Gino's East

Earlier this year, famed Chicago eatery, Gino's East, expanded to the DFW area and opened a location in Arlington.  A second location recently opened in Dallas a couple of weeks ago and I was able to dine there with my brother the first weekend it was open.  The DFW area has some really good New York-style and Neapolitan pizza joints, but I have been unimpressed with the great majority of Chicago-style pizzerias in the area.  A couple of friends from Chicago told me that Gino's East was a "legit" pizza place from the  Windy City, so I was excited to give it a try.

Mozzarella Sticks

Our waitress told us that their deep dish pizzas take about an hour to cook, so we decided to get an appetizer while waiting on our pizzas to cook.  We debated getting the Cheesy Pizza Bread, but finally decided to order the Homemade Mozzarella Sticks.  After the first bite, we knew we made a good decision and I was quite impressed with the crispy batter and particularly liked the marinara sauce.  The flavor really was quite good and much better than your run-of-the-mill cheesestick.  

Mighty Meaty Deep Dish

The pizza I ordered, the Mighty Meaty, finally arrived about 55 minutes after I ordered it (which was less than the hour that our waitress informed us about).  This medium pizza* included six thick slices that had pepperoni, bacon, Canadian bacon, and Italian Sausage.  The pizza had plenty of meat and sauce, but I would have preferred more cheese.  Overall, I was impressed with the pizza and thought it was better than other Chicago-style pizzerias I have tried in DFW, but didn't love the crust as much as I thought I would.  My brother ordered a thin crust pizza with pepperoni and ground beef.  It was also good, but I preferred the deep dish variety to the thin crust pizza.

Thin Crust with Pepperoni and Ground Beef

We both thought the pizza was good, but the service was not impressive.  We only had our drinks refilled once and went thirty minutes without our waitress checking on us.  They were quite busy and the place had only been open for a couple of days, but the lack of attention was concerning.  The pizza was good enough for me to have a return visit and hopefully they will have all the kinks worked out.  

*This medium pizza is more than enough for 3-4 people.  I was only about to eat two slices at the restaurant and the other four slices provided me two additional meals as leftovers.  

Gino's East
http://www.ginoseast.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=3