Testing: Deep dish pie at Garces Trading Company

The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.

0 comments

Testing: Deep dish pie at Garces Trading Company

POSTED: Monday, March 1, 2010, 5:00 PM

Filed Under: Eat This Immediately | Testing | Weird Regional Foods

Photos | Drew Lazor

Jose Garces' iteration of Chicago deep-dish pizza at his new Garces Trading Company at 11th and Locust has few counterparts here -- Philly just isn't a deep-dish kind of place, and we're guessing the same can be said for pretty much any city that ain't as Windy as the Iron Chef's hometown. (NYPD Pizza, just a block away from GTC off 11th and Walnut, has a deep-dish pie on its menu, but we have yet to try it.) This hyper-regional style tends to elicit hisses from the pizza cognoscenti, mostly because it in no way resembles the traditional Neapolitan or "Brooklyn-style" slices that seem to be analogous with "proper" pie. The crust shoots up roughly 2 inches all the way around, forming a cracker-like corral for chunky San Marzano tomato confit, murderous mounds of mozzarella and whatever "toppings" (more like fillings) you'd like. (For this pie, which GTC kindly treated us to on Friday, we added meatballs; other options include eggplant, chorizo, artichokes and cipollinis. Full menu here.)

A deep dish is really more of a casserole than a pizza, and that means you eat it with utensils. This is a good casserole. The sheer volume of ingredients means your fork transforms into a sort of medieval trebuchet, heaving deadly/delicious cargo into the besieged castle that is your mouth. The chunky sauce is sweeter than you might expect; the mozz is gooey and generous; the mild, crunchy crust maintains its crisp as you steadily decimate it. There are two things that may make you wary about ponying up for the deep dish. The first is the wait: The beast requires 30 minutes of bake time, meaning it's not an ideal choice for a quickie lunch. The second is the price tag: $24 is the base cost, and toppings run $5 to $8 (the ominous "market price" for crab). This sounds pricey to those of us accustomed to spending no more than $12 to $15 on a pie, but keep in mind that it's enough grub to coma-tize three, maybe four. (To be fair, you could probably say the same about a traditional pie.) All told, Garces' deep dish will probably grow to become more of a now-and-again group indulgence than a weekly Wednesday night pizza-and-DVD affair. But it's quite an indulgence.

Brett

Posted 2010-03-01 12:05:05

Good looks, i've been wondering about this pie since i saw the menu a few weeks back.. Looks tasty

uberVU - social comments

Posted 2010-03-04 19:33:55

Social comments and analytics for this post...

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mealticket: Testing: Chicago deep-dish pizza at Garces Trading Company http://bit.ly/bn6Q2Z (cc @slice)...

Mary

Posted 2010-05-29 21:28:26

The picture looks good, the pie was not.  They brought it out super hot, the second we cut it the cheese ran all over the table.  Too much cheese, not very fresh tasting, not worth the wait.

Posted by Drew Lazor @ 5:00 PM Permalink | Post a comment

0 comments

Comments (0)

First Gigs: Jeff Ziga, Little Baby's Ice Cream
If you don't know Nutella is bad for you and your kids, then you are a total idiot and a bad parent.
An edible guide to Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival
Notes from the Weekend: May 20
Hell's Kitchen casting in Philly
Frozen Drinks Alert: Water ice cocktails at Noir
Spike TV's "Bar Rescue" turns Swanky Bubbles into Sheer
Now Serving: Jerry's Bar
Real Talk: 50 Things They Never Told You About Being a Chef
Night Market Watch

About this blog

Founded in October 2008, Meal Ticket is a City Paper blog about food, drink and assorted other things that make you go mmm. We do recipes, interviews, restaurant news, commentary and much more. We don't do restaurant reviews here — those are handled in print, mostly by our critic (and Meal Ticket contributor) Adam Erace. Got a tip, question, thought or concern? Just want to say hello? Please shoot a note to caroline@citypaper.net.

Follow team Meal Ticket on Twitter:

@mealticket | @carolinerussock | @adamerace

Search this blog:

Topics:

Blog archives:

May
April
March

February
January