to the haters, they apparently had their tastebuds removed at a young age.
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13 Comments:
It's a rare ay that I condone any form of Pizza style bashing, I love them all, but in this rare case I have to agree with the views of Judah Friedlander, St Louis should stick to arch construction. I thought I had a bad pie my first time there, but after seeing those plasticized rounds of processed cheese food on my pie everywhere i went, I was done.
Chefhorn at 2:14PM on 05/22/09
All of the reasons he lists is why it's some of the greatest fucking pizza around. ;)
stewmeat at 3:27PM on 05/22/09
I have never had St. Louis pizza after all these years, nor any of my reviewers submit a St. Louis review to the site, so I do not think I can comment on this!
pizzaexpert at 5:06PM on 05/22/09
Imos is so garbage. One of the many reasons that St. Louis is a joke
mcboomofdoom at 5:53PM on 05/22/09
"... I do not think I can comment on this!"
Yet I will! Because I feel the need to comment on every post here simply to mention my own site!
Seriously, pizzaexpert. Your self-referential comments are getting really old. Hardly any of them advance the discussion at hand and are simply obvious ploys to remind us of your pizza-review site.
We get it. Now can you either make relevant, insightful comments here or just can it?
Adam Kuban at 6:22PM on 05/22/09
It's rare that I will stick up for St. Louis, but I lived there for nine months and have a very small soft spot for Imo's and provel cheese (which is actually a processed cheese product a la American cheese). Imo's does not serve a high-quality pie, but that's not really its purpose. It's a cheap, widely available pizza that can be made by people who are not particularly invested in their cooking skills. And provel has a nice tang to it that I don't crave, but also try not to miss whenever I'm in St. Louis.
Daniel Zemans at 6:49PM on 05/22/09
Friedlander hits it right on the head with this one -- provel is awful and has no place on pizza. In fact, I think I've said that before on this blog. Good to hear someone with some sense put it out there.
@Adam: send pizzaexpert's comments to /dev/null in the future. You're the moderator after all!
BrianPrestonCampbell at 7:01PM on 05/22/09
This is an outrage!
I take umbrage!
I hail from the gateway to the west...St. Louis.
Whether your sitting at Imo's, Two Nice Guys on Manchester or ordering it Mama Lucia's frozen from Schnuck's -- there's no denying the flavor of a st. louey-style pizza gentlemen. It is frankly, sublime.
Mr. Freidlander, clearly no gastronome...has some palate issues!
Mrpinstrypes at 8:05PM on 05/22/09
Hate is a pretty strong term. Personally, I do not care for St. Louis style pizza. There were a few Imo's pizza restaurants that opened in the Kansas City area back in the 90's. I think they are all gone now (there might be one left somewhere in the city). St. Louis style is a take off of what I would call the traditional Midwestern American bar type pizza. It is thin, party-cut, and relatively cheap, both in price and in taste. And of course, they use Provol, which I do not like. It serves a purpose, I guess, but for me, I would much rather sink my teeth into a Chicago deep-dish pizza any day of the week. At least they use real mozzarella and provolone cheese.
Mad Ernie at 10:26PM on 05/22/09
checked out dudes site because you called him out, definitely will fail. He's FAR from a pizza expert. That has to be one of the lamest attempts at a comment. I just want to comment that i can't comment on this, just a comment so everyone knows i run a shitty site and talk out of my ass.
tonecapo at 12:56AM on 05/23/09
Adam, I can only plead that you refrain from posting anymore St. Louis pizza reports before noon. It's too much for my brain and my G-I tract. Maybe Alice Waters should visit St Louis for an intensive organic foods seminar. If there's an upside to this pizza abomination, its that there were no photos accompanying the article. Considering some of his unusual choices for top pizza in America, maybe we should take up a collection and send Alan Richman to Imo's. BTW, in my day, "imo" was a derogatory description of any suspect product.(As in imitation)
L.A. Pizza Maven at 11:56AM on 05/23/09
I'm from NY
1st mistake - I had Imo's for the first time in 1991.
2nd mistake- got pushed into moving here in 2001
OK, I'm a dumbass, Anyway, I always said Imo's pizza was glue on cardboard, with ketchup with for a kick. Fair enough, but I also said many many times that Imo's tastes like shit. This was brutally unfair, shit didn't deserve to be insulted like that. I hereby offer my sincere apologizes to shit for repeatedly making that cruel comparison.
provelsux at 9:39PM on 05/25/09
Adam I think it is your duty to make a trip to St. Louis and try some of our fantastic pizza. Don't listen to the haters, they apparently had their tastebuds removed at a young age.
stewmeat at 10:14AM on 05/26/09