Cincy chili is nearly a religion here. You're either Skyline or Gold Star, or someone who prefers the non-chain parlors, like Price Hill Chili or Blue Ash Chili.
It's a sauce, not a bowl of chili to eat on its own. It gets ordered in "ways," atop spaghetti, like a 3-way or a 4-way. It also comes on small hot dogs (with onion, mustard, and cheese), and also in wraps.
It's always fun at work with first-time visitors from out-of-town to have an appropriately attractive local ask, "We were thinking of having a 3-way for lunch...want to join us?" - just to see their expression.
It smells like nothing else. Beef and cinnamon and tomato sauce and grease, I guess. If you like Greek/Mediterranean flavors, that kofta-like sweet-savory mix, you might like it.
When you sit down, you'll immediately be presented with a little bowl of oyster crackers. No one puts them in the chili, since the chili is a sauce for spaghetti. The oyster crackers are meant to be a little appetizer, and you're meant to pick one up, and squirt a single drop of hot sauce on it, and nosh on that while you wait for your food. If you're lucky, you'll get the occasional cracker with a little hole in the top, and you can fill it full of hot sauce. Then you're living!
