text: A Tale of Two Pizzas in Scottsdale Part II n well this is in north Tempe but close enoughnnGrrrnnIm from the San Francisco Bay Area where you can find good Italian restaurants all over the place I am also Italian in heritage I have been eating and cooking Italian food for much of my life and I know what it is like to mix ingredients in the right proportions to make a pasta sauce that needs at least five hours simmering time to taste just right I had passed Lo Cascios many times on my way out of Scottsdale back to Tempe and looked at the building with some anticipationit looked a lot like some of the old Italian places that I grew up nearnnRecently I finally took my family out to eat at this place Upon walking in I noted the distinctive decor on the walls that told me that this place specialized in Sicilian cuisine and I was looking forward to that characteristic taste I ordered a pizza remembering the taste of the very thin and incredible pie served to my father and I in Naples a decade ago I am aware that Naples is not in Sicily but I was looking forward to real Southern Italian character to my dinner that night My wife ordered an eggplant parmesan and my daughter opted for a simple cheese raviolinnI was aware that my pizza was likely not going to have the same depth of flavor as the astounding one that I ate in Italy but I was expecting something authentic and delicious What I got served to me was a fcking frozen pizzanot even a name brand like DiGiornos or Tombstone but something on the level of the cheap bargain frozen pizza that you find on the bottom shelf of the supermarket freezer You know the one that is for It was putrid Now I have to admit that I have no proof that the pizza I got served was frozen but I have had enough cheap pizza to know that bland cardboardy taste Totinos tasted better for over lessnnI ordered a salad too for a handful of iceberg lettuce with two hunks of tomato and two goddamned olivesnnMy wifes eggplant parmesan was nothing special She ordered mixed vegetables with it Fresh NopeBirds EyennMy daughter got served what I refer to as the Italian Scamseven cheese ravioli in lowquality tomato sauce for Many Italian restaurants pull the Scam on you because most of us are gullible enough to buy the bullsht that a plate full of noodles and sauce should be expensive because it is ITALYAN This just topped off a bad experience for usnnGood parts The bread was not authentic but was yummy and loaded with sesame seeds Service was fantastic but that was not enough to save this placennThis place was an insult to Italian cooking in general let alone Sicilian I do not care how many maps of Sicily they have around or how many triskelion heads they put on the walls and the menu this joint are not Sicilian in any meaningful sense of the word Lo Cascios made this secondgeneration ItalianAmerican very angry There are good pasta places around the Valley but I would avoid this spot at all cost