Category Archives: Pizza

Date 12 – Pizaro’s Pizza

Where: Pizaro’s Pizza Napoletana, 14028 Memorial Dr. Houston, TX 77079
When: March 23, 2013

Pizaros Pizza

This date was a HUGE deal. 1) It was exactly one year after our first date. 2) It was pizza. 3) It was a place everyone had RAVED about.

I’d been wanting to come here for a long time, it was a special occasion and my choice, so we ventured out to a strip mall on Memorial to try this authentic pizza. I knew it was BYOB, so I brought a special beer that had been hibernating in my fridge for a year: 512 Whiskey Barrel Aged Double Pecan Porter.

512 Whiskey Pecan Porter

I knew what to expect: unassuming strip mall, authentic Napoletana pizza and the oven straight from Naples. We each picked our own pizzas to share: I picked the Fino (olive oil, cured fennel sausage, goat cheese, garlic and mozzarella) and Brenden the Salsiccia e Funghi (tomato sauce, roasted crimini mushrooms, sausage, and mozzarella). What I didn’t expect: to like Brenden’s pizza much more than mine. I also thought it was a little pricey for what it was. But I got it – fancy pizza at fancy prices.

We opened my highly anticipated beer, which tasted like straight whiskey – not in a good way. Oof. I went inside to get glasses and dropped one in the restaurant. Highly embarrassing, but the staff was very kind. This date wasn’t going great. We sat outside with our disappointing beer and shrugged-off our charred pizzas and watched the SUVs of families with screaming children come and go from the Tex-Mex restaurant next door. We then realized how good we actually had it. I went inside and convinced the manager to trade the rest of my beer for a bottle of San Pellegrino and he obliged, surprisingly (I’m not sure I would!). Nice guy!

We ended the date with a hilarious tour of the awful stores in the strip mall, frozen yogurt and a rousing game of Guess Who? where we both picked the same person. Happy one year, B.

 

Date 6 – Pizza L’Vino

Where: Pizza L’Vino, 544 Waugh, Houston, TX 77019
When: February 9, 2013

After the previous week’s disappointing pizza, Brenden and I decided we should redeem pizza in Houston with a new contender: Pizza L’Vino. After travelling to New York for a funeral and coming down with the norovirus, I had a rough week. I finally accepted that I was ready to eat cheese again. Kinda a big deal.

Brenden and I were on a long bike ride through the East Side and made our way back to Waugh. Waugh is a street we are both on constantly; it’s the main road between Brenden’s place and my place. We’d seen the build out and opening of Pizza L’Vino and both wanted to try it. We stopped by to check out the menu. We were initially thrown off by the pizzas with such names as “Meathead” and “Lowfat Body Fuel.” And I was extremely curious about why they advertised using “Wisconsin Mozzarella.” It’s mozzarella, it’s supposed to be fresh, not from the other side of the country… not to mention Texas is home to some of the best known mozzarella in the country, from The Mozzarella Company in Dallas.

A man pulled up to pick up his order and expressed an unsolicited endorsement of the pizza. He was very friendly and we discussed the merits of Pizza L’Vino. He also told us that the man who opened up this pizzeria was the co-founder of the beloved Houston pie joint, Star Pizza. We were sold. Brenden went inside to pick up a menu and inquire about the delivery area, while I held our bikes outside. He was in there for a long while, talking about who knows what. Brenden is the type to carry on a long conversation with your waiter, the barista, the cashier – any serviceperson. He is the guy who rings the bell at Kroger when he has good service. That’s just him.

We rode our bikes in the rainy drizzle back to Brenden’s and I placed an order:

  • 1 hand-tossed Queen Margherita Pizza (to compare to the previous week)
  • 1 Iceberg Wedgie
  • 2 Abita rootbeers
  • a classic cannoli

After the order, Doctor Ben, Brenden’s downstairs neighbor, came up and we invited him to be our special blog guest. The pizza arrived quicker than promised (even on a Saturday night!) and I quickly started dividing the salad into three portions. The separate Danish blue cheese crumbles were a nice touch – a very enjoyable salad.

We all took some slices and began to pound the pizza. Everything tasted very fresh – it was remarkable how ungreasy the cheese was. It was almost unnatural how the cheese wasn’t stretchy (not a good thing). It was tasty, but I would like to get something different next time – looking your way, Cheese Bomb.

The best part was splitting the cannoli with Brenden. It was delish! I could see calling Pizza L’Vino and just ordering cannolis and wine and calling it a night.

