st. louis food: part 2!

while in st. louis, i had pizza from two different establishments. and when i say two different establishments, i mean it in every sense of the word.

first up was late night take-out from imo's (note the arch on the box):

for those of you who haven't had imo's (which, i'm guessing, is a lot) - its more than a chain: its an enigma. this is because they use a little something called provel. I would have written provel cheese, except its not technically cheese; its a pasteurized "cheese product."

yup.

go back to the highlighted link, click on it, and read all about provel. its definitely an acquired taste. but, if you're from st. louis, you love this stuff. even vegetarians who eat lots of vegan meals and don't eat processed foods, try to buy organic, etc., become happy in the presence of provel, just because they grew up with it. i have seen it happen.

and, apparently, imo's is the way to go...

note the very thin crust and the numerous square cuts. lets go in for a closer look, shall we?

now, for me, this is just fine...if i don't think of it as pizza. because i'm from philadelphia, and i know better. instead, its a fun type of flatbread melt. and, in that mindframe, its really not so bad. these are tiny, and light, and given the chance, one could eat the better part of one pizza. so, in the words of en vogue, free your mind, and rest will follow..

**

and now, in the other corner, we have pi.

at pi, they have have t-shirts that say "no provel" on them. that should just about say it all. instead, they are a self-profressed green restaurant. they are organic and local. they have cloth napkins!

and they have fancy schmancy menu options. they have to, in order to impress the president enough to snub his native chicago and order a deep dish style pie from this place (and by the way, i plugged "obama, pi, pizza, and st. louis" into google, and over 100,000 hits came up. its kind of insane how controversial a couple pizzas can be, isn't it?). the pie we chose consisted of fresh tomato sauce, olives, non-provel cheese and zucchini. and we ordered the famous cornmeal deep dish crust - which is really not a crust in the traditional sense but actually a flaky pastry. here she is:

the thing about deep dish is that they are incredibly sneaky; they don't look like much, but this fed four adults.

yup - two of these slices was all i could handle. and... i'd go back again. actually, to both, just to say i did.

thank you very much, st. louis.