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

Adventure #49: Austin Terrier

I'm going to start with the bad here because I want the last thing that you read to be about how delicious the pizza was. I want you to come away wanting to get out there and try this pizza. I should also note that this place has only been open for two months, so if you're reading this, there is a slight possibility that they were still working out the kinks. However, I would be remiss in the chronicling of this adventure if I did not document what went wrong.

We seemed to be seated in a unobservable time-bubble. For a full-house of tables they had three waitresses and one manager. The manager was occasionally checking on tables, bussing them, and playing host at the front. The problem was that we were directly in the center of the room (the only table surrounded by nothing else but tables) and everyone was just hitting the outside track. Before it got busy our waitress was awesome, waters were refilled, we were satisfied. As soon as the dinner rush hit we were 100% ignored. It got so bad, 20 minutes after we had finished eating, dirty plates stacked in the center of the table, all glasses empty, wallet out on the table, waitress walking by a dozen times running food and getting checks for other people, that I went up to the bar to another waitress to get our check... three more food trips later our waitress stops by with the check (I didn't let her go away without my payment for fear it would be another 30 minutes before she'd be back)... one table bussed and another cashed out later we had the receipts to sign (had to ask for a pen). Once the rush hit we were never offered water refills, desert, or an explanation or apology for the slow service.

I know places get busy, I know people call in sick, and I know that a little patience will go a long way in having a good dining experience no matter what is going on in the restaurant (we could see that the waitresses were constantly busy and rushing around, so it wasn't like we wouldn't have understood had things been slower than normal), but there is no excuse for having a table that gets so thoroughly ignored that a 45 minute meal turns into an hour and half, half of which no one checked on us. After eating the pizza, had we been checked on, apologized to (the waitress did offer a cursory apology when she dropped off the check, but it definitely forced and didn't feel genuine*) this would have been a glowing review.

Ahhhhhhh......breath in.......done with the complaining and on to the food. Check out those beautiful pies.

Austin Terrier is an adorable restaurant in the corner spot of a shopping center. If you didn't know it was a pizza place, from the street, you would think it did dog grooming as there is nothing on the sign that indicates that it sells food. The decor reminds me a lot of Blackstar Co-op, lots of metal and light colored wood which, while giving it the feeling of IKEA, makes it also feel distinctly low-key. There were a lot of families there and with a kiddie corner full of books and a chalk-board wall I can see myself bringing my kids here.

More important than the decor, they have an Amazing beer selection full of local and regional craft beers (on tap and bottled). I am ashamed to say that I did not have any beer because I had decided that I could have beer OR desert but not both and I had heard good things about their homemade icecream sandwiches (see above rant on terrible service on why I didn't end up with an icecream sandwich). Ian had a Lagunitas IPA (the description of the beer on their website is worth the click) which he seemed positively giddy to find on the menu.

The pies are pretty small, but when you get them and taste the thin, perfectly crispy crust, you will know that the size is held back out of respect for the pie not a desire to limit your consumption. We ordered two pizzas: The Standard (pepperoni, fontina, mozzaralla) and Zilker Love (spinach, red onion, marinated tomato, feta, pesto, and black olives).

The Standard was good. Something consistent between the two pizzas was that there was a perfect amount of grease (oil). The sauce was mild, the crust just enough flavor (we got the white crust on this one), the cheese was good, and the pepperonis were crispy and a little charred. I love it when a place isn't afraid to cook things to perfection instead of pandering to the middle-ground and undercooking (or overcooking) things just to avoid complaints of "burned" pepperoni. Our only complaint on that pizza was that it could have used a bit more pepperoni (though I personally think it would have thrown off the perfect balance of greasiness of the pizza).

Zilker Love was a pizza made of magic. It only took one bite for me to fall so deeply in love that everything that came after was like throwing mud at a unicorn. The toppings were perfectly balanced, the pesto (processed rough enough to get good chunks of pine nuts) playing off the feta playing off the spinach playing off the kalamatas (surprise! the menu said black olives, but if these aren't official kalmatas they are as close as one can get) so that when you take a bite it has the crispiness of the crust and the moisture and flavor that makes you tingle in your special pizza place. Sorry for the run-on sentence there but I can't help but get carried away. There was not a bite of this pizza left and we all agreed that there was nothing that we could think of that could possibly improve this pie.

So....go to Austin Terrier for the food and the beer and let us know if you had a better service experience than we did. I know I'll be back to try it again!

-Karin

P.S. We (my beau and I) tried their Trio of Fries before Ian arrived and were pleasantly surprised by the quantity of fries for the price as well as how delicious all three varieties of fries were (sweet potato, truffle and parmesan, and paprika and mustard).



*...and having been on both the giving and receiving end of genuine food service apologies and faked ones, I really feel this one was faked. It was the kind of apology I'd give to the guy who called my manager 1 minute after our estimated delivery time to complain that the pizza was late. Except, in this situation, there was something wrong.


UPDATE 1/11/12

I had dinner with Jamie, the owner, last night (we had the Spicy Terrier which I was entirely remiss in not taking a picture of, but was as delicious as the previous pizzas would have led me to expect) and we talked a lot. It was entirely enjoyable and he offered no excuses for how bad our service had been (that's a good thing), but was just apologetic and friendly. It was clear that he cares a lot about his restaurant and that, combined with how awesome the place is, has put this on my short list of places I would recommend when people ask where they should be going for pizza in Austin.