Adventure #19: Niki's Pizza

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

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

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

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

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