Austin Pizza Adventuring

Adventure #54 Milano's

2012-02-29T14:45:00.004-06:00

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

2012-02-26T10:52:00.001-06:00

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

2012-02-04T17:16:00.011-06:00

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

2012-01-24T09:17:00.001-06:00

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

2012-01-14T14:13:00.007-06:00

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

2012-01-09T08:36:00.002-06:00

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.

Adventure #48: Giovanni's Pizza Stand

2011-12-26T20:46:00.004-06:00

We chose to play it close to the vest on our return from hiatus - we hit up a well-Yelped establishment called Giovanni's Pizza Stand, tucked away in a Valero on South Lamar. We even played it safe with the pizza, going for their Margarita: fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, mozzarella, garlic, Romano cheese, and olive oil.

We didn't call ahead, so we had the opportunity to see some other pizzas that went out, and they looked pretty good, with a char on the edges of the thin crust. Hopes were as high as they can be for gas station pizza.

As you can see, the crust looked promising. Things went downhill from there. . .

The fresh tomatoes were standard slices of tomato, which helped inundate the pizza with excess liquid, which was a problem due to the underdone crust. Disclaimer: there was a six-minute car trip to take this pizza to warm seating, which definitely could have contributed to the sogginess.

The crust is where this pizza starts and stops - without sauce, the crust really need to be supportive and taste good, and this crust did neither, which is a shame - the garlic, romano cheese, and basil were all above average and delivered great flavor. Given a heartier char and some nicer tomatoes, this pizza could be a standout in the South Austin scene. If you're in the area, you should ask them to bake it a little longer and let us know what you think.

- Ian

Pizzadventuring: Season Two

2011-12-26T20:35:00.002-06:00

We're back, just in time for the Mayan apocalypse of 2012.

A lot happens in life, but never enough to keep us from pizza. Upward and onward!

Adventure #47: Tony C's Coal Fired Pizza

2011-07-26T09:00:00.001-05:00

Yes, you noticed right and it wasn't on accident. We skipped a number. There is an adventure that has been lost to the void that we call "life". One day we'll return to that place and give it the proper accounting that it deserves, but for right now we've moved on and in the interest of not letting this pizza fall into that void I present to you our experience with Tony C's Coal Fired Pizza in Bee Caves.

First, I feel it warrants mention that this place has the exact opposite feel of a cozy mom-and-pop pizzeria. It's in the Hill Country Galleria and is therefore surrounded by upscale (to me) shops. I always feel a little out of place in places like this. It has a new, dark, clean, and cold aesthetic, like a place that is just itching to be translated into a chain-restaurant. I'm not saying this is a terrible thing (chain-restaurants are popular for a reason), just that it has a decidedly suburban feel rather than an Austin feel. Adding to that is that there are no local beers on tab (except Fireman's 4 which seems to be lots of restaurants' tip-o-the-hat to Texas breweries).

The pizza though, was good (we waffled on calling it great but decided that the whole did not transcend the parts to create an exceptional pizza experience). We got "The Donato" which comes with sausage, pizza sauce, coal fired peppers, black olives, and fresh mozzarella.

The sausage and mozzarella on this pie really were what stood out for me. The sausage is sliced rather than crumbled and was very flavorful. The mozzarella (as you can see above) was slices (I imagine that the large coverage is obtained through putting it on in slices) instead of the shredded (or mixed cheese) variety that is employed in most restaurants.

The crust was good, but not great. It was crisp where it needed to be and just a bit chewy on the ends. I was expecting more coal flavor (I've gotten used to a little char while working for a place with a wood fired oven) and was looking forward to tasting it, but it never came. The most coal flavor came from the coal fired peppers, which were a nice addition to the pizza. I've heard (i.e. read) rumor that lots of coal oven pizzerias that aren't on the east coast tone down the char because us Midwesterners/Westerners can't handle it. I hope that's not the case, but if it is I am disappointed.

The black olives neither added nor detracted to the pizza, which is a shame because I think this came close to being really great, it just needed something to push it over the edge.

Overall, I don't know that it is worth the drive out to Bee Caves, but if you're in the neighborhood it certainly is good pizza.

-Karin

P.S. Don't bother with the bacon wrapped figs as an appetizer. They were ok, but the flavors didn't balance right and the flavor of the gorgonzola stuffed inside the figs was completely lost to the overly sweet honey/vinaigrette liberally "drizzled" on top. If I'm going to pay $9 for 4 bacon wrapped figs stuffed with gorgonzola and drizzled with honey and vinaigrette, they better be Amazing.

Adventure #45 - Jax Neighborhood Cafe

2011-05-23T21:31:00.003-05:00

Audacity has been defined by Jax Neighborhood Cafe. "Austin's ONLY Gourmet Pizza" adorns a banner in front of this neighborhood restaurant and bar. We had to check this bold claim. . .but first, we had to get beer and cheese fries:

The vibe at this place was very un-West Campus (especially for a place in West Campus). There was a crawfish boil going on, along with a karaoke competition. As we nommed on delicious cheese fries with Elgin sausage, we mused openly about what level of gourmet we should expect from such an odd place. . .

And the result? Surprisingly gourmet, yet not close to "the ONLY gourmet pizza in town" given the volume of excellent pizza in Austin. With the big reveal out of the way, let's highlight what we loved about this pizza, which was a simple pepperoni and mushroom.

- simple and bold sauce

- above average ingredients (I especially liked the mushrooms)

- amazingly light and tasty crust

I can't help but think that the pride they take in this pizza is all about the crust, which doesn't draw many comparisons with other crusts we've eaten--it's unique. It has the thick rectangular shape of the sicilian pizza at Miltos, but without any of the heavy weight from oil. A thick, yet airy and somehow crispy crust is the star of this show.

But it's still not the best pizza in Austin, gourmet or otherwise. : ) Touche, Jax, touche.

Adventure #44: Arpeggio Grill

2011-05-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

I must admit that I've been terribly neglectful in getting this post up. You know how it goes, you get really excited about a thing and a year later life seems to take some of the shiny away. Don't get me wrong though, places like Arpeggio grill are what makes this whole thing worthwhile. Before now, you'd probably think the same thing we did, "Mediterranean place that serves pizza? Ehh, it's probably bad. They're trying to please too many people." You'd be mostly wrong.

There have been times when the sum of the parts was greater than the whole; when good ingredients just didn't add up to a good pizza. This is not that pizza. Even though the vegetables were just ok, the sauce was ok, and the crust was ok, the pizza was satisfying and there weren't any complaints around the table.

We got the "Greek Pizza" which has feta cheese, tomato, onion, gyro meat, green pepper, mushrooms, green olives, black olives, and extra cheese. The standout ingredient was the gyro meat which was delicious and just a touch crispy.

In the end, this is going to go down as a forgettable pizza, but if your car dies right in front of Arpeggios (because otherwise, you'd clearly be hobbling to House, Eastside Pies, or Little Deli, all of which are in the vacinity) or you want some pizza and your companions want hummus, go right on in!

-Karin

PS. The staff is super-friendly!

Adventure #43 - North by Northwest

2011-04-03T21:29:00.005-05:00

When Karin and I started, we had agreed to stick to pizzerias first, and then later branch out to restaurants that also happened to serve pizza. After this deviation, we're going to keep sticking to the rules. "Uh oh," you say. Uh oh is right.

Now, I'm unlikely to be as critical as the good fellows that joined us on this adventure - the very cool Hunt brothers from PizzaHunt. But, you're about to see me be upset with some 'za.

North by Northwest, or NXNW, as they go by, is a classy-looking place that serves classy-looking food. I've eaten non-pizza there a few times, and the food is good, as is their craft beer. My complaint is specifically about their undercooked pizza with a strangely tasteless crust.

We sampled two pizzas:

Brunch Pizza: eggs, bacon, tomatoes, green onions, mushrooms, and goat cheese.

Artichoke Pizza: basil pesto, marinara, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, fresh mozzarella.

It's apparent that they use high-quality ingredients here. The basil pesto deserves praise for being "Ian's favorite pesto encountered during a pizzadventure". The artichoke hearts were nice, and I enjoyed the goat cheese on the brunch pie. Aside from that, there's not much to recommend.

The eggs on the brunch pie had a school cafeteria feel to them; the other ingredients didn't seem to mesh, either. And the crust was, as mentioned, dull, tasteless, and lacking in any flexibility. I was sad when Karin traded one of the pieces on this pie to me for one of the artichoke slices.

The artichoke pie was markedly better, but suffered from the same problems - the ingredients did not seem to mesh, and the crust (while cooked a little longer than the brunch pie), was still not passable.

It's a shame that a place with what looks to be a very nice wood-fired oven and a menu full of other delicious food can't pull of the most important parts of pizza. It's also a shame that our server, after forgetting about one of our drink orders, and not keeping our water full, had the audacity to say 'I feel bad, maybe you guys should buy another round' to us after we'd been sitting and talking for a while after paying. We weren't holding up any tables, either - the place was half empty. Deuces, bro. Deuces, NXNW.

