Photo Courtesy Ben Seese, Flickr CC
At a certain point of development in nascent Milwaukeean adulthood, there comes, for many of us, a Pizza Shuttle moment of clarity. Its most often stumbled upon while drinking, maybe over-drinking, while underage, perhaps in college, and perchance it is all the Busch Light or Natty Ice or newfound teenage freedom or possibly the lateness of the hour. But once you’ve developed that particular brand of hunger, that mixes with youthful idealism and boozy energy and no need to ever really go to bed at a reasonable hour, and you cross paths with an older, wiser, shaman-like character with a phone number and willingness to turn you on, everything in life can thus be divided into before and after.
And lo, the revelation: a call can be made, a person with a car can be summoned, to bring - or to shuttle! - pizza and chicken wings and apps, to your house or apartment, or maybe that smoky, smelly dorm even, said calories rendered warm in one of those thermal contraptions that keeps carbs and cheese and sauce and grease hot and gloriously goopified into a cardboard-boxed amalgamation. A newfound combo fit for the greatest of depraved late-night hungers. Brought by a sleepy-eyed benefactor you never before knew existed. And the kicker: this can all happen until 4 a.m.
Then there’s a later, more unfortunate, and gradually developing stage. Where the bars have all become familiar, where responsibilities have gained weight and height, and developed a formidable upper cut, and they smirk intimidatingly in the corner like a Mike Tyson-sized foe of hangover and regret. Or else it’s just a time when you no longer want your living quarters to smell like that the day after. What with the styrofoam and cardboard boxes piled like evidence, like an indictment on your character, health, and adult achievement level. And to many mid-to-late 20-somethings, Pizza Shuttle has already become a sort of punchline. A late night order scoffed at, a joke, indicative of over-exuberant East Side adolescence and drunkenness and a greasy life epoch long passed.
But hey, Pizza Shuttle makes some pretty good food. Or, rather, some food that’s pretty good. And, still, pretty great when you’re five-to-ten deep. So if you find yourself ambling after more annoyingly “adult” friends, with their “jobs” and cognizance of “tomorrow,” and you're left stuttering “wait, so you don’t want to order Pizza Shuttle?” And so long as you’re between Oklahoma and Hampton and 27th and the Lake, with a cell phone and a wish to experience last-light deliverance in fried, doughy form, here's a take on how to direct that call, how to forget tomorrow, and enjoy the best of the best of Milwaukee guilty chowing.
6. Wonton Philly Rolls
What is that, all the way down near the end of the appetizer list? Is this a bend toward cultural caloric positing? Is this the Asian Fusion portion of Pizza Shuttle’s drunken munchie eats? Well, actually, like some about town – have you ever tried the Reuben wonton’s at Summerfest!? They have ‘em here too! – Shuttle plays fast and loose with the delineation of a Chinese dumpling. So much so that here we have a neon nacho cheese accompanying. And its presence isn’t the hang-up, but, rather at this point, the foodie note is that it should actually be cheese whiz. Because between that battering ram of fried crust, with a crunch and a crumble, through the Hot Pocket-like filling of magma-ish swirl, there is an indefinable likeness to a chopped beef Philly fat guy special. There are hints of mushrooms, prevalent green peppers, whiffs of provolone, grilled onions, and a meaty shot to any healthful pride – despite the ‘homemade’ label. Yes, even on paper you can tell: this is an order not meant for the sober light of day. But one should have no problem destroying the evidence well ahead of hangover time.
5. Smoked Gouda Mac-Cheese Bites
We’d once thought these carb-in-carb cheesestuffs were more for the uncultured crowd that clamors for mac n’ cheese on top of a pizza. Like the huddled Ian's masses reeking of bro-y beer and testosterone and unbridled Americana carbohydrate chase. But here, the mac is barely decipherable, just lending a bit of skeletal structure. What is most forward is a creaminess for days, a smacky consistency, only the softest of swishes between teeth, and a tenderness so great that you’d have to be some sort of miscreant, or vegan, not to begin lovingly cradling each one, after a while, when they start to automatically steer themselves out of their greasy box home toward the ranch and then at your quivering lips. It sounds simple, like a neatly fried bit of happiness, your run-of-the-mill Sysco-supplied cheese nuggets, dropped in the fryer and then on your doorstep. But Gouda yields the milkiest and meltiest variant in bar snack bracketology, and it’s somehow a game-changer in the impervious world of fried cheese.
4. Southern BBQ Chicken Pizza w/ Garlic Butter Crust
In most cases, an indicator that a place doesn’t have that good of pizza, is a lengthy focus on specialty pizzas. Slop on more toppings and bury the bones. Pizza Shuttle has 30 specialty pizzas. But that's somehow the point of it all. Consider the Mediterranean with gyro meat, feta, hummus and olives, it smells like a high school locker room after an overtime loss. Yet tastes like nothing but high-fives to your taste buds. Or ponder the 8 Cheese Dairy State Pizza. There’s ricotta and feta. And six others. Together, in a tongue-banging, borderline-obscene wallop of Wisco’ pride. There’s a Chili Dog Pizza which feels dirty to even write down, but has to leave any serious eater intrigued.
