Not Your Typical Pizza

I have found my favorite pizza thus far in the city of Houston, and tonight I have decided share this with you.

Candelari's Pizzeria is located on Washington Avenue, just west of the roundabout located at Westcott, there are other locations around town if you check their website and do not really feel like driving.  I have been here a few times now, the beer is always a good selection, and the food is even better.

They carry two types of pizza at Candelari's, Euro-Style and Signature, the Euro is a thin pizza with some different toppings, and the signature pizza is more traditional with your standard toppings in heaping piles.

My personal favorite is the Euro, the thin pizza is amazing and the simple toppings work wonders. My personal favorite is the Quattro Formaggi pizza, a pesto pizza with smoked provolone,  gorgonzola, mozzarella, and grana padano.  Pesto is definitely my favorite pizza sauce, the smooth flavor of olive oil and basil works wonders on a pizza. The cheese create a bold blend that complement the pesto excellently, a bold kick in the mouth with each bite.

For a Signature pizza I recommend the Papa Albert's, their version of the supreme pizza, a pie loaded with Italian sausage, black olives, onions, pepperoni, bell peppers, mushrooms, and my new favorite pizza topping green olives.  The ingredients are fresh and full of flavor from the bold sausage flavors to the tangy zip of green olives, the pizza is a home run.

Candelari's claims that they are "Not Your Typical Pizzeria" and they live up to that oath, from their salads to their wide variety of pizzas, even the pasta dishes that I saw walking past me all looked delicious.  As I said earlier, Candelari's is my new favorite pizza in town and I will definitely find myself walking through these doors from time to time.

What A Twit

So some days there the logic behind Twitter is not always clear, sure it is a place for crazies like me to randomly vent to know one and annoy the few of those that actually follow you.  Once in a while though, there are great benefits of reaching out to people who are more famous than I am and quite frankly know a whole heck of a lot more.

I took advantage of this opportunity on my return trip from Corpus Christi in reaching out to Houston’s resident BBQ/Tex-Mex expert RobbWalsh.  On my trip south along Highway 59 I noticed numerous smokehouses and decided that rather than taking a stab in the dark I would reach out to Robb and get his input which of these joints my trip would be the most delicious at.

Robb pointed out Mustang Creek BBQ south of Hillje, Texas to me as the destination of my meal, and I had no desire to second guess the man.  The one problem I ran into was the location that Google Maps listed as Mustang Creek was actually a hay farm and as I began to hear the dueling banjos going off I flipped a u-turn and headed further on down the road.

To say Mustang Creek is hard to spot at 60 miles per hour might be an understatement; the restaurant is housed in an old Exxon gas station on an empty stretch of Highway.

Do not let the humble settings fool you though; the BBQ here was spot on.  I decided to follow Robb’s advice further with the Bohemian Special, a delicious sandwich piled high with brisket, smoked sausage, onions, pickles, and a smearing of sauce.  To call it amazing might be an injustice to this sandwich, the meats were perfect and the sauce was full of flavor but just in the right quantities so as not to overpower the other flavors between the pillowy soft bread.

Of course I had to get a side and the potato salad looked too good to resist and my eyes did not lead me astray.  It was creamy and full of mustard flavor that accented my meat rounding out the great meal.

I almost walked away after that but then by a chance of fate a cup of banana pudding passed by me and my weak will power gave in.  To say this might have been the best banana pudding I have had in my life (I have a personal fondness of Back Forty BBQ near my childhood home in California but I think that is more of a case of nostalgia), the creamy banana flavor and healthy dosages of mushy Nilla Wafers made this all worthwhile.

In closing, if you need any further empirical evidence that this place is worth the stop, it seems to be a favorite of state troopers patrolling along this stretch of the highway so if they are there and known by name it must be good, which probably also means you should avoid it if you have a warrant out for your arrest but hey such is life.

Judging A Book By Its Title

On a recent business trip down to Corpus Christi I left my meal choice up to a coworker that was much more familiar with the local fair, and that was definitely the choice to make.  We made our way down to The Executive Surf Club near the bay, upon hearing the name all I could think of was people dressed up in stuffy suits and over priced food, but this place was far from that.

As you can see, this place lacked anyone is stuffy attire and even included a gigantic fishing lure as a decoration.  The laid back dive bar would have fit perfectly on a beach somewhere rather than downtown Corpus which has no sand anywhere near it but hey beggars can’t be choosers.

For my choice in libations I decided to kick back with a XX Amber, and it arrived in a cold bottle that helped ease back a long day of driving and work. 

For food I decided to rock some seafood, I mean when you are within a stone’s throw of the Gulf it just seems right, and in this place I decided to trust the experts and get one of the house specials.  For that I settled on their version of fish and chips, panko breaded filets that were full of flavor and crunchification that was like a party in my mouth.  The real rock star of the dish was the tartar sauce, it was not your standard tartar sauce mind you, but a Creole tartar sauce that added a twist to the usual mayo and relish dip.

The twist in the meal was the side of battered fried, fries dipped in a batter and then fried up giving it an extra dose of healthiness.  I actually was not a big fan of them, the concept was interesting, but they just didn’t have enough flavor to make them anything special.  Good thing the fish was so awesome I was able to ignore the short comings of the fries.