One Year Anniversary: Return to House Pizzeria

2011-03-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

We've been Pizza Adventuring for a year now, so we thought we'd take a minute, relax, and go back to the place where, in a booth by the window, Ian and I hatched this blog. That place is House Pizzeria and we can't even pretend that we're impartial here.

This time we decided to get the new special Cauliflower & Ricotta pizza (and we were half-way through it before we even remembered to take a picture). It has roasted cauliflower, a little shredded mozz, black pepper, capers, ricotta cheese dollops, and cracked green olives (really just pitted green olives). It was good. I'm not going to say it's the best pizza I've had there (I will readily admit that I like my pizzas saucy), but the flavors worked very well together; the salty ingredients and pepper balanced the more mild ricotta and cauliflower. And, as usual, the sourdough crust was amazing.

Looking back at the last year of adventuring, I'm proud of it! I'm proud that we managed to get through 42 pizzerias (that's 3 1/2 a month!) and look forward to another great year, there are no shortage of places we have yet to try.

-Karin

Adventure #42 - Italo's Pizza

2011-03-12T12:04:00.005-06:00

Italo's. Have you heard of it? Karin and I hadn't. Its name was whispered to me by a coworker, and in the weeks before we made it here, I heard the name whispered in the wind, in back hallways. . . or was it all in my stomach?

On the unassuming corner of 6th and Comal in East Austin, where most corners are unassuming, you'll find an unassuming building with a large back patio and a small sign. The sign advises that you've arrived at Italo's Pizza and that you can take advantage of a full bar once inside. We eschewed the bar and took advantage of the pizza.

What you see above is the Oglio y Olio: a garlic and olive oil sauce, feta cheese, green olives, and onions. This was a step in a different direction for us, because we generally stick with red sauce pies, but the flavor combination was intriguing. That promise paid off in spades. The salty goodness pops with every bite. The feta cheese is more than ample - you'll get some in every bite. The crust is doughy but firm enough on the bottom to hold up, with a unique flavor that made the bones edible even without sauce. Oh, and the garlic cheese bread (small cheesey stick pieces of crust) is probably the best we've had. Hear and heed the whisper in the back of your tummy - seek out Italo's.

- Ian

Adventure #41 - Reale's Pizzeria

2011-03-07T07:58:00.000-06:00

Before I give my impressions of Reale's Pizza & Cafe as a whole, I'll start with the pizza since that's what brought us there to start with. The pizza was ok. I don't think we had any complaints. We went with The Roasted Pie which is topped with roasted peppers and onions, fresh garlic, and olive oil. The garlic was strong, really strong, punch you in the face strong, which I dig. The peppers were tasty. The sauce was not non-existent, but wasn't distinctly flavored. The biggest comment we had about the crust, which was pretty standard, was that we really wanted some extra virgin olive oil to dip our crusts in.

Regarding the restaurant as a whole, sometimes I wish we took more pictures of place because this place really was a whole package, any one piece of it separate doesn't really work but as a whole I liked it. Reale's Pizza Cafe is an adorable restaurant that reminds me of the kind of place Olive Garden is ripping off. It has the columns and the plants and the prints of classic paintings on the walls. You're likely to see a lot of old people and other interesting people (I think old people are interesting).

The huge puzzle mounted on the wall behind my table (I have vowed to decorate my entire pizzeria (when I have one) with puzzles).

The one problem that I had was that the service seemed less attentive than at an Olive Garden. I do know that our waitress was dealing with a large and rather demanding table near us, and I know we're pretty low maintenance (unlike the dude on the other side of us who wanted her to make sure that the calamari wasn't fried *too much* as if otherwise the restaurant purposefully cooks the calamari to the point of rubbery oblivion), but I appreciate when the waitress remembers that I asked for lime instead of lemon in my water and I don't have to hunt her down just to pay for dinner.

I have no idea if this is typical service (the maitre d' was super apologetic that we waited the actual amount of time that they told us we'd have to wait for a table) but I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that while the atmosphere is nice and the pizza was ok (they have a full line of standard Italian dishes that you might check out) great service would be the one thing that takes me from being on the fence about recommending this place.

In total, I would like to try Reale's again to get a solid take on whether I can recommend it or not. It might be great for taking your grandparents out to dinner (unless they're like the horrible people on the other side of us that salted their pizza. Those kind of people should stay at home, in the dark, with their salt shaker). It might be good to take a date to if you're not really trying to impress them with how hip you are and maybe can make up some sort of nostalgic feel-good story about coming here as a kid with your Nana.

-Karin*

*I'm writing this whole thing with a headache, so I apologize for any grouchiness. Such is the life of a pizza adventurer; we try the pizza but most of the time come out with vague feelings about places rather than conclusions.

Adventure #40 - Pizza Land

2011-02-23T21:51:00.012-06:00

Get your Indian food! Get your kebab! Get your. . .pizza? All is available to you at Pizza Land, on Burnet between Anderson and 2222. In addition to kebab and biryani, you can get fish masala, chicken nuggets, and spaghetti. Terrified yet?

Withhold your terror, dear readers! We braved this menu to try a Greek pizza for you, complete with Gyro meat, onions, green peppers, and tomatoes. To leave you twisting in the wind waiting to know if it was any good, I'll grace you with some excellent pros in favor of Pizza Land:

- Staff was very pleasant when I picked up the pizza AND there was a discount for pick-up.

- Their hours are beyond compare: Sun-Thursday 10am-3am, Fri-Sat 10am-5am. FIVE AM!

- Their food is Halal, for anyone who lives under that umbrella of dietary restrictions.

Cons after the crust:

- Their food is Halal, meaning you won't find any piggy on your pie (they use turkey instead.)

- The pizza. . .

FAKE OUT! The pizza was about average for a neighborhood pie shop. Nothing to write home about, but nothing off-putting either. I found the gyro meat to be a nice touch, slightly crispy and cut up like bacon. Karin thought the cheese was pretty good. We both agree at 3am on a Saturday the cheese would taste great - so if you're in the neighborhood order it up!

Adventure #39: Promise Pizza

2011-02-07T00:01:00.001-06:00

When we saw that ATX Gluten Free was having a Gluten Free Pizza Week, we jumped on the chance to try something new. If you didn't know (and I didn't either), gluten free means wheat (and rye and barley) free. I knew that gluten is the thing that gives dough stretch and chewiness because, if you've ever made pizza dough, you can see the gluten strands webbing the dough when you stretch it to transparency. It's why flour, when wet, becomes dough instead of just wet flour. Gluten is also a problem for people with Gluten Sensitivity and Coeliac disease (both of which do horrible things to your intestines).

There were several options around town for us to try a gluten-free pizza, but we decided on Promise Pizza. I won't spout their official stuff, but everything about Promise Pizza seems to say "organic food is clean food." I don't necessarily subscribe to that attitude, but from the sterile metal decor to the designation of drinks as "bio-fuels" and the use of company-owned Smart cars as delivery vehicles, it's clear that they are serious about it.

Here's what we thought of the food itself:

We got two appetizers, the stuffed mushrooms and the stuffed jalapenos. Both were excellent. The mushrooms were fresh and flavorful and the jalapenos were spicy (they're smaller than what you typically see for stuffed jalapenos because the jalapenos that are typically used in restaurants for stuffing are larger and bred to be milder). The stuffing was cream cheese, sausage, and pepperoni.

We got "The American" pizza which was sausage, pepperoni, extra cheese, and mushrooms.

The breakdown:

Toppings - delicious. I really liked the flavors and amount of toppings. They weren't anything special, but I didn't find that to be a fault.
Cheese - good shredded mozz (we decided not to try their Vegan cheese so that we could focus on the difference a gluten-free crust had on the pizza)
Sauce - too sweet for my taste

(and for what you came to find out...)

Crust - it was crispy and delicious. If someone had handed me that slice without telling me the crust was gluten free I would have been surprised at how good their thin-crust was without even thinking that it might not be made of wheat flour.

The downsides of the crust were that it was $4.50 extra and only came in the 10 inch size. For someone who is dying for pizza (or who has a gluten sensitive child who is), the extra money might be completely worth it, though at $16.50 for a pizza that would easily feed only one person (maybe two if you stretch it with an appetizer), that's one expensive meal.

In total, I might be persuaded to try Promise Pizza again to try their regular crust, but the sweet sauce is a huge turn-off for me (they do offer a garlic and olive-oil "sauce" as well, which is what I would recommend you get if you don't like sweet sauce either).

-Karin

Adventure #38 - Grand Slam Pizza

2011-02-02T20:55:00.004-06:00

Say you're on the way to a brewery opening (Jester King, ne?) or headed out to Blanco for a winery tour. Say also that you're a pizzadventurer, much like Karin and I.

