Adventure #45: Jax Neighborhood Cafe

[8/24/2013 Update: Jax has closed] 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:

Adventure #44: Arpeggio Grill

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.

Adventure #43: North by Northwest

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.

One Year Anniversary: Return to House Pizzeria

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

[Update 8/24/2013: Italo's is no more : (]

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?