Item #18 - Eat at Pizzeria Regina and Santarpio's

I've now spent the majority of my live in either the Detroit area or the Boston area (I also spent 2 years living in West Lafayette in middle-of-freaking-nowhere Indiana, but we're just going to try and forget about those two years because, well, as i said, it was in the middle of nowhere).

Anyway, having spent extensive time in both Boston and Detroit, I have a pretty good idea now of what each city can do better than the other. Their pro's, their con's. Strengths and weaknesses. For example, based on my knowledge and my experience, here is a brief list of things that Boston has over Detroit:

• Better crime rate
• Better schools
• Better bar scene
• Better history
• Better employment rate
• Better pay
• Better restaurants
• Better mass transit
• Better hospitals
• Better museums
• Better pro sports teams (based on current success)
• Better looking quarterback (yowza!)
• Better shopping
• Better beer selections

So I guess Boston's a decent town, ya know, if you consider any of those things to be important for whatever reason.  Really, unless your name is Captain Detroit (like my buddy Drew), it's pretty damn tough to put together any type of argument for Detroit over Boston on any sort of large-scale debate. But, that doesn't mean Detroit isn't complete devoid of any sort of  . . . charm?

I feel like talking about Detroit is kind of like talking about your race. I know Detroit is in rut. A loooooooong loooooong rut without all that much hope in sight (though I hope and pray it does find a way out of this rut). And I'll talk shit about Detroit to anyone. But I lived there. I'm allowed to. You can take the boy out of Detroit, but you can't the Detroit out of the boy, etc (despite the fact that I write this as a white boy who grew up in the uber-white middle-class suburb of Sterling Heights, AKA, Sterling Whites, 9 miles from the Detroit city limits). But when I hear people out here talk shit about Detroit, I want to say "fuck you, man. You're not one of us. You can't use those words about Detroit. Only we Detroiters can say that about Detroit" (because I actually went to downtown 4 times a year from the burbs . . . . thug life, holla).

But Detroit does have it's positive points:

• Better music. The "music scene" might be better in Boston, but you can't argue the people repping the cities. Detroit has something for everyone - Eminem, the White Stripes, Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, Bob Seager, Madonna, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, just to name a few. Oh, and it kind of has entire genre named after it in "Motown." But for all of it's history in other aspects in life, Boston comes up pretty damn weak in music. Aerosmith? Overrated. New Kids on the Block? Lame. Dropkick Murphy's? Nobody outside New England cares. And of course, Marky Mark. Though I'm unfamiliar with the origins of his Funky Bunch
• Better casinos. Sure, Boston doesn't have them yet, and thus you have to drive 2 hours to get to one, but technically, Detroit's are then better.
• Lower cost of living. You can buy a house for $100. No seriously. Probably what you might call a "fixer upper."

But the one that matters here is that Detroit by far has better pizza. Boston's got a stranglehold on the restaurant biz on the whole, what with Detroit's infatuation on chain restaurants, but 90% of the pizza out here is generic "(insert city name) House of Pizza." And it's crap.

Though really, pizza is kind of like sex. Even when you have a bad piece of pie, in the scheme of life, it's still pretty damn good.

The 2 best places I've been to out here have been Uno's (for deep dish) and Bertucci's, and both of those are giant chains. And before the yuppie Bostonians start crying, yes, I've had Upper Crust. It's decent, but it's overpriced and overrated, and your opinion of it is wrong.

Hi-Fi Pizza also gets a nod here. But while I've had it 20 or so times (including last night), I still think I've yet to have it less than 5 beers deep and anytime before 1:00am. So the jury is out on it's actual deliciousness. 

But Detroit has a much better batting average when it comes to quality pizza. Pizzapapalis in Greektown is probably my favorite deep dish place around. Buddy's pizza, with its sauce-on-top style is nationally known. The old Backroom in Ann Arbor remains on my list of meals-to-have-on-death-row.

And even the chains around there are good, and unlike Boston, each has their own unique style and taste. Jet's has a phenomenal square sicilian style (something almost no place in Boston does). Hungry Howie's invented the idea of flavored crust years ago. Little Caeser's created the $5 hot-n-ready (though their square is 10x better than their round for some reason) and Domino's invented pizza delivery (yeah, Domino's and Little Caeser's are national, but they're based in Detroit, so Detroit gets the props for the innovations).

So after bitching about Boston pizza for years, it was time to give the 2 most famous places around here a shot at being this city's saving graces for pizza - Santarpio's and Pizzeria Regina. I'd seen and heard about them for years, but never put in the tiny bit of effort required to check them out.

Santarpio's is little hole-in-the-wall by the airport, which means if you go there, you should probably park close and walk fast (like going to Detroit!). And if you need to know more about the decor and atmosphere, I think the extensive beer list will probably give you a good idea about it - Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller, Miller Lite, Heineken, Rolling Rock and Labatt's (again, kind of like going to any bar in Detroit). But I was there for the food, not the brew. So my friend Joy met me up there for some sausage and garlic "bar pie".

And it was . . . pretty good. Nothing to blow my socks off, but good. Again, there's not really any such thing as bad pizza. But I thought it was just a better than average "bar pie." And while I certainly enjoyed it, I think I was just expecting a little more given the hype (I'm pretty sure these guys paid off the Phantom Gourmet).

So the last hope for Boston Pizza was Pizzeria Regina. It's the old-timey brick oven place in the North End that goes back to 1926, but they recently opened a new site in Allston a mile or so down the road (they have a bunch of food court locations, but I think this might only be their second actual restaurant). So Walter, Robin, Matt and I headed to it a few weeks ago for some more sausage and garlic delightfulness, and it was . . .

fantastic. I think this was the first time that I had "Boston pizza" and was thoroughly satisfied. A good hearty slice (none of this bullshit NY this slice crap) with ample toppings and ample cheese. And thus, the long 7 year journey to find legit Boston pizza FINALLY came to a happy ending.

Random notes:

• If you're under the age of 50, and thus are somewhat familiar with a "reader" or an "RSS feed," I suggest you use the "Subscribe to" feature on the right to subscribe to these posts with the Googles and such. Not that my writing is groundbreaking or anything, but if you're still reading down here after a post about pizza places, then you probably dig me a little, and this will make your life easier. And also because I don't feel like posting every not-amazingly-interesting thing on Facebook.
• This was one of the toughest posts to write. A, because there's only so much you can say about going to 2 pizza parlors. And B, because I 3 other posts to write that are vastly more exciting. Going to Barcelona, going to European soccer/futbol, and as of today, doing the flying trapeze.