Tag: austin

#65 Home Slice Pizza

August 14th, 2016

Austin, TX

When we finished our dinner at the Backspace, we still had one more pizza place to try in Austin. Since our flight back to NJ was early in the morning, we had our second dinner at Home Slice Pizza.

Home Slice serves New York style pizza, which was a nice change up from the Neapolitan pies that we’d been having around Texas. They serve pizza by the pie or by the slice, and since this was our second dinner, we opted for the latter. We ended up with three slices for a variety: a regular cheese, a spinach and ricotta, and a pepperoni with mushroom.

The slices were definitely NY-style and were just like any slice that we would have gotten walking around Manhattan. Our favorite was probably the spinach and ricotta. Just look at the globs of ricotta on that slice! We usually prefer fresh spinach on our pizzas, but ricotta makes even blanched spinach taste amazing.

Home Slice recently opened a second bigger location in Austin. The original location, on South Congress, is pretty tiny and gets pretty busy. We just grabbed our slices and sat outside at the counter, but we were lucky to even get a spot there. Apparently the new location in the North Loop also serves Sicilian slices. It also has a full bar.

Overall, we were really impressed by the pizza in Texas. We wouldn’t have thought that we could get such good Neapolitan pizza, let alone New York-style and more recently, Detroit-style, pizza so far away from New York or Detroit. It was a really nice surprise!

Also, don’t think that we just came down to Texas and only ate pizza. We also stopped at had donuts (we got the massive Texas-sized donut on our way up to Dallas) and some BBQ before we left. Breakfast tacos were also enjoyed. We were lucky that Austin has such a nice running path along the river. Otherwise, I think we both would have gained a few pounds.

To visit:

Home Slice Pizza
1415 S Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78704

BarbaraLeave a comment

#93 The Backspace

August 14th, 2016

Austin, TX

After our quick drive up to Dallas, we drove back down to Austin to try another pizza place on the list. The Backspace was listed on the 2015 list one spot after Cane Rosso, at #93, so we were excited to directly compare the two pizzas.

The Backspace is Austin’s first Neapolitan-style pizzeria. It opened in 2010, and it also adheres to the VPN guidelines for Neapolitan pizzas with imported “OO” flour and San Marzano tomatoes. Even with all the similarities to Cane Rosso, the two pizzas tasted very different to us.  The difference was mostly in the crust. The crust at the Backspace was more charred from the wood-fired oven, and if you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, you know that we like a good char on our crust. It was also a little bit less doughy. Both restaurants served pizzas with really unique and fresh toppings, although the selection is more expansive at Cane Rosso.

We ordered one of the roasted mushroom pizzas here, which was topped with ricotta, capers, and thyme. We loved the generous gobs of ricotta, which paired so nicely with the roasted mushrooms. While we generally aren’t huge fans of salty capers, they complemented the pizza well. We wished that we had room to try more of the pizzas here – the white pizza Bianca looked especially good and also got rave reviews online.

We also noticed (after the fact) that the Backspace was rated on the Daily Meal’s “10 Best Pepperoni Pies in America” list, at #7. So we’ll have to try one of those as well.

The Backspace is a really small, rustic, restaurant. It only seats 30 people and can get pretty crowded on the weekends. We got there early on Sunday when they opened for dinner service, so we didn’t have any issues, but they recommend making a reservation. They also have daily happy hours on the weeknights, which would be good to make note of if you’re in the area. It would be a great place to take a date because it is nice and cozy, with a good wine list. It is also right around the corner from 6th Street, where all the happenings are.

To visit:

The Backspace
507 San Jacinto Blvd
Austin, TX 78701

BarbaraLeave a comment

#92 Cane Rosso

August 14th, 2016

Dallas, TX

I was lucky enough to be invited to a bachelorette party down in Austin, TX, for a long weekend in August. Since there were a few pizza places in Texas on the 101, Eric decided to fly down on Sunday and meet me, after we were all partied-out. We rented a car and drove up to Dallas for lunch to the first place on the list, Cane Rosso.

Cane Rosso has a few locations around Texas. They actually have one in Austin, also, but the one on the list said Dallas, so that’s where we went. It started out as a mobile pizza truck and it claims to be the most authentic wood-fired Neapolitan pizza in Texas. The owner and founder decided to change the mobile catering oven into a full-time pizzeria in 2011.

Like all true Neapolitan pizzas, Cane Rosso uses the “OO” flour imported from Italy and makes its dough fresh daily. They use the San Marzano tomatoes and also make their own in-house mozzarella, adhering to all of the VPN guidelines.

We ordered the burrata appetizer to start, and then two pizzas: the Margherita and the Cane Rosso, which was topped with sausage, roasted onions & peppers, san marzanos, homemade mozzarella and parmigiano cheese. We figured that the signature named pizza had to be pretty good.

These were definitely true Neapolitan pizzas. We really liked the variety of pizzas that they served as well. Pizza Today named the restaurant the 2017 Independent Pizzeria of the year, and I found the article about the restaurant’s expansion and development really interesting. Particularly, the fact that they import the ovens to each location from Italy and no two ovens are exactly the same. Also, they say that their dough is notoriously difficult to work with because they don’t refrigerate it and so it stays very sticky and soft.

Also interesting is that the founder of Cane Rosso recently opened another pizzeria in Dallas that makes NY-style pizzas, Zoli’s. They serve round and square pies in different styles, for the people who don’t like Neapolitan pizzas. He seems determined to take over the Texas pizza scene!

Zoli’s wasn’t on any of our lists, but the pizza there looks good too and would probably be worth checking out if we are back in the area.

To visit:

Cane Rosso
2612 Commerce St
Dallas, TX 75226

BarbaraLeave a comment