Deep Dish Pizza Paradise in RSM?

Selma's Chicago Pizzeria

30461 Avenida de Las Flores

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

I made the mistake of watching a show on the Travel Channel, "Food Wars". They were showing New York Pizza versus Chicago deep dish pizzas. Just watching that show made my mouth water for a deep dish pizza right out of the windy city. But, not wanting to bust the bank account for a quick trip to Chicago, Katie and I headed out to Selma's to sample their take on the deep dish pie.

Selma's has been around since 2003, and one of its founders, Mike Phillips Jr., is the son of one of the creators of BJ's, Mike Phillips Sr. This place definitely has a BJ's feel to it. Not the newer, sleek BJ's restaurants, but the older brick walled, beach city BJ's eateries. Selma, in case you are interested, is the owners grandmother, and inspiration for much of the menu. Let's see if they have made grandma proud.

For an appetizer we went with their, "Not Another Fried Cheese" Cheese. This is fried provolone cheese rolled in seasoning and served with marinara sauce. I really liked these, the provolone was a nice change from fried mozzarella. The marinara sauce was just okay.  

Katie ordered the White Sox Pizza. Olive oil, fresh garlic, ricotta and parmesan cheeses, tomatoes, and spinach were on this one. I knew going into this, that I would not like this pizza. It was rather bland tasting, and not really to my personal taste. Katie liked this one though. She thought all the ingredients tasted fresh, and melded together well.

I got something that was more to my taste, the small sized Meat Head Pizza. This pizza had all the meat under the sun on it, ham, meatball, sausage, and pepperoni. I liked this pizza well enough, but it did not cure me of my hunger for a real deep dish Chicago pizza. The dough was not sweet enough, and the cheese was just not quite right. They did put plenty of toppings on this one, and it did come out piping hot. Simply put, it was good, just not great.

Just in case you did not believe the connection between Selma's and BJ's, they also have their own version of the Pizookie, known as the Mother Ship. Baked in a pan, a chocolate chip cookie topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream. How can this be bad? The answer of course is, it is not bad. I thought the cookie could have been warmer, but that was my only complaint with this.

I liked Selma's, but I was not wowed by it. It is a decent place to go to every once in awhile. The service and atmosphere were both good and made us feel comfortable. I am still in search of my deep dish hot spot in the OC, so if you know of anywhere close that has good deep dish pie, leave me a comment.

Out of five Sears Towers, five being best to zero being worst, Selma's gets 3 Sears Towers.

For more information on Selma's, check them out here: http://www.selmaschicagopizzeria.com/