Where is the nearest pizza?! Is there pizza in Dripping Springs? Is it good?

Gentle reader, we have answered these questions for you. Please meet Grand Slam Pizza, one of what Google Maps believes are only two independent pizza places in the Dripping Springs area.

We grabbed The Heat, as seen in the middle, above. The aim is similar to a taco: mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, ground beef, onions, bell pepper, chunky tomato, and a picante sauce base. Did the Heat deliver on it's Mexican promise? Did it deliver as a pizza?

Picante sauce on a pizza doesn't work for everyone, but it had the desired effect on me= Taco 'za! The thin application of the not-too-spicy sauce was just right in proportion to the toppings. The toppings themselves were about average, but were evenly distributed and in the right ratio to each other.

The one complaint that was brought up in the discussion was the extensive use of what appeared to be garlic salt on the pizza. You can see it covering most of the pie in the pictures. I wasn't at all bothered by this, and liked that it added some flavor to an otherwise dull crust. However, this was not the majority opinion in our group of four, so be warned!

The atmosphere of the place is very hometown-ey. There are sports pennants all around, and a family-friendly game room with a handful of cheap arcade games. The service was also friendly and prompt. Last but not least, the cheese bread (cheese on crust) was pretty awesome, but I hid the mention of it down here because I neglected to take a picture. : (

- Ian

Adventure #37: Mandola's Italian Market

2011-01-20T08:43:00.001-06:00

I've realized, after having several Neopolitan style pizzas, that I've been a bit spoiled working at House; I find it hard to put aside my bias and preconceptions and just enjoy the pizza. With that said, this pizza was definitely in the good, but not great range.

We got the "Pugliese"* which had "tomato sauce, mozzarella, sausage, pan roasted mushrooms & shaved
sweet red onions". The star of this pizza was definitely the sausage. Everything else seemed to lend its flavor to the sausage, enhancing it instead of creating distinct flavors. The sausage was fantastic. It had lots of spice and a wonderful texture.

As far as the crust, sauce, and cheese went, they were ok. The crust was crisp and rather flavorless; the sauce was scarce and at least once I distinctly tasted some sugar in it; and the cheese wasn't really noticeable though I'm sure it contributed to the sausage's taste. I know this description makes it sound terrible, which it wasn't. It was actually pretty good in aggregate, but not so awesome when broken down into its elements.

Mandola's itself was cute. I would recommend it as a good first date place. Not only do they have a nice selection of Italian food, but they have an awesome desert selection with a few cases devoted to cakes, gelato (I had the cinnamon gelato and it was heavenly), and other pastries. It's also in a good location, right across from Flying Saucer and in the same shopping center as Kick Butt Coffee, so if you and your hypothetical date hit it off over pizza and cake, you could head across to Flying Saucer for a few beers (you're dating someone who likes beer, right?).

-Karin

*Remind me sometime to rant about having to awkwardly order pizzas with names I can't pronounce.

Adventure #36 - Bola Pizza

2011-01-10T18:52:00.006-06:00

We trekked across Republic Square park, past the one man band, past the cupcake stand, past the unbagged puppy poop . . . on a true pizza adventure. We emerged from the throng to find our destination: a husband, a wife, and a trailer. We had found it - Bola Pizza.

Why downtown? Why at the SFC Farmer's Market? Why at 11am? We'll let their homepage copy do the convincing: "As good or better than just about any pizza you can buy in a 500 mile radius of Austin." - Addie Broyles, Austin American Statesman. How could these pizza adventurers turn away an opportunity to test such a bold pronouncement?

Enough with the rhetorical questions! On with the pizza. We had the Pep Star: Peppadew peppers, Pancetta, Goat Cheese, Mozzarella, Tomato Sauce, and High Self Esteem. Bola makes a point to emphasize their use of only local ingredients. This doesn't matter much to me (gasp!) What does matter is the tremendous quality of these ingredients, leading to a sum that was a good as the parts indicated. Special praise goes to the pancetta, which was like eating delicious crispy fat, and the sauce, which was simple and effective. The only thing not outstanding on this pie was the crust -- it was merely good.

Best pizza within 500 miles? I'm not convinced. Worth a trip to the farmer's market on Saturday morning? You bet your mule.

- Ian

Adventure #35 Milto's Mediterranean Cafe (& Pizza Pub)

2010-12-29T09:04:00.002-06:00

The wonderful thing about adventuring is that sometimes it transcends the pizza. The pizza at Milto's Mediterranean Cafe (listed on Yelp and other places as Milto's Pizza Pub) was ok, but when I look back on the evening, the fun and friendship that surrounded the pizza made the experience exceptional. I offer, as example, this picture where Ian and Girlface are completely mortified at something I've said (drunkenly) at a volume that exceeded that which was necessary to get the point across:

Milto's itself was a cozy place, with cheap wine (it's near a college campus and you can get a carafe of wine [out of a jug] for around $8), a menu full of pizza, pasta, Italian, and Greek food, and friendly staff.

But... to talk about the actual pizza, here it is...

We got the "Lone Star" on Sicilian crust (they have two types of crust, Sicilian thick crust and Neopolitan crust, though we didn't investigate precisely how "Neopolitan" their crust actually is). The Lone Star has pepperoni, italian sausage, imported ham, onions, and extra cheese.

There was a lot of cheese and it was good cheese, rather salty, but that could have been some of the taste of the meat coming through. Toppings weren't heavily applied and I can't fault the pizza for that, but given the thick crust, it certainly could have benefited from a touch more meat.

It's hard for me to describe the way the meat just wasn't noticeable on the pizza. It could have been that with so much cheese and bread, the meat blended in so well. It could have been that we'd had a little too much holiday cheer and were so hungry that the first could of pieces were eaten with little regard to savoring it. Either way, when I actually set about to try each ingredient to take measure, they were good. The sausage is sliced; the pepperoni is standard; and the imported ham, where it wasn't covered by cheese, crisped up to taste a lot like bacon.

The crust was very bready and less oily than I've experienced with other thick crust pizzas. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't awesome. I wanted more flavor from it, for it to be more than just a thicker bread on which toppings and cheese were spread.

And last, but certainly not least, I found the sauce to be delicious. I'd like to go back and try their Neopolitan crust so that I can see how the sauce does on a more traditional pizza.

-Karin

Adventure #34 - Quattro Gatti Ristorante e Pizzeria

2010-12-18T15:07:00.008-06:00

Quattro Gatti is the first place we've gone where we've been asked if we have a reservation. We did not, but Thursday night didn't seem to be the time to need one - we were promptly seated.

Was this pizza reservation worthy? Find out after this picture of bruschetta. (This was delicious, a perfect blend of textures and flavors.)

How about the pizza? We chose the Quattro Stagioni: Tomato sauce, mushrooms, Soppressata, artichokes, and olives. Soppressata (we had to look it up) is Italian cured salami. Top notch ingredients - check.

Unfortunately, the sum of the parts was less than what you'd expect on paper.

The ingredients really were great: the mushrooms were slightly exotic and sweet, the olives were the Kalamata variety, the tomato sauce was what it claimed to be - tomatoes (although there was some debate as to whether the tomatoes were just a sweet variety or whether sugar was added to the sauce. I think we agreed that they were just sweet tomatoes.) The salami was slightly crispy and salty, a good balance to the sweet sauce. So . . . where did this pie go wrong?

Crust and balance. Within a minute of arriving at the table, the middle of the crust was soggy enough to warrant very careful movement to your plate. By the end of the meal, I was able to fold a piece vertically. It would take a great pizza to overcome a soggy crust, but the ingredients never seemed to gel - the sauce was a little too sweet, the salami a little too salty, the cheese a little too . . . . not special.

While we're not so sure we'd go back for pizza, the atmosphere is intimate and most of the menu is normal Italian fare. Judging by the bruschetta, you may fare well ordering from that side of the menu.

-Ian

PS (from Karin) - I think this bruschetta will be the bruschetta that all future bruschettas shall be judged by.

Adventure #33: Frank & Angie's Pizzeria

2010-12-09T10:09:00.006-06:00

I must admit that I've been avoiding Frank & Angie's. I went there on a date once and it was a good date but the food was disappointing (not necessarily bad, just diappointing, we got the "margherita" which was of the common reinterpreted variety that is really a white pie with tomatoes), and then the boy turned out later to be both a bit of a jerk and rather disappointing, so I didn't really want to go back.

This time Frank & Angie's had some things going for it that it didn't last time: greatly superior company, an excellent band consisting of a guitar, an accordion, a bass, and some triangle guitar thing that I don't know the name of (Ian, feel free to chime in here with the name of it), and the fact that we were all famished.

We started with the bruscetta (but were too hungry to take any pictures of it before devouring it). I thought the bread was a bit too dense for my liking and Ian wished that it came in a form where he didn't have to put the herbed tomatoes on the bread himself. Taste-wise it wasn't too bad though.

