I'm in the mood for pizza. I haven't had it in months. This Neapolitan invention has traveled all over the world, and now can be found in forms that are often unrecognizable from the original pizza Margherita. What is pizza like in your region, and what are your favorite variations and toppings?
Here in the D.C. area, we have a local chain called Ledo that serves a unique square pizza with smoked provolone cheese and a really sweet tomato sauce. The crust is thin, crispy, and flaky (almost like pie crust):
Recently, we've had a glut of boutique pizzerias that pride themselves on serving "authentic Neapolitan" pizza with the requisite, certified ingredients imported from Italy and in custom-built ovens. I've only been to one of these restaurants, a place called 2Amys whose pizza looks like this and is pretty good:
We also have a New Haven-style pizza place called Pete's Pizza. New Haven-style pizza is similar to classic New York-style, except the crust is crispier and firmer and they use a much more varied array of toppings. It has really grown on me lately:
I have yet to find a good New York-style pizza in this region, unfortunately.
I don't like Chicago-style (deep dish) or California-style pizza very much. The former is just too doughy and overloaded with cheese and the latter is... not pizza to me. Of the nationwide chains, I used to actually like Pizza Hut's pan pizza, but they've changed the crust and it tastes like cardboard now. Domino's now has a pan pizza that tastes like the old Pizza Hut, but I don't like patronizing that company.