Brenden’s take: “Pizza L’Vino falls into not a quite a NY Pizza. It was fresh, it was light and it was tasty. I didn’t think the pizza was amazing; it was an average neighborhood pizza place. Salad was good; I enjoyed that and I don’t typically like blue cheese dressing. The cannoli was great. I was really happy that the pizza place offered a cannoli because is good cannoli is hard to find in Houston. 

Doctor Ben’s take: 2 thumbs up.

Dr. Ben

Date 5 – Roma’s Pizza

Where: Roma’s Pizza, 223 Main St.  Houston, TX 77002
When: February 1, 2013

Where the old El Rey stood in downtown has been resurrected as a new NYC style pizza joint competing for the late night crowd.

Being pizza fans, Nicole and I decided to give it a shot. We went to Roma’s Pizza on a Friday night around ten o’clock. While I realize that the place is new, it was completely dead. There were a few pies out where you could grab a slice, however they looked like that they had  been sitting there since the dawn of time.  While discussing what to order with Nicole the fellow working the front counter engaged us in conversation, and that is when it started to get weird. I am not sure if he was trying too hard to be friendly or it is always this strange, but it quickly became very clear that this place is still trying to work outs some serious bugs in it’s day to day operations. This is be expected, but considering that were the only people there, things should have gone a bit smoother.  $20 and an awkward conversation later our order was in. I had a hard time taking Roma seriously as a NYC pizza place; it came across to me as a NYC pizza place for those who do not know better.  My tip off was the oven, a conveyor convection style  found in most chain delivery places, opposed to a flat slab pizza oven.


After a good 15 minute wait, while enjoying Sunny 99.1’s ultra lame evening programming  (remember it is Friday night) we were presented with what seemed to be a tasty margherita pizza.  Looks however can be deceiving… While everything looked OK, it started off bland quickly morphed into just plain terrible. Needless to say that neither Nicole nor myself were able to finish what we started.  We did however leave our leftovers for any lucky homeless dweller who happened to find it. Lucky meaning that he or she would not be eating as much bad pizza as we did. Now I realize that Roma’s Pizza is new and they might still be working out the bugs. However they need to get their act fast or they will be exiled off Main Street as quickly as they appeared.

Nicole’s Notes: When we started this project, we realized that events in our life would occur and it could come across in our dates. On the morning of this date, I got a phone call from my cousin while I was at work. She told me that her father, my Uncle Kenny, unexpectedly passed away in his sleep. It was devastating. When I got home from work, I discussed the details with Brenden. He asked if I felt like eating and I said, “yes, I want pizza.” My best pizza memory was with my Uncle Kenny. I was young, probably thirteen or so, and was visiting him on Long Island. We had spent all day at the beach and we were salty, sun soaked and starving. We were ordering “NY pizza,” a luxury for me since moving to Texas 2 years prior. He asked what I wanted on my special pizza and I looked at him in the eyes and said “extra, extra, EXTRA cheese.” He nodded and repeated it, exactly how I said it, into the phone. I had my doubts that the pizzeria would comply, but that was the cheesiest pizza I’ve ever seen. My family was choking on the strands of mozzarella. It was the best pizza I’ve ever had. I figured a slice of authentic NY pizza would be a great way to honor my uncle. When figuring out where to go, I reminded Brenden that Roma’s Pizza had recently opened and their pizza specials looked great on Facebook. Brenden thought it was a perfect choice.


We arrived to a spookily empty restaurant. First tip-off. Brenden when out to his car to retrieve his camera and I ordered. The guy behind the counter said, “we don’t have spinach, is it ok if we just use basil?” Spinach? On a Margherita? I looked up at the board and saw that the Marg came with both spinach and feta. Another clue. I shrugged and said, “That would be fine. Actually preferable.” We proceeded to have a strange conversation about a woman who accidentally left 500 dollars at the restaurant. It wasn’t clear that she got it back. He offered to add a slice of cake to my order. I told him that the pizza should be filling enough, but if he had cannoli on the dessert menu, it might change my mind. The man did not know what a cannoli was. Strike three. I tried to explain that it was an Italian dessert – a ricotta filled pastry, kinda. When he looked at me blankly, I struggled with a cream-filled churro analogy. I also ordered two Dr. Peppers. Roma’s Pizza didn’t have their beer license yet, but I was discouraged to see that they didn’t have root beer. I find root beer and pizza a classic pairing. Even beyond that, it was a very disappointing experience. It definitely didn’t do my food memorial justice. But I suppose misses is all part of the 52 Houston Dates adventure. Brenden and I made the best of it and made it fun all the same.