This is my last Massachusetts post! My family and I had to drive back into Boston from Southampton, which is about a 2 hour drive across the state. I picked something that was a little bit outside of the main hub of Boston. We had our fill of seafood and wanted to try something different, so I picked a shop that seemed to have a little bit of everything.
Here’s links to the menu, which has pizza, calzones, sandwiches and subs, salads, desserts and MORE!
[big dig – chicken stir fry sub / $7.74]
This is my mom’s sub – a chicken stir fry sub! It has chicken breast with mushrooms, peppers, onions, American cheese, and a pesto mayo sauce on top. There were a number of different sauces available, including teriyaki, honey mustard, BBQ, sriracha, or teri-sriracha.
My mom had trouble picking it up and eating the sandwich since the bread kind of fell apart on her and so she just ate the middle and ignored the bread. The chicken was moist and flavorful but was really too unwieldy to eat as a normal sandwich. Mom still liked it though!
I don’t remember exactly which sandwich my dad got, but I believe it was the Big Daddy Steak Deluxe ($7.74) with shaved steak, peppers, onions and cheese. His didn’t succumb to the other sandwich’s fate and stayed in tact while my dad ate it. He liked it and polished it off – I didn’t try it.
[medium calzone / $8.45 + $1.75 for shaved steak]
I decided to try out a calzone and this turned out to be a very large calzone – basically a 12″ inch pizza folded over! Sure glad I didn’t get the large. The pizzas and calzones here are cooked in a brick oven. The crust turned out to be golden and crispy.
I got my calzone with mozzarella cheese and shaved steak. I had never seen shaved steak as a pizza/calzone topping before so I was curious to see how it tasted. It was a really excellent choice – the steak was thinly shaved, full of flavor, and so incredibly delicious! The mozzarella was perfectly smooth and fresh and it oozed out beautiful from the calzone. The crust was perfection – light, crisp and with a slight chew. I could not get enough of this calzone and I think it’s one of the best calzones I’ve ever had. The combination of perfectly melted cheese, well seasoned shaved steak and that golden crisp crust floated me off to foodie heaven.
The included sauce uses imported San Marzano tomatoes and it simple and flavorful. It has the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity and tasted wonderful with the calzone. I couldn’t finish my calzone and I wrapped up the remaining pieces so I could give them to Jake. I wished I had been able to bring the sauce, too! Even reheated the next day Jake thought the calzone was incredible so I can’t wait to take him here when we visit Boston (in the next year or two).
[fried dough bites / $5.25]
Fried dough is something that I always loved and enjoyed in Boston so I felt I couldn’t leave without getting a taste of it. I ordered the small fried dough bites. They use the same dough for the pizza to make the fried dough, which is then topped with butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and butterscotch.
I found that I preferred the smaller pieces as they had a nice crunch to them which the bigger pieces were puffier and softer. I think the butterscotch is overkill and would opt out of that next time as the powdered sugar and cinnamon is more than enough to sweeten the dough. All of my fried dough dreams came true eating this and I was sad that I wasn’t able to bring these home with me. Fried stuff just won’t last on a plane ride across the country.
It was a tasty end to a short trip to Massachusetts. I’m glad I was able to make it out here and spend a little time with my family and say my final goodbyes to my grandfather.
Big Daddy’s Pizza and Steak Subs
436 Western Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135
617-787-1080
The shaved beef and all that melted cheeeeese. Looks so good!!! I don’t often order calzones because a lot of time I feel like the dough inside is a bit soggy or there’s not enough filling. Clearly not a problem at this place.
Hi J.S. – Yesssss the calzone here was perfect! No sogginess and so much delicious filling. The crust made it really shine – it was that perfect amount of crispiness that I love. Shaved beef! Man, I wish that was a topping everywhere instead of boring ground beef.
THAT is a huge calzone!!!!! Mmmm, shaved steak! That crust looked good too!
When we were in Boston in ’07, we didn’tI haven’t try the fried dough, but we saw it being sold near Boston Common and near the subways (I know they call it something else over there). I was amazed by how many Dunkin Donuts they had too, literally on every corner!
Hi CC – It was huge! My dad ate some and I had leftovers for Jake! Was so good though 🙂 Yeah, in the spring/summer months, they sell fried dough in the carts. I loved it! In college I liked to walk through the Commons and treat myself to some fried dough. Dunkin’ Donuts seem to be on every other corner in Boston haha.
I haven’t had a calzone in ages. This one here looks insanely good. I like thinner crust calzones if that makes sense. The crust on this one looks perfect. Too bad they didn’t deep fry that sucker (saw that once on your buddy Guy Fieri’s show).
Kinda creepy you have fried dough dreams but hey, whatever floats your boat man 🙂 That fried dessert looks yums. I wonder if it’s easy to do at home. Agree that butterscotch looks too much for that dessert.
Hi Faye – I had mini fried calzones once somewhere in Little Italy, they were okay. The calzone here was insanely good, no deep fryer required! Guy is not my buddy, I think he’s YOUR buddy, you keep going to the places he visited!
If you had had fried dough, you would dream about it, too! I have made it at home, but you need good dough to start with. Hmm, maybe something I need to try again!