Regarding the pizza, we got the Sergio Leone (and I enjoyed the Ian and Adam nerding out with their encyclopedic knowledge of film directors, he is a director right?). It comes with mozzerella, cajun spiced chicken, pesto, tomatoes, banana peppers, and pizza sauce. I'm not quite sure how the ingredients of the pizza were inspired by Sergio Leone, but we went with it anyway.

It didn't take more than a bite to discover that "cajun spiced chicken" tasted just like any other dry, unspiced chicken chunks. They didn't add anything to pizza and were easy enough to ignore.

Regarding the other toppings, they worked out pretty well. The pizza sauce and pesto combined to make a very saucy pizza. It oozed. I like this, but I can understand why someone who likes less sauce would dislike it. The banana peppers were both deliciously spicy and added a much needed bit of texture to the pizza.

The crust was the star of this pizza. It was sturdy enough to not get soggy under the weight of the pesto, sauce, and tomatoes and still maintained a bit of crunch. The out edges didn't look substantial but they were brushed with oil (or butter) and spices and were surprisingly soft inside.

Overall the pizza came together better than its parts suggest and I would love to try one of their other specialties. I would call this good pizza, but not great pizza.

-Karin

PS. The tiramisu was delicious!

Adventure #32 - Hoboken Pie

2010-12-05T15:25:00.006-06:00

I don't know the slightest thing about Hoboken, the New Jersey city that Hoboken Pie is presumably named after. What I do know is that if you want some saucy and delicious 'za, get down to 7th and Red River. Take the Gamboa as an example:

Italian fennel sausage. Artichoke hearts. Pepperoncini pepper slices. Mushrooms. Oregano. Oh, and sauce. Lots and lots of sauce. Not much to say about this pizza aside from the following: the ingredients are top notch, the sauce is solid and abundant (order light sauce if you're not a sauce lover), and the crust is darn good, with what we agreed was pepper sprinkled across the bottom.

Adventure #31 - Rocking Tomato Pizza Company

2010-12-02T12:00:00.001-06:00

This is important -> If you go to Rockin Tomato, you need to get the Garlic Bread Twists. They are delicious, well seasoned, generously portioned, and the twisty shape itself is the perfect food to just sit there and snack on. Ian proclaims this to be the best bread appetizer he's had so far while adventuring. I proclaim this to be one of the only pizza-related foods that is allowed to go anywhere near ranch dressing.

Before talking about the pizza, I would like to mention that I really enjoyed the atmosphere at Rockin Tomato*. There was live music (and they were actually entertaining), you order at the counter, and it seems like a great, laid back place to grab a beer and a pizza.

We had a hard time deciding what we wanted. None of the specialties grabbed our attention. I suppose that after 30 of these we're starting to get a sense of what we do and don't like and what might actually be a good idea versus what's on the menu to please the masses (a "supreme" style pizza, a "all the meats" style pizza, a "Hawaiian" pizza, etc). After a lot of deliberation we decided to break a rule, take advantage of a special price on 3 topping pizzas, and choose our own combo. We went with bacon, red onions, and meatballs.

Here's the breakdown from the bottom up:

Crust - fairly typical and not necessarily the best, it reminds us a lot of Mr Gatti's crust, fairly tastless, no edges but not quite a thin crust, jazzed up along the outer edge with some garlic butter and herbs to make more palatable
Sauce - subtle when isolated, but was very good when meshing with the cheese
Cheese - this was good, and also pretty standard, they didn't try to do anything special here
Toppings - all of them were good. Ian liked the size of the red onion chunks. I thought the meatballs, while not being seasoned enough for my tastes, added a good texture to their bites. The bacon was no-surprises bacony.

Overall, this is a solid no-surprises pizza. I would go there again, especially if I was trying to please a diverse group who may be more resistant to adventurous pizza.

-Karin

*The other location in South Austin has a separate website but an almost identical menu.

Adventure #30 - Big Bite Pizza and Grill

2010-11-17T21:46:00.005-06:00

Big Bite Pizza and Grill, probably more well known for its 'Phat' sandwiches (see their menu for the gory details) was our destination this week. It wasn't our in original itinerary, but it happens to have the virtue of being open at 11:30 on a Sunday morning.

There's not much to say here except that we may have, as usual, gotten the wrong pizza. We saddled up with the Big Bite Special, which has bacon, sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, bell pepper, onion, and black olives. The quantity of the ingredients as well as the quality of a few brought down a pizza that otherwise has strong fundamentals.

The crust on this one had good flavor and a nice mix of chewy and crisp on the edges, but the quantity of toppings made the soft middle too flexible and caused significant droop.

The significant droop on the crust caused the majority of toppings to slide right off. The only toppings to say were the pepperoni and a portion of the sausage, because these were the only two toppings that were baked in with the pie.

The rest of the toppings appear to have been thrown in shortly before the pie left the oven, given that the thinly sliced onions were not burned. This exacerbated the sliding topping syndrome.

As for the quality of the toppings? I was pleased with the meat offerings, especially the disc-shaped sausage. The vegetables were hit or miss - I liked the way the onions were thinly sliced, but was not a fan of the mushrooms, which had the tinny taste of can-dom. However, the peppers were done right and the bacon was perfect - small crispy chunks of pork!

As we feel all too often, we might feel differently coming back and getting a different pizza with fewer toppings. The sauce and crust are above-average, but will the toppings hit or miss? Maybe you can find out! (Choose your own adventure pizza?)

- Ian

Adventure #29: Rudino's Pizza and Grinders

2010-11-11T12:00:00.001-06:00

Two pieces of business up front before we get to the pizza:

First, I accidentally picked a chain restaurant. I hadn't actually looked at the website ahead of time and, having never seen a Rudino's before (they're a family chain in NC plus licensees in NC and other places), I just went with it. Trying to get their menu online to give you the exact contents of the pizza, I discovered that I had breached the rules with this pick.

Second, I'll admit up front my bias against this place: It's too close to Saccone's for me to ever go here. If I'm in the neighborhood, I know where I'm going. There are a couple of things that they have going for them which are a good selection of beer and friendly staff, both things that Saccone's lacks.

Now on to the pizza:

It was ok. The crust was definitely too underdone/floppy for our tastes. The cheese and other toppings were pretty forgettable and blended into a mass of greasy, meaty, pizza-stuff on top of the crust. We got the Meat Monster specialty, which comes with pepperoni, sausage, ham, and meatballs. We skipped the ham and added black olives.

There's just not too much to say about this. We ate it. We didn't regret eating it, but I probably won't be coming back here for pizza.

-Karin

Adventure #28 Pizza Paradise

2010-10-31T16:06:00.005-05:00

When I texted to Karin that we were going here, I will admit that I called it Paradise Pizza. I will not make the same mistake again!

Pizza Paradise, located off of Metric near the ACC Northridge campus, is a local carry-out and delivery spot - no tables to speak of here! I didn't know this when I led Karin here, and we had to hustle our order back to her house before it cooled too much. When we got there, here's what we found:

We had ordered a Greek pie: Kalmata olives, banana peppers, red onions, tomatoes, feta cheese, and Italian seasonings. We also threw in an order of Paradise Sticks, their specialty breadsticks.

The first thing I have to say about this pizza is about the crust. I'm normally a fan of pan-style and deep-dish pies, and this was no exception - the crust was thick and chewy. However, it didn't measure up to some of my other favorites in the genre - maybe the seasoning on the crust or the topping to crust ratio? For the record, Karin is a big fan of the seasoning on the crust and didn't seem to have the same issues I had.

The rest of the pie was above average - nice tomatoey Marinara sauce without excess spices, just the right amount of Kalmata olives (not enough to overpower the pie), and a good seasoning blend to give it a little flavor to compete with the olives and banana peppers.

The only thing that may throw people off is the feta cheese - Karin found it slightly off-putting, but I didn't notice until she said something. (Funny how that goes!)

As for the breadsticks - the marinara is delicous, as is the garlic/spice mixture that goes on top of them. I think they're a little bready (no pun, seriously), but they are tasty and will put a major dent in your hunger.

- Ian

Adventure #27 - The Onion

2010-10-25T07:39:00.004-05:00

There came a time last week when I was having a terrible day. I NEEDED pizza (and the added benefit of excellent companionship didn't hurt either). We decided to go down to The Onion downtown. The Onion is a special place. The motto on its website is "The best pizza you'll never remember eating." I'm here to tell you that it's worth the time and effort to go downtown sober and order a pie.* But don't worry, if you are drunk and stumble in for a slice (get the whole pie! You won't regret it!), your drunken buddy won't steal the parmesan shaker because it's duct taped to the counter (because The Onion is to pizza joints what Cheers** is to bars).

