Cicero's Pizza Wins Award, Make Eclipse's Potato Gratin

The eateries in the Delmar Loop and around University City are some of the best in the area. This week, several have gotten honors for their food.

Cicero's Pizza Named One of the Midwest's Best

Midwest Living Magazine recently named Cicero's one of the 27 Great Midwest Pizzerias. The magazine recommends trying "the shrimp scampi, with a rich garlic butter white wine sauce, shrimp, fresh parsley, Provel and mozzarella on a waferlike crust."

Reader Request for Eclipse's Potato Gratin

Have you ever wanted to make Eclipse's potato gratin at home? Now you can.  A reader wrote to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch requesting the recipe for the spring potato dish. To get the complete recipe, click here.

Chef Zach Flynn's recipe has "seven layers of thin-sliced Yukon Gold potatoes and smoked gouda cheese, well-seasoned and bound together with a creamy sauce."

100 Dishes You Must Eat Now

The Riverfront Times Gut Check blog has named its 100 dishes you must eat now. Several U City favorites made the list, including:

• Famous Szechuan Pavilion's spicy wonton soup. Gut Check reports "The spicy wonton soup betrays its heat in the vivid orange-red of its broth, in which bob plump little wontons stuffed with ground pork. The Szechuan peppercorns lurk at the bottom of your bowl; stir them up, and the soup suddenly explodes with their more complex flavor."
• Pi Pizzeria's Grove Pizza. Gut Check says of the Grove: "the thinly sliced cured meat atop the thick blanket of melted mozzarella is actually sopressata from St. Louis' own Volpi Foods, both spicier and earthier than pepperoni. The tomato sauce packs a serious chile kick. And if that isn't enough heat for you, the "Grove" also features slices of pungent red chile.