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The dough, re, mi’s of pizza It’s all about the crust, not the toppings, at Blue Line Pizza Review by Dale F. Bentson Photos by Michelle Le wheel. However, it’s found a niche that few local pizza restaurants occupy: cornmeal-crusted, Ch icago-style, deep-dish pizza, with the crust being the crucial element. Pizzeria Uno, in the Windy City, is credited with inventing deep-dish pizza in the 1940s, but it was Gino’s East (after hiring a cook from Uno’s) who popularized the genre and has been a Chi-town A Blue Line deep-dish pizza (also called Little hot spot since the Star) with spinach, ricotta, feta, mushrooms, 1970s. The Gino’s onions and garlic. deep-dish never appealed to me: too ccording to pizza.com, there much dough, heavy, ponderous, are more than 61,000 piz- a fleet of toppings that sat on zerias in the United States. the stomach like a cannonball Americans eat about 100 acres of for hours. The yellow gold crust pizza each day (about 350 slices seemed a tad artificial. per second). Pizzerias represent Popular belief is that Gino’s and 17 percent of all restaurants in the Uno use cornmeal to achieve goldUnited States. en crusts. While their recipes are Here on the Midpeninsula proprietary, there is some evidence alone, there are more than 100 to suggest wheat and malted barrestaurants serving pizza between ley flours and colorings, not cornMenlo Park and Los Altos. meal, gives the golden hue. Some The upshot is: Muscling into pizza operators use combinations the business isn’t easy. But, build of wheat flour and cornmeal. Not a better mousetrap and ... so at Blue Line. Their deep-dish Blue Line Pizza in Moun- pizzas really do have a cornmeal tain View hasn’t reinvented the crust. Wheat flour is used for the thin-crusted offerings. Why cornmeal crust? It is lightBlue Line Pizza, 146 Castro er than wheat flour, doesn’t have St., Mountain View; 650-9387888; bluelinepizza.com a doughy taste, is less refined and (some say) more nutritious than Hours: Sun.-Thu. 11 a.m.-10 wheat flour, and delivers good p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. flavor with a nice crunch. It’s also easier for the kitchen to handle ,iÃiÀÛ>Ì Ã *>À }\ V ÌÞÊ Ìà because the cornmeal is pressed Ài` ÌÊV>À`à into the baking dish and not V \ rolled out or twirled. It is a very LiiÀÊ> `ÊÜ i `Ài different take on the traditional /> i ÕÌ ÃiÊ iÛi \Ê Neapolitan flatbread pizza. `iÀ>Ìi *À Û>ÌiÊ Open since late June, Blue Line «>ÀÌ ià >Ì À Ê Pizza is an extension of Little Star V i> iÃÃ\ Pizza in San Francisco, owned
>ÌiÀ } excellent by Brian Sadigursky. He teamed "ÕÌ` ÀÊ with Angela Pace to open Blue dining Line, which also has branches in
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A caprese salad at Blue Line Pizza. Campbell and Burlingame. The name derives from the Chicago Transit Authority train line (CTA) that runs from O’Hare through downtown Chicago, the ancestral home of deep-dish pizza. “We wanted to expand the scope of our pizza business, lunch in particular,” managing partner Angela Pace said. “We added salads, panini, desserts and a children’s menu. In the near fu-
ture, we should have a full bar to complement our beer and wine business.” Deep-dish pizzas take 25 to 30 minutes to bake. The deep-dish pizzas are visually deceptive, too, as the diameter is smaller than one might expect. Yet they are inches thick and quite filling. Don’t be fooled by the diameter. On a recent visit, I found the sig-
n a ture Blue Line deep-dish pizza overladen with rich tomato sauce, spinach, ricotta and feta cheeses, mushrooms, onion and garlic. The meatball pizza was similar with red bell peppers as well. Both were delicious: compositions of bakedin savory flavors. The crusts had a subtle crunch that added to the depth and character of flavors. (continued on next page)
PENINSULA
Discover the best places to eat this week! AMERICAN
CHINESE
Armadillo Willy’s
New Tung Kee Noodle House
941-2922 1031 N. San Antonio Road, Los Altos www.armadillowillys.com
947-8888 520 Showers Drive, Mountain View www.shopmountainview.com/luunoodlemv
The Old Pro
INDIAN
326-1446 541 Ramona Street, Palo Alto www.oldpropa.com
Janta Indian Restaurant
ITALIAN
Cucina Venti 254-1120 1390 Pear Ave, Mountain View www.cucinaventi.com CHINESE
Ming’s 856-7700 1700 Embarcadero East, Palo Alto www.mings.com
462-5903 369 Lytton Ave. www.jantaindianrestaurant.com
Read and post reviews, explore restaurant menus, get hours and directions and more at ShopPaloAlto, ShopMenloPark and ShopMountainView
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