Ian and I disagreed about where exactly this pizza fell on a scale of deliciousness. We agreed that the cheese was fantastic. He felt that the sauce, while deliciously tangy, was a little too sweet. I am okay with sweet sauce and was definitely happy with the quantity of sauce (they were generous), so the biggest issue with the pizza for me was that the crust felt a little underdone. I am a pizza optimist though and would like to think that experimenting with special instructions such as "light sauce" or "well done" (or perhaps catching the pizzaiola in a different mood) might yield a heavenly pizza.

Regarding toppings, we settled on "The Italian" specialty which has pepperoni, sausage, black olives, mushrooms, and garlic (Yes, the above picture looks like a drunkard took it. Perhaps I was channeling my surroundings without realizing it). I had a hard time tasting the garlic through the rest of the ingredients, but I was ok with that despite the fact that I'm a huge garlic fan. The sausage was tasty, the pepperoni was greasy, and the black olives and mushrooms rounded out the pizza well.

I suppose it is worth repeating that despite the small problems with the pizza, I will definitely be recommending it as good downtown pizza.

-Karin

*When talking about downtown pizzerias, I think it's important to point out, as a caution, the difference between getting a slice of pizza and getting a whole pie and that a slice of pizza can't be used to predict the quality of a pie and a pie can't be used to predict the quality of a slice. When I say slice, I mean walking into a joint (or up to a cart), seeing the displayed pizzas, picking one out, and having them heat it. The pizzas that are used for slices are par-cooked (which is why they look rather disgusting as compared to fully cooked pies) so that when they reheat them they don't get over-cooked. The consistency of a slice is inevitably either drier or soggier than what you might get if you order a pie.

**Every city in the world has a dive bar named Cheers right?

Adventure #26 - Red House Pizzeria

2010-10-23T01:56:00.005-05:00

It's a cool crisp autumn evening. You want to sit outside, drink some cocktails, and eat some pizza. While you're at it, it would be nice if you could get some people-watching in. Where do you go?

It's red, it's a a house, it's a pizzeria.

Red House Pizzeria, on Manor Road in between Vivo and El Chile, is your new hipster hangout-cum-pizza joint. Not as divey as Jack's, not as refined as House, Red House provides smaller pies with hearty toppings and a delicate, balanced crust. While they only have a limited number of specialty pies, don't be afraid to throw some toppings together on your own. Karin and I figured this one out by way of a happy accident.

We weren't going to learn much about anything other than pepperoni, having ordered the Double Pepperoni, consisting of cheese, pepperoni and . . . more pepperoni!

What came out was pepperoni and sausage. We didn't have to point this out to our cute tattoo-sleeved waitress -- she admitted the kitchen mistake right off the bat, and offered to have our original pizza made for us. We told her that we would roll with it in true Adventurer style. This paid off double - we got to taste some awesome sausage AND had our waitress return to tell us she would be bringing us out a double pepperoni pie before we left. WIN!

Ok, I'll finally talk about the pizza. DOUBLE PIE EVALUATION!

Not only did I sneak a piece of the 2x pepperoni, but I ended up eating my share of this pie within 10 minutes of getting home.

Here's my eval of the Double Pepperoni:

Pepperoni - greasy, thick, meaty.

Crust - light, slightly soggy in the middle due to grease, perfectly chewy with crispness on the edges

Cheese - tasty and just a little stretchy.

Sauce - just plain good

Sausage and pepperoni:

The only difference between the two pies is the subtraction of a few pepperonis and addition of some freaking awesome sausage. Characteristics of the sausage: moist, spicy, sweet, awesome.

Our waitress let us know that all toppings are prepared/cooked in-house and we believe it.

This place is legit.

- Ian

Adventure #25 - Return to Eastside Pies

2010-10-13T08:49:00.008-05:00

After adventuring to 24 different pizza joints it's becoming clear that there are a few places that deserve 2nd visits; these are places that Ian and I find ourselves returning to on our own, bringing guests to, and recommending, sometimes after only one visit ourselves. Eastside Pies is one of those places. The first time, we were impressed with the pizza overall but the sausage was a little bland. On return visits Ian swears that the sausage was flavorful, making the pizza delicious. I'm a sucker for a menu with creative names (there's a pizza called the Moon Dingo), so when we decided to revisit somewhere, Eastside Pies was a natural choice.

Before I talk about the pizza, I want to spend a moment on the service. When we arrived there was a couple of people in line ahead of us but the place wasn't packed. The kitchen seemed hectic, but that's not unusual for packing five or six guys into a little space and a busy night. After ordering we went to sit on the patio (the only seating area) to wait for our garlic knots (more rolls than knots) which were promised to us as soon as they came out of the oven since Ian was famished. Slices kept coming out of the window and even though we knew that people had ordered after us we figured that our knots would be out any minute. Eventually a to-go order came out that had knots as well. We thought they might be ours, but when we went to inquire at the window they had not only lost our order, but had completely forgotten that we'd ordered at all. Two different guys came out to apologize (and they upgraded our pizza from the 14 to the 18 inch), but it doesn't change the fact that we waited 30-40 minutes when it should have been 15-20. The whole thing made me a bit grumpy and less able to enjoy the pizza when it finally did come out, so some of the enjoyment of the pizza that you'll read shortly was gleaned from my experience reheating the slices the next day.*

We got the Homer, a pizza topped with meatballs, roasted red peppers, onions, and habanero peppers (allegedly). Here's the breakdown:
-Crust: still good, very thin, didn't hold up as well in the 18 inch size as it did in the 14 inch.
-Sauce: still delicious, adds flavor to the pizza and made what little edge there was tasty
-Meatballs: these were amazing, I never want to have a pizza there again that doesn't have meatballs on it. They were spicy and worked well on a pizza.
-Roasted red peppers & onions: they were there, no surprises
-Habanero peppers: MIA. The window-dude said that he personally put them on the pizza and that perhaps they weren't as spicy because of when they were picked.

Overall, I wanted so badly to like this place as much as everyone else seems to and I can't say that I necessarily dislike it. For me, it's still in a limbo-land of pizza places that I'll need to visit again to pass judgment on.

*For having a very thin crust the slices reheat surprisingly well. The crust holds together and doesn't get soggy even though it is soft and floppy. The sauce didn't create a weird slimy layer that I've found some other reheated pizzas have.

-Karin

Adventure #24 - Garlic Breath

2010-10-08T01:37:00.010-05:00

Where do you turn when you're absolutely starving? Do you seek perfection from a gourmet Margherita? No. Do you go to the local pizza smörgåsbord buffet and load up? Ugh, I hope not.

Here's what you do - you speed your way up I-35 to Garlic Breath in Round Rock. There were 4 of us. We were starving. This called for something serious. Bring in the Taco Pizza.

Refried beans, salsa (these served as the base), beef, black olives, Doritos. We also had jalapeños placed on this pie.

*watches all those who are reading this at 3am in their underwear start to grab their car keys before realizing that the restaurant is closed*

Now, don't let me characterize this all as only food for the starved or stoned. By all accounts, this is a competent pizzeria. The crust was sturdy enough to hold the thick beans and heavy toppings, but was also flavorful. The beans were just the right consistency, and the toppings were all in proportion. My only complaint about this pie is that the ground beef was plain and slightly flavorless. Would this have changed if we chose steak or chicken? I'm not sure, but maybe you should try if you're up in Round Rock.

P.S. - We also had some cheesy garlic bread as an appetizer. I loved the size of these - they were like buttery, cheesy, crispy morsels.

- Ian

Adventure #23: EZ's

2010-09-29T12:00:00.001-05:00

I was excited to go to EZ's because they have a wood-fired oven for cooking pizza in. Perhaps it's that I'm currently learning to work the woodfired oven at work or that it seems that, if a place is keeping a fire going specifically for the purpose of cooking pizza, they must be excited about their pizza. The latter is probably not true.

They only offer two sizes of pizza, 7 inch and 11 inch (slightly smaller than the typical medium pizza) and since we had guests (and there was a handy special) we decided to get two 7 inch pizzas, a pepperoni and a margherita pizza (they're loose interpretation [an unfortunately rather common interpretation] of which is a white pizza with sliced tomatoes and basil on it).

Both pizzas were underdone and doughy. The crust was fluffy and not unpleasant had it been cooked longer. ^This^ is not an acceptable upskirt for a wood oven cooked pizza! Look at the top pizza, the "margherita". It's not even golden brown! Most of the crust is still white.

The rest of it reminded me a lot of the pizza Lunchables I used to take to grade school. It seemed like a bready, kid friendly crust, pepperoni that was not even a little crisp, cheese that was decent but not good, and unremarkable sauce.

I am truly curious if the pizza would be any better if I ordered it well done.

Conclusion: EZ's is as kid-friendly as it advertises and there is a variety of food, so maybe if I were to go there again and find out that their burgers weren't that awesome and then be forced to go there again and I asked for my pizza well done, this would be a more than edible pizza option. I just wouldn't pick it as a place to go for pizza.

