Carb on carb at Pizzeria Uno

Along with Olive Garden, Pizzeria Uno (I just noticed that now it's called "Uno Chicago Grill") was another restaurant I and my high school friends frequented. I ate there through college as well, now that I'm thinking about it. What can I say? Back then the place offered the kind of affordable, junky deliciousness that perfectly appealed to my tastebuds.

Fast-forward ten years to the present. I had spent the afternoon shopping for supplies with TC, who was about to spend two and a half years volunteering in Ghana for the Peace Corps. I think we were feeling more than a little nostalgic over times gone by—when we met up with MH for dinner in Forest Hills, we passed up all the new, unfamiliar restaurants for the ol' tried and true.

At Pizzeria Uno, the pizza skins were exactly as I remembered them: a thick layer of creamy mashed potato inside a buttery deep dish crust, topped with melted cheese, bacon, and sour cream. While eating vegetarian for four years in college I had asked for the pizza skins to come without the bacon, thereby making the appetizer "healthy"—not that I had ever fooled anyone.

Knowing I would be scarfing down more than a few pizza skin wedges, I had ordered a salad for my entree, but it was probably one of the least healthy salads I could have gotten. The Honey Crisp Chicken salad combined slices of a breaded chicken filet, red peppers, cheddar, bacon, and an inexplicable tangle of cold, gummy noodles on top of mixed greens, with a honey-mustard dressing that I requested come on the side. I didn't even bother with the noodles—they made no sense—but the rest of the salad wasn't bad.

More important to me than the food was the the place managing to match up to my memories, and it did. That was all I wanted that night.