The distinct zing, the alchemic audacity, the pungent flavor meld of each, should naturally point to the conclusion: nuance is for foodies and squares that go to bed before midnight. Shuttle is a celebration of gut-punch excess. For playoff games and subsequent after-parties. For victory and fist-shaking defiance of cholesterol tests. When the time is just so, we always find our way back home to the Southern BBQ. Independently, the goopy BBQ sauce, the "grilled marinated" chicken, and especially the mushy tomatoes, should do little for bud pleasure. But when it comes together in stew-like fruition atop that bed of bounteous crust, everything tied together by the liberal jalapeno chunks, a smattering of cheddar, and too-generous upheaval of harsh onions, it’s the grotesque harmony of Fieri wet dreams. The “Southern” (if you're on a first name basis) is their best seller. And offers hope yet for the collective taste, and aptitude to party, of our fine city.
3. Boneless Wings w/ Hot Garlic
Sacriligeous, certainly. To take Buffalo's finest export and dumb it down for the masses, to literally take out it's backbone for more sensitive taste temperaments. But here, and especially given the hour and your state, skeleton play maybe shouldn't be on the menu. More importantly: they fry cleaner, yield more crispy consistency, can be eaten faster, and therefore hotter, there's never worry of mushy or dry chicken bites, and some even come in a perfect ball-shaped bite size for that certain indefinable joy.
Unlike the rest of the list, which is scientific, the sauce variant topping is a matter of personal taste. There's nothing wrong with anything Sriracha-related, the Buffalo is a solid and rather zinging interpretation of the classic, but we've grown a lip-smack fondness for the hot garlic. It's like that ubiquitous Thai chili garlic hot sauce, only in thickened, massively-applied form. Either way, it's important to remember the boneless flavor couldn't be further from bourgeoisie or neat. In fact, the opposite is what really makes the magic: the bready, nuclear-ish fallout is chunky, salty, with seeds and jalapeno scraps, it all coalescing into sexy, spicy carnage on the tin foil, in the siding blue cheese. You can use this as extra sauce for the rest of your snacks, maybe even for the next couple days, such is the generous topping application. Or, if nobody's looking, just scoop up the mess greedily, devotedly, with your fingertips, and shovel directly into your face hole.
2. Bosco Sticks
Mozzarella sticks are silly. At least when seen in the golden, pillow puffed light of these stuffed baseball bats of stretchy cheese. Each is coated, and sometimes sent swimming - when the kitchen is truly in a good mood - with the translucent joy that is the Shuttle garlic butter. And then sprinkled with parmesan, because, what the hell? There are certain mozzarella moments therein, when you get those bites and pull away and the cheese dangle stretches from your mouth to the piece still in your hand, and it looks like the bridge between your today and forever. What to do is eat that bridge. And then dip the next half in your marinara cup for another bite. Double-dipping societal rules are suspended at 4am, especially when you’re this deep, properly, in buttery, salty, silky cheese revelry. There's bonuses here too: such is the carb content with Boscos that they soak up excess stomach booze, they re-warm perfectly, even the next hungover day in the microwave, they are durable and wide enough to hold up to any from-the-refrigerator hot sauce addition, and they act as props for quality late night phallic jokes.
1. Fried Breaded Ravioli
Bless the Italians and their endless contributions to culture and gastronomy - the pizza and cars and the wine are all great. But when it comes to ravioli's, they are just plain wrong. It may not be evident until a relationship is opened with this king of late night snacks. But, then it seems simple. You open the box on a smattering of golden brown squares, each strong and sturdy, lovingly starchy, neatly stiched together at the ends - we like to envision a tired grandmother back behind all the phone work. This solid home, grainy and compact, as opposed to thoughts of soft and basted by sauce, is precisely what the puree of cheese and jalapeños needs to flourish. To become a finger food. To always be so consistent. Sorry, Romans, but dumplings are better fried.
The contrast between snap and inside creaminess, the hot ooze gushing forth, melding with the gentle breading, it all cooled just so by the wonderfully generic marinara side - to behold in the wee hours between night and day, with just the right buzz, is stomach perfection worth the effort of going through the going-out motions to begin with. Together it’s all like the apotheosis of fattie noshing. A willful appetite act of devil-may-care, of sticking it to the magazine models and the cardiologists and taking of stance of “let’s just see what else is on Netflix and get a head start on easing this hangover.” Which, if that first Shuttle experience taught us anything, is the way to be. After all, life is short, and the night, and the Shuttle menu, long.
