Tag: pizza

Since the Inwood Lounge doesn’t serve food, Leia and I are going to Lovers Pizza & Pasta beforehand, meeting there at 7pm.

They’re at 5605 W Lovers Lane and Leia describes it as “between Lover’s & Inwood and Lover’s & the tollway, on the north side of the street in a strip mall with a green overhang” (photo of said awning).

I haven't been there before, but I’ve heard good things about them:

It doesn’t look like much on the inside either: small and dark, with a less- than-dazzling view of the parking lot, encouraging you to order your pizza to go. But the reason you’re there is the pizza. Lovers Pizza has thin-crust, New York-style pizza, and they make their own sauce and dough. They even hand-toss the pizza dough and then top it with just the right amount of cheese, sauce and toppings. Then there’s the calzone. Ohhhh, the calzone. […]

I enjoy a good pizza, and New York-style is no exception. All the same, I’m still hankering for a good Chicago-style pizza in the Dallas area.

Anyhow, if you’re in the mood for pizza or calzones, you’re welcome to join us. Leia assures me that it’s very quick, but I’m tempted to show up a touch early in any case ;).

I went to the Linux Meetup last night, which was held at the California Pizza Kitchen (the one at Northwest Hwy and Preston). I hadn't been to a California Pizza Kitchen before, so I wasn’t sure what quite to expect (though I figured pizzas would factor into it somehow).

After looking over the menu and asking the advice of my dining companions, I settled on the Santa Fe Chicken pizza:

Grilled chicken breast marinated in lime and herbs, caramelized onions, Mozzarella cheese and cilantro. Topped with fresh tomato salsa, sour cream and guacamole.

The deciding factor for me, in the end, was the guacamole (I’m an avocado fiend — they’re not only super-tasty but full of the “good fat”). And, from the description, it may sound fancy, but it more-or-less worked out to be a chicken quesadilla on pizza dough (and I don’t say that as a bad thing).

I was a little concerned about the caramelized onions. I didn’t used to like onions, but I don’t mind cooked onions these days (as my taste buds are dying). And, the onions turned out to be fine; they added a pleasant dimension to the dish.

The pizza, over all, was very good. But, the dough was a bit disappointing. I suppose I was expecting more of a crispy Italian-style crust, but this one was doughy and almost chewy. It was also just standard white-flour dough, and I figured that perhaps other doughs may have worked better (such as perhaps rye or wheat dough).

The only other area of improvement for the pizza — off the top of my head — is that I think sliced avocados would have worked out better. I recognize the utility of guacamole, since it can be both scooped and poured, but food textures are significant to me and I would have prefered the texture of whole avocado slices.

I was talking with Bryan earlier today, and he mentioned that he was planning on making homemade pizza this evening. He hadn't made one before, but was plan was to use pre-made bread dough for the crust (as recommended to him by some pizza-making friends).

That caused my mind to wander for a moment — oh, the possibilties of being able to customize the dough. Wheat-pizza was an obvious one, but what about something like using rye-bread dough to create a rye pizza? Hmm, a rye pizza topped with Italian sausage and Canadian bacon… ?

The others in the group seemed to conclude that rye-pizza was a gross idea (including even Bryan “chocolate chips with hot dogs” himself), but I wouldn’t mind trying one of those. Of course, I’m not even certain whether bread-dough is suitable for homemade pizza-making in the first place ;).