Pizza Wars 3!!! Of course I was there!

What is Pizza Wars??! It is a competition between 12 pizza parlors (Pequods, Village Inn, Sarpino's (they brough pizza but were not a part of the competition), Papa John's, Nancy's, Lou Malnati's, Edwardo's, Father & Son, Carlucci's, Gulliver's, Organic Life, Jet's and Wa-Pa-Ghetti's) in the northern suburbs of Chicago held in the Niles West High School Gymnasium.

You pay $10 in advance and you get to eat as much pizza as you can handle for an hour and a half. With your admission you get a little plastic coin to use for voting, it is a Pizza War and there needs to be a winner. There is a table with baskets that have every pizza place labeled on individual buckets and you toss your single coin into the bucket with the name of your favorite pizza. The bucket with the most coins is the winner! That bein said, I did see a little fat kid tampering with the coins at one point until his mother pulled him away.

Organic Life is a pizza company in the HS that hosted the event. How cool to have an organic pizza place at your HS.

Lou Malnati's, a childhood favorite.

Jet's Pizza, workin it!

All of the plates and napkins were located at a table in the center of the madness!!

The Jet's Pizza mascot, an Italian Man.

That's how you do it!

The events host speakin with a guy from Village Inn, before the win.

The pretty ladies at Pequods, hustlin!

The voting buckets you drop your coins into to cast your vote for your favorite pizza.

Pequods!

My pizza sheet, this was to be stamped at every station so you could keep track of which pizzas you have already tried. I had all but 3.

The winner, Village Inn (Randy Miles) and the organizer of the event (Alyse Burman)! (I did not take this photo, but i took all the others)

Village Inn was the winner, congratulations. They served a thin crust pizza and it was delicious. I voted for Pequods which serves a thick crust pizza where the crust is caramelized and crunchy from the sauce, it's a preference and I really liked Village Inn and all the pizzas there that I had tried which was almost all of them except for Edwardo's, Papa John's and Carlucci's. And hat's off to Father & Son which served a dessert pizza I almost voted for, it was ridiculously Monte-licious!! I even ate a piece that fell on the floor it was so good!

Thanks to my buddy Carl for the invite and I was happy to meet the organizers of the event (Ilyse Strongin-Bombicino & Alyse Burman), who were both beautiful!! By the way, there were over 800 people in attendance by 6:30 p.m. and the money goes to a good cause, EDUCATION! Donations went to the 219 Education Foundation.

Big Show Next Week! EAT THIS! STORIES FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD!

Wednesday, January 23rd. 8 p.m. at The Lincoln Lodge! RSVP (strongly recommended, we are expecting a sell out) 773-251-1539. You can also purchase tickets here: Tix for Eat This!

Come out and see:

TED BRUNSON ("Chicago's Best" on WGN/CLTV)
Viviana A. Flores (Taqueria El Asadero)
John Berger (Jake's Pizza)
Michael Simmons (Lula Cafe)
Dave Odd (Urban Forager)
Art Jackson (Pleasant House Bakery)
Malaika & Adam Lebin (The Brown Sack)

And yer host: Monte "King of all Foodies"  "Off the Eatin' Path with Monte" multi-media comedy food show and blog.

Snacks Provided and Free parking available in The Lincoln Restaurant lot.

Chilaquiles so easy even I can make em. That means you can too! ; )

We are going to make Chilaquiles, an easy and delicious Mexican breakfast!

You will need tortilla chips, whichever you like best, and you will need salsa, whichever you like best.

After you have begun to heat the salsa add the chips. super easy, right?                                                             

Atop a medium flame stir the chips around so they are completely covered/smothered in the salsa and you will want to stir them until they are sorta soft. You can make them super soft or crunchier depending on what you prefer. The longer you stir em the softer they will get. I go super soft because I like things to be soft like baby food, which I love.

After the chips reach your desired crunchy or non-crunchyness put em on a plate

then get your egg. I recommend farm fresh eggs.

Then put a little oil in the pan that you just stewed your chips in and fry it sunny side up.

Put a lid on it and let it sit so it steams the egg and cooks it all the way through so it's not slimy.                                    

You will then toss it on top of your stewed chips. Look at how perfect the egg turned out and look at how pretty it looks!

Then crack that mother _______ atop of your chips and go to town. Let me mention that traditional chilaquiles would have the chips smothered in cheese that would then be melted atop of the chips and the egg would be placed atop of all of that. That is the traditional way to do it but i am lactose intolerant and these are equally as Montalicious.

Then it is time to taste what you have worked so easily for

and damn is it good!

Really freakin good!

I mean c'mon, just look at my inner child comin out

and if it's good.....

....it's gone!!

You've been searching, I found it! (Thanks to JP)

   

        If you see this ^ yer there!

     

The "Little Bohemia Restaurant" in Riverside, Il. (25 East Burlington Street, Riverside, IL 60546 ) is a serious ma & pa diner with amazing food. The ma is the server and she and the pa are the cooks. There may be a few cousins in the kitchen who help out, this is the real deal when it comes to a home cooked meal with old world recipes and preparation! 

This is the inside and this is JP, he brought me here, that is a friend!

Liver ball soup! Tender and full of flavor.

Pork combo: tenderloin and fried/schnitzel. Comes with mashed potatoes, gravy, the soup, which you saw, a vegetable, dessert (yes dessert is included) and bread & butter.

Look at how comforting this meal looks! It's a hug on a plate!!

So happy here I could kiss you.

Look at me go! Eat It!!!

Takin it down! Monte-licious!!!

So good, I may even eat the fork!

All gone! Now for the veggie portion of the meal.

Eat yer veggies! Even the orange ones.

Takin em in like a champ!

Look at the menu and those Amazing Prices!! Roast duck for under $15.00???!!! What??

And it comes with dessert?! Yup.

$8.00 per person for a ridiculous and delicious amount of food! That is a good meal at a good deal! Check this place out, it is worth the trip from the city. BTW,  fuckin "Wendy's" recently stole my tag line (Good meal at a good deal!) in one of their commercials!!! Bastards!!!!!

This place was so good I went back the next day with these two jerks... Beauty & The Beast! ; )