-Karin

P.S. The kid's menu has "Kid's Brick Oven Pizza". I have no idea what that could possibly be and the menu gives no further hints.

Adventure #22: Mangieri's Pizza Cafe

2010-09-23T12:20:00.006-05:00

More than a week later I still don't know quite what to think of this pizza. We got the Hot Pig from Mangieri's Pizza Cafe. The Hot Pig has "sausage, spicy giardiniera Italian relish, garlic, black pepper, extra virgin olive oil, mozzarella, and fresh parmigiano reggiano." The crust had the exact flavor of a Ritz cracker, buttery and just a little sweet. This was probably the weirdest part for me. The toppings were ok; the pepper overwhelmed the sausage; the relish was an interesting and delicious topping; everything just didn't quite come together and I don't know why.

Something that did come together wonderfully was the garlic bread. It came with delicious marinara and what was probably a house made garlic butter sauce. Both sauces were so good that I kept alternating, not wanting to pick one or the other.

It wasn't bad pizza, it wasn't even not-good pizza. The only way I think I could draw a conclusion would be to give Mangieri's a second try (but I'm certainly not going to drive down to South Austin to get some).

-Karin

Adventure #21: Texas Pizza, Pasta, and More

2010-09-10T21:32:00.009-05:00

For a change of pace, Karin and I decided to grab a takeout pie from a place near to her home - Texas Pizza, Pasta, and More.

Word of warning: we were lucky we had decided on takeout, because there is NO seating here. In fact, when you walk in the door you face a large desk - the type a secretary would have. The kitchen is hidden behind the back wall and a large swinging door with a small window near the top. All in all, it made the ordering and waiting an odd experience. We chose to sit in my car outside rather than stand there awkwardly.

When Karin went in and got our pizza (out of doors, out of mind?), we were off to her house for TV and 'za.

Here's the breakdown:

Garlic Cheese Bread: Karin did not care for this much at all, but I was a fan of the thicker consistency. It had a pita-like quality, with some thickness and chewiness, and just the right amount of cheese baked in to it. The marinara was super thin, but pleasantly spicy.

The Mexican (Pizza): Ground beef, bell pepper, onion, black olives, green olives, tomatoes, jalapenos, cheddar cheese, crushed red pepper, and garlic. Double-digit ingredients!!! Let's have a moment of silence for this achievement. . .and for how it just wasn't that great.

The ingredient selection was the strongest part of this pizza. I loved the green olives and jalepenos! The pizza had salt and spice, but the overall quality was lacking. The crust was not crisp in any segment, the cheese was uneven and congealed quickly, and the sauce wasn't really a presence.

If you're in the Airport/Lamar area, this is a local delivery option for you. Otherwise, check our list for some other sports worth traveling to.

-Ian

Adventure #20: Austin's Pizza

2010-09-09T08:12:00.005-05:00

Last week we ventured to Austin's Pizza, the staple food of college-kids all over town. There's not much to say about the place, so I'll jump right into the pizza.

It was ok.

Better than Craig-O's, worse than Jackalope.

They have specialties named after Austin places (which rocks) and we went with The Downtown; Pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, and black olive. A musing on why it might be named The Downtown: it's the ideal combination of toppings for getting after going downtown and getting drunk.

The cheese was cheesy, the mushrooms were fresh, the pepperoni was greasy, the crust was buttery; I have nothing bad to say about this pizza. I'd order it for delivery over Dominos, Pizza Hut, or Papa John's any day.

-Karin

Adventure #19: Niki's Pizza

2010-08-20T10:05:00.007-05:00

This was a random adventure, friends and followers. Not only did Karin just happen to spot this pizzeria/Italian eatery as she was out shopping, but we didn't intend to go here this week! Karin had proposed one destination that I had denied due to a rules violation, so she had suggested another. When I pick her up, she desired to go to yet ANOTHER pizzeria, so off we went to the barren north - Tech Ridge.

Niki's Pizza is located in a nondescript shopping center over by Tech Ridge. They serve slices, and one gets the impression that there's a booming lunch crowd given the proximity of Dell. At dinnertime, we had a few other guests dining in with us, and a few others came in to grab their pies to-go. Although the menu online lists some specialty pies, there were none on the menu in-store, so we made pizza ourselves.

We decided on pepperoni, onions, and green peppers due to a) a special on an XL 3-topping and b) a misunderstanding between Karin and I about black olives; turns out we both like them. For starters, we had some garlic bread, as usual.

The garlic bread was appropriately garlicy, but the marinara was thin and generic. We were starving, so there wasn't much to complain about.

How about that pie?

Component #1: Grease - Pools of it!

Component #2: More Grease - Seriously, this is one of the greasiest pizzas we've had. You can see it in the upskirt crust pic.

Component #3: Nicely cut tasty veggies - These were cut in a way conducive to being on a pizza and were pretty fresh. For sure they were a high point.

Component #4: Generic pepperoni - Not much to say about this. Basic salty pepperoni, kind of thin.

Component #5: Cheese and sauce? - The grease, cheese, and sauce seemed to all blend together to form a cheesy substance on the pizza. Not much flavor to comment on.

Component #6: Crust - Not firm enough to stand up to the grease, but appropriately chewy on the ends.

Altogether, this wasn't the greatest pizza, although for the price (9.99), there's not much to complain about. It could easily feed 4 people if you include the garlic bread we got. Last but not least, Karin and I each had additional insights during the night after our adventure:

Karin - "The cheese and grease did a number on my stomach. 10 dollar tummyache"

Ian - "This is much better after some time in the fridge, at 1am, when the grease has congealed."

-Ian

Adventure #18: Yaghi's Pizza

2010-08-16T15:22:00.009-05:00

For once, I think we picked the right "weird" specialty on the menu. We got the gyro pizza, so those delicious nuggets of meatiness you see above were incredibly tender and flavorful. It came with cucumber yogurt sauce. I know that you're thinking that this sounds really gross, that cucumber yogurt sauce should not go anywhere near a pizza, but to me it was a lot like dipping pizza in cucumber-slaw ranch. The pizza was fantastic without it (I personally am not wild about cucumber so, after a few tastes to make sure that I got the full experience, I ate mine almost exclusively without), but the cucumber sauce actually added to the pizza. The crunchy (crispy? What is the correct adjective for the way vegetables crunch?) bits in the sauce added some texture to a bite and the creamy yogurt added unique flavor.

As to the "pizza" bits of the pizza, the sauce, crust, and cheese. They were all there, nothing really stood out but nothing was bad either. Crust was chewy but crisp where it needed to be; The sauce was present and complimented the meat; The cheese was salty and abundant.

-Karin

Adventure #17: Jack Pizza Company

2010-07-28T21:34:00.008-05:00

Let that swirl of chipotle sauce take you deep into the dark world of dive bar pizza - this is a trip you want to go on, so just follow that swirl all the way to Jack Pizza Company, nestled in the Jackalope in on 6th between Trinity and Neches.

See that sauce? That's a spicy chipotle sauce that will give you a mild burn through the duration of your eating experience. It helped give our chosen pizza's name some meaning - The Diablo. The Diablo features this pepper sauce on top of meatballs, bacon, and cheddar cheese, with a Lone Star beer-infused crust holding it all together.

I think my main complaint with this pie is in nomenclature. They know Diablo means devil, right? There is nothing evil about this pie - the spice is perfection, not persecution! The meatballs are small, tasty, and greasy enough to be mistaken for sausage - good sausage. The cheese works to make it all stick together (along with the minimum amount of sauce - this is not a slippery pizza - which is good, considering the size of the slice, seen below.) The crust is chewy, airy, and easily foldable (again, important due to the big slices.) All these factors are great, but the most amazing thing is this:

Bacon. Bacon bacon bacon. This is the best bacon I have ever had on a pizza. The pieces are large enough to provide some mouthfeel and the flavor is . . . savory. Meaty. Bacon.

This is an intensely savory and spicy pie that goes great with the location - a dark bar to keep you from fully acknowledging your gorging behavior, with beer to spare to help you cut through the spice. Oh, and here's that slice size I've been telling you about:

There are six of these. One is enough. Did I mention pies are half price on Tuesdays? See you there!

-Ian

Adventure #16: Craig O's

2010-07-19T08:24:00.007-05:00

There comes a time (in this case a lazy Sunday afternoon) when a Pizza Adventurer must realize that not every pizzeria is going to be an Austin gem, that there are probably more thoroughly edible but entirely unimpressive pizzerias than not.

There was nothing technically wrong with the pizza. The toppings were all fresh, I could taste and identify all of them (though the caramelized onions were a bit weird, would have preferred fresh ones); the crust was neither soggy nor hard, it was very much a "topping delivery system" rather than its own element; the sauce was a bit sweeter than necessary, but not inedibly so.

