Our Saturday Lunch excursions are as much about experience as about the food. Our posts are not food reviews; you can find extensive reviews written by others about many of the places we will visit. Our intent to be more of a travelogue—sometimes the best meals have mediocre food, but great company and circumstances.
It was a gray, drizzly Saturday (it is Pittsburgh, after all). We set out toward the East Liberty-Shadyside-Squirrel Hill area in search of lunch. Our initial thoughts of going somewhere new were overtaken by a desire to eat a familiar, warm lunch to counter the weather. We were reminiscing about Gullifty’s, especially the desserts, fried zucchini, and watching MTV at the bar, when MTV was new and showed music videos. Since Guillifty’s has closed shop, we found ourselves drawn to the pizza shops in Squirrel Hill. In those days, we never agreed on which shop had the best pizza: Mineo’s was a favorite for date nights, while we frequented Napoli and Aeillo’s for take-out. So, on this Saturday, we decided to revisit this debate and do a side-by-side comparison of pizzas from the three restaurants. A testimony to the success of these three shops is that they are still in business more than 30 years later!
As engineers, we (of course) approached this task as a project in experimental design. To keep as many variables constant as possible, we ordered large cheese pizzas from each of the restaurants. This allowed us to base our conclusions simply on the crust, sauce, and cheese, easily the three most important components of a pizza.
Our conclusion? Just like over 30 years ago, we did not settle the debate. The Napoli pizza had a wonderfully airy crust, Aeillo’s pizza had a perfectly spiced sauce, and Mineo’s pizza had an abundance of tangy, rich cheese and a fantasic smoky crust. None will disappoint, which is why these shops remain in business. We will say that visiting Mineo’s is like a entering a time machine—not much has changed.
These pizzas worked wonders in warming us on that cold, damp Saturday. Even more, they were reminded us of our lives in our 20s, before we owned a home, held “real” jobs, had three children and still believed the Pirates could win another World Series.