Bacino's

Ratings Guide:
Half handshake, half chest-bump hug – 5 stars
Chest bump – 4 stars
Fist bump – 3 stars
High five – 2 stars
Handshake – 1 star
Fone and fone – 0 stars
Manly ass slap – ½ star



Restaurant: Bacino’s
Locations: 2204 N. Lincoln or 118 S. Clinton

I’ll keep this one brief. This is my favorite pizza place in the city. I think it’s the best stuffed pizza around.

If you go there, I’d advise that you order the Ricky Kim, which is a pepperoni and pepperoncini stuffed pizza. We discovered this one a ways back, and since then, I order it wherever and whenever I get pizza. Some places don’t have the pepperoncinis, so sometimes you have to substitute with hot peppers or jalapeños or whatever is available. Why am I still talking? You get the point – pepperoni and some sort of hot pepper.

And if you’re looking for something to do while you’re there, try this little challenge: order a large stuffed pizza (again, I’d advise the pizza above) and see how many pieces you can eat. My record is six. Of course I couldn’t walk for three days and spent another two days on the john, so I wouldn’t advise it. But honestly, is there anything more fun than eating yourself sick? I think not. And I’ve done it several times. Here are a couple of highlights (and I know you don’t care, but I don’t care that you don’t care):

The Milkshake Challenge at Crown Candy in St. Louis: You have 30 minutes to drink five milkshakes. It sounds easy, but take into account that the milkshakes are like 40% milk fat, or butter milk, or butter fat, or something like that. And the challenge has been around since like 1910, and only about 20 people have done it in all those years (when I tried, the last to do it was a pregnant lady). Anyway, I flew through three of them in twelve minutes. No problem. I had my friend Heeter warming up the milkshakes between his hands so they would go down easier. Now, I had 18 minutes to drink two milkshakes. But right at that moment I realized I had no chance. I could have gone for number four, but I knew that would put me in a coma. And if I attempted number five, I would be doing number two in the bathroom for at least a week. So, I used my good judgment and walked away after three. But, even with only drinking three, I made it back to work, was sick to my stomach, and ended up taking a 45 minute nap on my floor. If you’re ever in St. Louis I highly advise you give it a shot.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge at Zipatoni: To raise money for my bachelor party in Vegas, we decided to have a bake sale. On top of that I figured that an eating contest would be a good way to raise money. So, what we did was buy three-dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Then, there were six envelopes with different number ranges on them (1-6, 7-12, etc…), and everyone put money in the envelope and their name written on a piece of paper was also put in the envelope. So, after I was done eating, a name would be drawn from the proper envelope based on the number of donuts I inhaled. That person would win all the money in the envelope and I’d keep the rest for the Vegas trip. So, we gave me eight minutes to eat as many as possible. Now, leading up to the wedding, which was quickly approaching, I had actually had another bet with my boy Juice where we were only allowed to consumer a certain amount of calories a day or you owed the other person money. So, for the month before this event I ended up shrinking my stomach, which affected my results. I was sure I could eat at least 24 of the donuts. In eight minutes I think I finished like nine. Or six. Or some other small number that was incredibly disappointing. Seriously, the entire office gathered around and I didn’t perform. It was embarrassing. Then I went into diabetic shock. Not good. And that was the Krispy Kreme challenge, which leads to the…

The Crave Case Challenge at Zipatoni: This challenge took place the next day, to make up for the poor showing at the Krispy Kreme challenge as an apology to everyone in the office. This one went even worse. I ate the same amount of White Castle burgers, except that halfway through I ended up booting in a garbage can before continuing to eat some burgers.

Sorry for the tangent. Back to the Bacino’s review. I’m not sure why I think it’s the best, but there is just something about it that makes me crave it and keeps me coming back time and time again. It’s the one pizza place that I have cravings for in Chicago.

So, half handshake, half chest-bump hug.