There's really not much to say about it. In all, the pizza was ok and reasonably priced (we got an extra large for the price of a large because it was Sunday), but I can't do much other than put it in as a "middle of the road" pizza.

-Karin

Adventure #15: Rome's Pizza

2010-07-11T16:45:00.009-05:00

An Adventure in Esrever.

We wondered what we had just eaten. It had the appearance of a pizza, but the taste of a taco. Delicious, yet confounding. Again, the wrong pizza?

The cheese was plentiful and flavorful, the crust light. All ingredients were fresh, especially the onions and cilantro. The chipotle pesto gave a slight smoky flavor and a bit of spice. The chorizo was lean as advertised, and quite tasty (if overpowered by the beans, sauce, and cheese.)

Chunks of tomato, lumps of chorizo, strands of onion, swaths of cheese, florets of fresh cilantro, they were floating on a bed of mozzarella sprinkled with black beans. Underneath, a chipotle pesto lurked. . .Introducing the Pancho Villa.

Some 'Bistro Bread' to start. . .average pesto, fresh tomatoes, delightful fresh Parmesan. Woefully thin and slightly tinny marinara. . .

-Ian

Adventure #14: Rounders Pizzeria

2010-06-29T08:55:00.007-05:00

Every meal at Rounders starts with a free garlic knot. Go ahead and stare at the above picture and drool for a minute. Yes, that white stuff all over it is Parmesan cheese and garlic. Yes, after the knots were gone we used our fingers to get some more of that deliciousness out of the bowl. Now that you're hungry I present to you a Casino (large instead of extra large) pizza pie (as opposed to a no-sauce or marinated tomato base) with roasted red peppers, grilled sausage, and fresh garlic.

It's hard to pinpoint a particular strength or weakness of this pizza, so this will have to be one of those ones that gets less "reviewed" and more "experienced". So, here's a sample of internal monologue commentary, in chronological order:

"Oh, it's not cut all the way through... this is difficult."

"Whoa there toppings, where do you think you're going?"

"Mmmmm, that's a ton of cheese. They use an interesting blend. It has a little bit different textural experience, not super smooth and stretchy like a lot of places."

"Sausage!"

"At least there's plenty of sauce, even if my toppings are still sliding off the pizza."

"Wait! Is the fresh garlic underneath the cheese?! I believe it is."

I loved the atmosphere and staff here. There's classic arcade games including a sit-down Frogger table and an Indiana Jones Pinball machine set to 50 cent play (sigh). It's a great spot if you're heading to or from downtown.

-Karin

Adventure #13: Austin Pizza Garden

2010-06-24T09:04:00.007-05:00

Do you see the cheese coming off of that slice? Something about a lot of cheese, stretching long lines from your piece to the plate, makes me believe that the pie I'm about to eat is going to be awesome. Luckily, in this case my beliefs are justified. Austin Pizza Garden, you did a fine job.

Tchoupitoulas. . .let it roll off the tongue. Karin and I had little debate before ordering this nigh-unpronounceable cajun delicacy. Replete with Andouille sausage, Cajun shrimp, red onions, green peppers, roasted red peppers, and fresh garlic, the pizza promised us 'Hot and Spicy' from the menu.

(Side note: A bit of wiki research has shown me that Tchoupitoulas is a street in New Orleans, which explains the sausage and shrimp selections. The word is the name of an extinct Indian tribe, and is pronounced CHOP-it-TOO-luhs)

As usual, we grabbed a garlic bread side to serve as an emissary to the ambassador (the pizza.) This time it was a pesto garlic bread and was delicious, but for the second adventure in a row we thought that it would be better without the cheese.
(Looks good, doesn't it?)

The main event arrived on its pizza tray, the kind that keeps it off of the table and closer to your face. I'm starting to notice a correlation between my favorite pies and this type of serving method, and make no bones about it, this is one of our favorites. I'm going to get the weaknesses out of the way first, so we can focus on the highlights and end on a high note.

The crust serves very well in holding some hefty toppings while still managing to be light, but in doing so sacrifices some taste. Karin found the bones undesirable, but I was happy to scoop them up due to a residue of fantastic Cajun seasoning that must have made it's way from the shrimp. The only other 'deficiency' we could think of is a slight lack of sauce, although when you do taste it, it's light and sweet.

On the flip side, every topping is done perfectly: still-crisp bell peppers, juicy diced red peppers, juicy and spicy sausage medallions, fresh and tasty red onions, and perfectly cooked, wonderfully seasoned grilled shrimp. The taste of garlic was evident, but was mainly a sidekick to the spice of the other toppings. In fact, all the ingredients served as sidekicks - not a single thing seemed out of place on this pizza.

As a bonus, the remote location (Oak Hill) and decorations make this seem like a mysterious destination, especially at night. The overall vibe is that of a country roadhouse, which makes the gourmet pizza coming out of here even more delightful. It's worth the drive! (Because on the way back you'll have time to eat any pizza you carried out with you.)

-Ian

Adventure #12: Saccone's

2010-06-14T21:28:00.010-05:00

Saccone's Pizza bills itself as "Pizza With a Jersey Attitude" and it certainly is (as far as I can tell having never actually been to New Jersey). The people working there are super-cool, answered all of our questions, and were more than happy to geek out with Ian about cars. Their menu is filled with specials named after people in the family, "Mom & Dad's Special", "Steve's Special", etc. We got Cody's Special. I kindof want to meet Cody and give him a hug. The pizza comes with sweet sauce, pepperoni, sausage, meatball, and garlic.

Rewind: First we ordered garlic bread with cheese. It was excellent except for the cheese had a weird effect. Not that there was anything wrong with the cheese, it was more that the garlic bread on its own would have been spectacular and the cheese muted it. Also, we should have ordered a side of sauce to dip it in.

All of their pizzas are 18 inches (huge!) and they cook them in an awesome merry-go-round oven.

The best way I can think to talk about this pizza is one topping at a time:

Sweet sauce - I'm pretty sure at some point the meat/cheese grease melded with the sauce to create delicious moisture in this pizza (see the grease on the sides of the upskirt pic below!), so the sauce was not identifiable on its own, but that in no way detracted from the pizza.
Pepperoni - greasy, salty, delicious
Sausage & Meatballs - The sausage was flavorful and the added slices of meatballs meant that the meat texture was maintained in abundance in every single bite without being overwhelming.
Garlic - They used awesomely strong garlic cut up into little chunks. I think the grease infused it with superpowers.

Conclusion: Ian had a pizzagasm at this pizza and I thought it was excellent as well, definitely in the "will go there again" category.

-Karin

Adventure #11: Oasis Cafe and Pizza

2010-06-11T12:48:00.006-05:00

Hidden in a strip mall in a suburbish area off of Wells Branch, the Oasis is somewhat aptly named - just like in the desert, you could easily miss this hidden pocket. Karin heard of this place from a friend at work who lives in the area; fittingly, it seems that we were the only people in the place who didn't jog in, come to get a pick-up order, or otherwise seem intimate with their neighborhood pie shop. With only two tables, it's certainly not a place to bring a group or a date - but could you impress your beau or lass with the grub?

(Speaking of dining in: there was a terrible thunderstorm while we were waiting on our pizza. . .pouring rain, threats of hail, loud thunder. . .and all of a sudden the POWER GOES OUT! Would this be the end of our pizza adventure? At least a minute or two went by in anticipation, and then everything returned to normal. Unfortunately, we can't guarantee you such an exciting experience each time.)

We started with our usual bread product - this time a flatbread, served with feta, onions, and tomatoes. Note the presentation - every order here is assumed to be to-go. We weren't quick enough on the uptake to realize this and tell them we were dining in. *d'oh!* Presentation or not, this was some delicious bread, with a nice array of toppings to compliment it. We had to make a serious effort to save room for the 'za:

The Sahara, seen above seems to be a crowd favorite - several people ordered it while we ate. This bad boy comes with jalepenos, pepperoni and sausage. The breakdown:

Strengths:

taste of upper crust (bones)

amount and taste of sauce

ample jalapenos

Weaknesses:

Feel of crust (a little soggy/floppy)

Cheese (not that impressive)

Overall this was a good pizza that I would for sure eat over chain pizza if I lived in the neighborhood - it hits a good spot with the sauce and spicy jalapenos. Given the Greek nature of the cafe, it would be worth the effort to try one of the more Mediterranean pizzas on the menu, but as always, we never know until it's too late. Au revoir!

-Ian

Adventure #10: Mangia

2010-06-01T10:06:00.004-05:00

There once was a coupon that made us break the following rules:

No chains

Ok, so just one rule.

But at least it's a local chain.
And don't think this will be a repeat thing,
Mr Gattis
I'm looking at you over there in the corner being local-ish.
Anyhow...

On the bottom there's crust.We got the wheat.It tasted... wheaty.
Then there's an ocean of cheese
with flotsam of toppings
...somewhere...

