I found Blaze Pizza, Late one evening after I alighted at Belmont from the Brown line to switch to catch the Red Line down to the Loop and found myself with a 20 minute wait for the next train. I had in mind a sandwich at Cheesies but when I saw that there may be some Pizza on offer at a place that I had not visited before? Well I was sold another chance to extend the life of The Chicago El Stop Food Hunt Project.

So they sell Pizza here? what is that all about? I checked out their website to see what they said; “exceptional quality at lightning fast speed is what we’re all about”… “Fresh, made-from-scratch dough. Healthful, artisanal ingredients on the assembly line. Inventive to classic. You decide. Blazing hot oven + dedicated pizzasmith + 180 seconds = fast-fire’d, perfectly crisp perfection. Sound good? Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Well in my case it was going to be the rest of my evening!  I quickly checked out the menu and ordered the Meat Eater which was topped with Pepporoni, Crumbled Meatballs, Red Onions, Mozzrella, and Red  Sauce. Almost close to their claim the pizza arrived pretty quickly with my name on it!

 Meat Eater Pizza

The Meat Eater pizza for the ‘Meat Eater’ turned out pretty well. It arrived piping hot from that pizza oven, almost too hot, I had no patience and I was eating it in the pizza danger zone taking the equal risk of burning my mouth, as I chomped, and my wrists and cheeks with the hot juices and sauce dripping from the slice in my hands.

The Pepperoni was sweet and spicy, those crumbled meatballs were full of chilli heat, the red sauce seemed to be a mix of tomato and pepper, either way it was good. I really enjoyed my pizza the crust was really good thin, crisp, not floppy, and charred nicely on the base. How did they do this in 180 seconds?

Ok so maybe we should step back a little. This is kind of a fast food pizza production line kinda place. You walk in and if you don’t choose from their standard options, you can just choose your own toppings. Either way they just snag one of those fresh pizza bases and build you your pizza from the pots of ingredients on the counter. Think ‘Subway’, Think ‘Chipotle’, and you are not far away from the concept.

The difference though in my opinion is that you do get a really good pizza at the end of it all and you don’t feel culinarily dirty afterwards.

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