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Print this page2-Minute Review: Old Chicago
The Second City's brand of deep-dish has come to Springfield. Is it worth your cash, or just a bunch of wind?
The décor at Old Chicago Pasta and Pizza (2040 E. Independence St., 417-887-0100) has a little of the leftover flavor from Smokey Bones, mixed with tons of Chicago memorabilia on the walls. It’s littered with HD plasma TVs, making it a very casual place to bring the fam or a date. When my fiancé, Anna, and I got there, we put our name on the waiting list and headed for the bar. Luckily there was a seat and a smiling bartender to take our order. Old Chicago boasts 110 beers to choose from, and they even have a featured beer of the day. The day I went the featured beer was the ever-so-exotic and hard-to-find Budweiser. Instead, I guzzled a couple of pints of Schlafly Pale Ale.
After we were seated, Anna and I split the antipasto salad for an appetizer. It was a little light on salami and pepperoni for a typical antipasto salad, but the Italian dressing made me want to sop it up with a biscuit.
Old Chicago’s menu is huge and it has something for everybody. For dinner I went with the chicken Philly stromboli with fries, mainly because I think it’s fun to say Stromboli with a shoddy Italian accent. This particular dish was packed with roasted chicken, onions, roasted peppers, mozzarella, cheddar cheese, and mushrooms (even though I asked for no mushrooms). There was supposed to be a green chili ranch sauce drizzled on top but it was nowhere to be found. Had I had the ranch sauce, I think it would have brought it all together. Anna had the build-your-own personal pan pizza. She got Chicago-style deep dish with onions, mushrooms and pepperoni. The toppings were plentiful and the pepperoni was super crisp and salty, just the way I like it. We ended up taking half our food home because it was all so filling.
