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.