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Friday, September 10, 2010

Cimino's, Spencerport: Deep Dish Pizza

Cimino's Pizzeria and Birdland on Urbanspoon
Deep-dish pizza is not something you see a lot of around here - which is OK with me, as I tend to prefer thin crust. But there's nothing wrong with a little variety, so when a place does offer deep-dish or similar varieties of pizza, I don't mind giving it a try.
Which brings us to Cimino's in Spencerport. I've previously reported on their regular pizza, but I noticed that their menu also advertised deep-dish, so back I went.
I ordered a large with sweet peppers and onions. I was a little miffed to find out, when picking it up, that my coupon for a discount on a large pizza only applies to large "regular" pizza, and could not be used toward my deep-dish pizza. No such limitation was printed on the coupon, and to me, "large" means "large."
Oh well, no matter. I'm over it now. Getting back to the pizza, this had a dark brown bottom. Much of the underside was wet, but it didn't seem greasy, nor had the liquid (which I presume was water that had leaked from the toppings) soaked into the crust, which remained firm.
Now again, this was a deep-dish pizza, not a stuffed pizza. A stuffed pizza has a top as well as a bottom crust, this did not. (There's actually a pretty good explanation of these and other variants of Chicago-style pizza at Wikipedia.) It did, though, have some similarities to the stuffed pizza I got at Chester Cab last month. Like Chester Cab's, this was deep, but the crust was not particularly thick, averaging about a half inch on the bottom. In contrast to Chester Cab's stuffed pizza, which had a slightly sweet, biscuit-like crust, this seemed to have been made with regular pizza dough. It did not seem to contain much if any shortening, and was more reminiscent of bread than of pastry dough. (It's been a while since I've been to Uno's, but if I remember correctly, their deep-dish crust also tends to be rather flaky, with an obviously substantial proportion of shortening.)
The top of the pizza was covered in a thick layer of mozzarella, which was browned on top but quite stringy. The sauce was not heavily seasoned, and was studded with tomato chunks. Though there was not a lot of sauce, there was enough, along with the peppers and onions, to give the pizza a "wet" mouthfeel. Of course, with that heavy blanket of cheese, not much water could have evaporated in the oven from the sauce and veggies.
For all that cheese, and the heavy, thick appearance of this pizza, the most filling part of it was the edge. It was very thick, with a toasty, almost blackened exterior and a doughy interior that was a little gummy, and perhaps not quite cooked all the way through, in spots. Though I rarely leave my crust uneaten, unless it's just really bad, I did leave some of this behind, not because it was so unpalatable but because it would've been too filling.
Since this is an uncommon style of pizza in these parts, it's hard for me to judge this against any objective standard of deep-dish pizza, but subjectively, I thought it was pretty good. It had more of everything than a "regular" pizza, but the important thing is that the components remained in balance with each other, and the overall flavor was rather good too. I'll give it a B+.
Cimino’s Pizzeria & Birdland, 47 Slayton Ave. (Village Plaza), Spencerport 352-9800 Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - midnight, Sun. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.

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