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    Wholly Joe’s Pizza Review

    Around dinner time yesterday, I was in the mood for Chicago-style pizza. And because the craving hit me late in the afternoon, there wasn’t nearly enough time to make it myself. Having heard generally good things about the pizza from Wholly Joe’s, a friend of mine and I headed up to Polaris to give it a try.

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    When we walked in, I was a bit concerned by the pictures of their pizza that were hanging from the ceiling or otherwise adorning the wall. In all the pictures, the top of the pizza was covered in cheese. As any Chicago-style pizza aficionado will tell you, a pizza should be topped by the a thick chunky sauce, with the cheese underneath. Still, I was willing to let something like that pass; after all, as long as the sauce is good, it would be just a matter of style over substance.

    I was relieved of a bit of my trepidation when we approached the counter to order. The sign stated there would be a 40 minute wait for a deep dish pizza. That was a relief, because at least it signaled that they weren’t going to try and rush the pie. They were going to take the proper time and give it the attention and baking time it deserved. (Long baking time is a key to proper Chicago-style pizza. Some of the satellite operations of the big Chicago names will let you make reservations/call ahead so that you don’t have to wait to be seated and then wait for your pizza to bake.)

    We ordered a large pizza with sausage, mushrooms, green pepper and onion. Pretty much the standard slate of toppings for a Chicago-style pizza. After placing our order, we went and found a seat while we waited for them to call our number. About 40 minutes later, as promised, they brought our pizza out to us. It looked pretty much as advertised in the pictures: thick, topped with lots of cheese and flecked with dried spiced on top. We were also given plastic knives, forks and plates.

    (Plastic does NOT work in this situation. More often then not, attempting to cut the pizza simply pushed it around on the slippery plastic plate. A great deal of force was required to hold a slice steady as I attempted to saw through the crust with the dull plastic knife. From the way the fork bent at times, I was afraid I was going to break it in half as I attempted to hold my pizza still enough for it to be cut.)

    As I dished up the pizza, I noticed a reddish liquid bubbling up from the insides of the pizza in the places where it had been pre-sliced for us. I initially thought it was grease, which, I thought was a sign there’d be a lot of sausage on the pizza. I was wrong on both counts: it wasn’t grease and the quantity of sausage was minimal.

    No, this reddish stuff, which eventually oozed out and covered the cardboard disk was apparently the sauce. It wasn’t a matter of juice being cooked out of an otherwise thick sauce however. I’m not entirely sure where the juice came from, because there didn’t seem to be any sauce to speak of. If it weren’t an utterly absurd suggestion, I would think that they had simply poured tomato juice on the pizza. (I tried taking a picture of this with my phone, but as I look at it now, the “sauce” can barely be seen. So I’m not even going to bother trying to upload it somewhere. The visual would be of no benefit because there really isn’t one.)

    The other toppings were barely noticeable. As I said, there was a minimal amount of sausage. I think on one slice I had there were maybe one or two pieces. The other toppings had been diced quite small, and used sparingly. Their small size also led them to get lost in the cheese (which perhaps has clouded my perception of how many there actually were), larger pieces would have made them stand out much more. The one exception was the mushrooms. There were quite a few of these. Their quality didn’t really impress however, and while I can’t be 100% sure without seeing the kitchen, they tasted canned.

    The crust wasn’t bad, but it didn’t do anything to offset the other negatives of the pizza. It was rather bready and bland. It didn’t add much to the pizza, but it didn’t really take anything away either. I think that if the pizza itself was better, the crust would be suitable. But, in this case, by the time I reached the end of a slice I was looking for some redemption for the pizza, but the crust wasn’t it.

    My friend who went with me loves pizza. I’d reckon that he’d eat pizza everyday if possible. His reaction was similar to mine. As we sat, looking at our half eaten pizza he commented “yeah, that wasn’t so good.”

    While I couldn’t in good faith recommend the deep dish pizza to anyone, the Italian beef sandwiches I saw other people eating looked (and smelled) absolutely delicious. I must admit to being jealous of their dinning decisions. Although trips to Polaris are few and far between for me, I’d be willing to give Joe’s another try. You can bet that I won’t be getting pizza next time around though.

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