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

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.

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.