Rescued a few to confirm their existence
(and deliciousness).

On top of that, like a forcefield,
is a layer of dough(can't quite call it crust)
that could be mistaken for cheese by the indiscriminate.
On top of that is the sauce
being its saucy self, tomatoey and good.

The whole thing was...

well...
it did its job.
and might hit a certain spot
directly opposite to the spot that's hit when
the crust is thin and the sauce scarce.

-Karin

Adventure #9: Little Deli

2010-05-24T21:29:00.008-05:00

Little Deli, closeted away in a wonderful retro shopping center on Woodrow Avenue, off of Burnet, is apparently well known for their sandwiches. HOWEVER, they also make a 'true Jersey shore pizza' AND have 'Pizza' in their logo, meaning they were fair game as Karin's pick this week. So, is the pizza worthy of fist pumps?

We availed ourselves of The #7, consisting of pepperoni, garlic, and cherub tomatoes.

The picture here tells you a lot of what you need to know - this pizza is very authentic/homemade/rustic (the website advises that they make all dough from scratch and hand toss it,) and it has huge chunks of garlic. Both these things, in my opinion, work in the pizza's favor. Every bite had a good amount of flavor - the sauce is noticeable, but not overabundant.

I was a bit surprised by the crust - from the top, it looked to be a crispy and rigid bottom, but the grease/liquid from the ingredients and sauce weighed the middle of the slice down a bit. This made for a softer bite that gushes with flavor. I actually preferred to fold this one, which really allows the crust and sauce to work in harmony.

I feel that Karin and I had a bit of distance on our opinions of this pie. She was a fan of the cheese, I thought it was ok. I thought the pepperoni was alright, but she made a comment about it having a decent fat content (which I agree with - the 'roni was a bit crisp on the edges, but retained it's moisture and flavor.) One place we agree is that the crust really does taste homemade, and it's a big advantage to this pizza, which has enough sauce to make those last bites of crust worthwhile even without the toppings.

My favorite part of the pie - the garlic. Large portions of garlic cloves were on this pie, and they added texture and taste to the pie (and to my burps, hours later.) Garlic lovers, this is your pie. Outdoor patio lovers, this is your venue, with picnic tables in the shade and lazy scenery. Jersey-style pie fans? Pump your fists for this deli, where the tastes aren't little at all.

-Ian

Adventure #8 - Conans Pizza

2010-05-18T12:00:00.001-05:00

It would be easy to say upon walking into Conans that it's all about the decor. There's wood paneling everywhere, an arcade of sorts, and tons of pictures on the walls of beast warriors (both the warriors riding on beasts and the warriors that are beast variety), scantily clad women (whose clothes surely must have been ripped during an epic rescue by previously mentioned beastly warriors), and battles between ax and sword wielding muscle-men.

You would be wrong if you said it was about the decor, because the pizza is fantastic. They say they make "a unique Chicago-style deep pan pizza" and it's true. We decided to go for "The Savage", which is essentially everything on a pizza. When I say everything, I mean it; Sausage, Hamburger, Pepperoni, Black Olives, Mushrooms, Green Peppers, Onions, Jalapenos, and Anchovies. The counter dude asked us if we wanted the jalapenos and anchovies on it (they're listed on the menu as part of the specialty though mysteriously the online menu lists them as optional) and we were almost insulted at the thought of taking them off. Taking off the jalapenos and anchovies would be like taking one of those muscle-man warriors, confiscating his ax and cutting his hair; he'd just be another pretty but dumb dude, in other words, not savage. Apparently it's the hobby of many Austinite to neuter warrior pizzas because Counter-Dude said almost everyone does.

Speaking of the pizza, it was pretty damn awesome. The crust was thick enough and sturdy enough to eat the pizza without a fork but wasn't as bready as I've found some pan pizzas to be (this is a good thing). The toppings were abundant and delicious. The advantage of The Savage is that just when you've taken two or three bites full of olives and sausage and mushroom you'll get a jalapeno or a salty bite of anchovy. It was so good that there was nothing left.

-Karin

Adventure #7: Home Slice Pizza - Ian's Half

2010-05-14T13:02:00.002-05:00

Our Adventure to Home Slice has resulted in a delicious DOUBLE POST! Due to the dietary needs of our host and Karin's insatiable desire for multiple meats, we split our large pie into halves - on one half, the Eggplant Pie (#3 on the menu), on the other, a custom mix of Meatballs, Pepperoni, Black Olives, and Mushrooms. It is my task to discuss the Eggplant side.

To me, there is nothing about the pie at Home Slice that particularly stands out - it's as if all parts of the pizza are communing with your mouth, taking equal precedence. The crust isn't super crisp, but it has a good taste, and ably handles even the heavy toppings on Karin's side of the pizza. The sauce, which seemed overly sweet with the garlic knots, just enhanced the crust and other toppings. The toppings? I'm here to discuss the Eggplant Pie, which is, as far as I can tell, chunks of eggplant parmesan. I was surprised at how sparse the pie was, but it made no difference - I was wowed. The mouthfeel of the eggplant might throw some people off, but the taste and overall 'savoryness' should bring even non-vegetarians into the fold. I ate too much (more than two slices = too much, for the record,) but I don't regret it.

Adventure #7: Homeslice Pizza - Karin's Half

2010-05-11T10:09:00.000-05:00

This week Seth, winner of Homeslice's "Hands on an Eggplant Sub" contest two years running and man behind Year of the Pizza offered to take us to Homeslice for free pizza (we buy the beer). Who could turn that down? So we went and enjoyed what was a really great pizza.

Since Seth doesn't eat meat, we went with a half-and-half pie (and broke the rules on always getting a specialty). On half we got the specialty #3, an eggplant pie and on half we had meatballs, pepperoni, mushrooms, and black olives. I don't know why, but I had it in my head that meatballs and pepperoni would be the perfect combination. The mushrooms were to balance that a bit and the olives were, well, I don't know why the olives got on there, mostly because Ian wanted them there (not that that turned out badly and I willingly acquiesced since he was skeptical about the meatball/pepperoni combo).

Before the pizza there were garlic knots. They were chewy and pretty good; not an essential part of the experience, but they kept the raging monster that was my growling stomach at bay until the pizza arrived (while waiting outside a pizza dude walked out the front door and past us with a delicious looking and smelling pizza three times, making me very very hungry). The sauce was a bit sweet though, a lot like Spaghetti-O sauce. That same sauce though was amazing on the pizza.

By the way, the meatball and pepperoni was awesome; a little beefy, a little salty, all tempered by the veggies. The important stuff was there too though, the crust was crunchy and chewy and the sauce, while still being the spaghetti-o sauce from previous, somehow worked perfectly on the pizza.

Adventure #6: Eastside Pies

2010-05-05T23:00:00.003-05:00

Nestled in the rapidly gentrifying East Austin, Eastside Pies has the stature to be a hidden gem:

There are about 5 tables, all outside. The ordering space is fit for about 4 people standing like sardines, the rest of the line stretches outside. It seems only three people were working.

All of these things seem to indicate a tiny shop with a tiny following, but this pizzeria is a mighty mouse! We had a 5-7 minute wait in line (with others stuck behind us;) seating took some standing around and glaring to come by, and the activity was frantic. Without having a taste of the goods, I was speculating that these people were here for some damn good pie, and Eastside delivered!

I'm not certain that Karin was as ecstatic about the pizza as this review sounds, but she was in agreement with the following:

- Awesome crust: the crust was thin and crispy, but still flexible. It had an almost crackery taste to me, which worked very well with the. . .

- Delicious sauce: the sauce was more sweet than spicy, with a definite personality. It was also well distributed on the pie.

Now, we're assuming that those two features hold constant across all pies here, which is enough reason for a hearty endorsement, but let's take the time to talk about our specific pizza, the Buscemi.

The Buscemi comes with sausage, jalapeños, onions, red peppers, and cilantro. Sounds spicy, you say? You'd be kind of right, but the peppers are sweet where the jalapeños are spicy, and the sausage is bland where the sauce is bold.

Wait, what? Yes, dear readers, we experienced a sausage fail. There just wasn't much taste to it, or, as Karin so eloquently put it: 'The pizza lives up to it's name - the sausage is Buscemi's snaggly teeth!' This is where Karin and I differ - she felt this was a significant detriment to the pizza, while I ate more than my fair share and wished there were about 3 more pieces. This combination of crust, sauce, and (mostly) quality ingredients is hard to come by, so get over to the east side for some Eastside.

(And bring a chair. And some paper plates.)

-Ian

A New Beginning

2010-05-04T09:27:00.000-05:00

Welcome to our new site. We've recently moved from Tumblr to Blogger and so here's a rundown of the places we've been so far (with links to our write-up of the adventure):

House Pizzeria

***
Spartan Pizza

***The Parlor

***
Salvation Pizza

***
Southside Flying Pizza