Adventure #54 Milano's

Three cheers for impromptu adventures! Karin had sampled the fruits of Milano's before, but this was my first time. I just happened to be in the neighborhood when Adam brought the pizzas (one cheese, one pepperoni, and one sausage) from this local South Austin establishment.

What could we do other than snap some pictures and provide an ad-hoc adventure for you all? Here's the scoop: good pepperoni, average sausage, great cheese, good sauce, and a crust that . . . is crust.

Milano's provides good neighborhood pizza with solid cheese and sauce, meaning that you'll be grabbing slices of the cheese pizza you got for the vegetarian at the party. If you're on the south side, order up!

Adventure #53: Firefly Pies

Pizza Adventurers, I have let you down. It has been several weeks since we visited Firefly Pies and these pictures were still sitting in a post waiting for me to write this post. Not only that, but the Firefly website (the trailer looks nothing like the one on the website which makes me wonder if they've updated it since opening) doesn't have a menu, so I can't even give you exact specs on what pizzas they are, you're just going to have to settle for my best approximation. Please don't let this deter you from getting out and trying this pizza; It is worth your time.



The above pie had pesto, kalamata olives, mushrooms, and (I think it was) goat cheese. I found the crust on this one to be a little dry but every one else seemed to love it and the toppings could not have been more delicious.




This pizza was a nice tomato sauce with red pepper (I know it's far from the sauce of pizza purist, but trust me it all comes together in the pizza), mozzarella, garlic, basil, and pepperoni. It was spicy and a little greasy and the basil was the fresh unshredded kind that I like.



I hope that these photos have spoken for themselves and made up for my failure to accurately chronicle this adventure.

-Karin

Ian's note:

One thing I want to note about this pizza is that the crust is amazingly crisp all underneath - you can hold a piece without supporting the bottom and it won't sag. I've rarely seen this in a pizza, and I was uncertain about how it would work. The verdict? It's awesome.

Adventure #52: Enoteca Vespaio

This was one of the more adventurous of our adventures! Come along with me. . .

For this adventure we teamed up with Austin Yankee, a cousin adventurer. Where we explore pizza, she explores wine. This week, we teamed the two up in a South Congress shindig - Enoteca Vespaio. Speaking of South Congress - don't try to get here on a First Thursday when it has been raining. Just don't. The fact that I had a good time on this adventure after the hellish journey to get here is a huge testament to the pizza and our adventuring partner. *end rant*


The bad boy you see above is the Salsiccia: housemade fennel-pork sausage, tomato sauce, roasted peppers, mozzarella & pecorino romano cheese. He was the rock star of our show. Excellent cheese and sausage, combined with a tasty-but-floppy crust, made him the object of our affection for the evening. The only things that bugged me about this pizza were the normal issues with thin crust pizza and lots of meat - the sauce and grease from the sausage mixed together and made the crust sag quite a bit. The good news is, the taste of that amalgamation is fantastic!


The wine that Ms. Yankee paired this pie with proved her expertise. Karin happily proclaimed that not only was the wine drinkable (rare for her), but that it enhanced the pizza.

Now let's talk about the Lardo. Makes you think of a fat kid, right? In this case, only partially right.


Wikipedia tells me that lardo is "a type of salume made by curing strips of pig fat with rosemary and other herbs and spices." The lardo is the translucent strip you see there. It's accompanied by a backup band of garlic, rosemary, arugula & shaved parmigiano reggiano.


Culinarily (made that one up), this pizza is a fine work. The interplay between the pure fat of the lardo and the peppery arugula was worth holding in your mouth and thinking about. And the crust? It was oddly nothing like the crust on the Salsiccia. It was doughy, more structurally sound, and tasted like the best breadstick you could ever eat.

As a pizza, however, I think this misses the mark. I would have preferred to eat the ingredients as a salad with the dough on the side as a breadstick. This certainly doesn't serve as a knock on the restaurant, though. I give big kudos for the experimentation in the kitchen, and would love to come back here with a date and try some of the other pies.

A big plus to the service, too - top notch!

-Ian

Adventure #51: Al Forno Pies and Slices

I am always excited when Ian finds a pizzeria in a neighborhood where I thought I knew them all.  Al Forno is at Parmer and McNeil, right next to Little Woodrow's (a pretty nice neighborhood bar/hangout spot).  Unfortunately I did not come away with much of an impression of this place or the pizza; its location is the most memorable thing about Al Forno. 

We got the Big Mama which comes with Chicago meatballs, pepperoni, red onion, marinated tomatoes, and garlic.  The toppings were all delicious though there was some contention at the table on whether the meatballs had enough flavor.  I fell on the side of liking the meatballs though they were overwhelmed by the pepperoni.  I like garlic on a pizza and am happy when a place makes use of it (we had garlic bread as well which out-shined the pizza).  The marinated tomatoes were like big chunks of heaven.  The cheese and sauce were also pretty good though I can't remember us discussing them at the table (which is unusual).

Where this pie really failed to impress was the crust.  It was tasteless and the outer third of it was too hard for me to enjoy.  Whether this was a result of overcooking or the proofing of the dough, I don't know.  I left all of the bones on the plate though Ian seemed to enjoy dipping his in the leftover pizza sauce and said he enjoyed the crunch.  I am not a New York Style pizza connoisseur, so I don't know if this is representative (it didn't remind me of Home Slice), but the crust wasn't enjoyable to me, it didn't add anything to the pie.

If you're going to be hanging out at Little Woodrow's and you're hungry Al Forno is a fair pie, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get here.  If you are into New York Style pizza I'd love to hear your theory on what the crust should be like.

-Karin

Adventure #50: Via 313

Remember when we visited the "Ok but Forgettable" North by Northwest for Adventure #43? We had special guests with us, Brandon and Zane from Pizza Hunt, another pizza blog. Well, luckily for us, they're out of the blogging business and into the pizza business. Not only are we lucky, but you are too, because their spot has some of the best and most unique pizza in town.

On East Sixth, next to the Violet Crown Social Club, is a small trailer called Via 313, promising Authentic Detroit-Style pizza. Don't know about it? Neither did we. I don't know the specifics, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. What you see below is The Detroiter: cheese and double pepperoni.

See that? It's a square. A meaty, greasy square. A delicious, potentially addictive square. Have you seen anything like this in Austin? Neither have we. The closest thing in appearance would be one of the french bread pizzas at The Parlor, but this pizza is something else entirely.

On the menu sits a reminder that every slice is a corner slice. What this means is that every piece has an edge of slightly burnt carmelization, where both the crust and the cheese are charred. I want to coin this region "heaven". It's that crispiness that offsets the grease that you see in all the photos.

While that sticks out the most, every other feature of this pizza is top notch. The pepperoni is thick, meaty, and full of flavor. (The menu notes that the peps are smoked and in their natural casing.) The cheese is fantastic, perfectly salted with great texture. The sauce? Supreme.

Top five, and in my opinion, the best pizza on the East Side.

-Ian