Jack Pizza Company @ The Jackalope Frontstore
404 E 6th St
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 469-5801
4pm-2am in the restaurant, 3am on the street. Open early at 1pm on Saturdays.
www.jackalopeaustin.com
Like the onion but softer, more bulkier crust. Tasty sauce with noticeable tanginess, but delicious.
All of these dowtown pizza joints are in the same class. They are very similar, I’m still trying to pick out the differences between them. I’m talking about Roppollo’s, The onion, and Jack, etc.
Love the tip jar. I’m no jackass :)
You can order from outside or inside. Awesome pizza. I just came from NYC, pizza friends, and I’m glad to have found a cheese slice that resembles very much the flavors of NYC pizza. Excellent, excellent cheese slice. But particularly garilicy, or oniony crust. But these slices come with a heftier price tag (around $4/slice). Very impressed, the cheese slice here rocks and is in my tops in Austin.
Update in June: Had more slices, still awesome…very consistent!
Their version of Hawaiin pizza. Canadian bacon, pineapple, and red oinons. Go the 8″ but this time thin crust.
I’d like to bluntly state that I was damn hungry (after being sick for almost a whole week). I hadnt had pizza since NYC, and been craving. When the plate came out, I was surprised how tiny it was. Finished this pizza real qiuck. It just doesn’t compare to NY pizza. This is just thinned out CraigO’s pizza, which is actually the a bad point for CraigO’s. You get less bang for the buck. Spent almost $9 for this pizza, and yes, left me unsatisfied as far as hunger goes. But CraigO’s surprises me everytime. I think i want to attribute the greatness to the sauce. It has hints of garlic, and is just so flavorful and good without being sharp and overpowering. Their dough is delicious, though very soft on texture, which doesnt make it feel like other pizzas (good or bad?). Their ingredients taste fresh, too.
Big Kahuna. An ironic name for the size I ordered, but all the taste was there.
Four days in this wonderful city, I had one hell of a trip :)
At one point my tummy was not feeling well. It may have been pizza, shake shack burger and vitamin creamsicle milkshake, or just the water here. Whatever it is, I’ve gotten to sample a variety of pizza this glorious city has to offer, and it was a great reward!
In order, here were the places I tried (and some I just stopped by and they were closed on the day pizza died):
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Angelo’s Coal
Abitino’s Pizza
Little Italy
New Amici’s
Vinny Vincenz
Artichoke Basille’s
Famous Original Ray’s
Gramercy Pizza Shop
Papou’s Pizza
Grimaildi (Visit Only)
Lucali (Visit Only)
Franny
Di Fara (Visit Only)
Una Pizza Napoletana (Visit Only)
Piola
Bella Vita
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It was unfortunate that I was unable to to try the big-name pizzerias in Brooklyn. At least there’ll be something to look forward to the next time I’m in NYC.
So the the best of NYC? This title for the pizza tour would go to Bella Vita, which surprised me since it wasn’t a big name pizzeria and didn’t have high reviews on Yelp. I can’t explain how good that slice was.
My next two favorites were Abitino’s and Artichoke Basille’s, though all the pizza places were fantastic except for Gramercy (completely sucked) and Angelo’s (sub-par).
It was great to get a feel for the basic/typical pizza a New Yorker would get on their lunch break or after work. Next time in NYC, I will make it a point to try those LEGENDARY pizza places I keep reading about. Hoping that will take things to the next level…
Enjoy your life and enjoy your slice :)
Bella Vita Pizzeria North
158 W. 58th St
(between 7th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
New York, NY 10019
(212) 664-7670
This was my last pizza stop in NYC. It’s been a real fun one, and I loved so many parts of the city. I can’t wait to come back!
The pizzaiolo that served me my slice was from Estonia. He’s lived there for five years, and wants to drive a car badly. I guess in less urban cities, you can take driving a car for granted. He tells me he’s seen some celebs pop in every now and again as they stay in the hotel across the street. Usher cam in to grab a snapple, lead singer for Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Madonna. He told me a little bit about how Manhattan used to be a dangerous place in the 80’s.
Now, am I real glad i made this last stop. Because Bella Vita surprised me and ended up being where I had my favorite slice in NYC during this trip. Words can’t really describe how great this pizza was. You look at it, it’s just giant blobs of mozzarella on a balanced coat of sauce. But there-in are just small details that summed up to a perfect, delicious slice. Take a look closely at the underside crust and notice how it just cracks on the outside, like a thin cracker blanketing a warm dough inside. Notice the herbs gently sprinkled all over atop the pizza. Notice the sauce lathered on delicately and yet covers the entire slice while leaving a good amount of edge crust. The mozzarella was also the finest I’ve had, and the fact that they’re sizable chunks makes you really taste the exploding flavors of the cheese.
What a way to end the pizza tour! Thanks Bella Vita!
Piola
48 East 12th Street
(between Broadway & University Pl)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 777-7781
www.piola.it
Went here after not being able to get to Una Pizza Napoletana. I wasn’t really feeling the ambience. Too much color and overly dim. Plasma screens over the place. The pizza? Sauce not that great, mozzarella not as tasty and rich as others I’d had. And crust was too salty. Texture of the pizza was great, it was crisp though the very edges were very burnt.
Franny’s
295 Flatbush Ave
(between Prospect Pl & St Marks Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 230-0221
www.frannysbrooklyn.com
After seeing lots of places closed down on Easter Sunday, I thought it was hopeless for dining one of Brooklyn’s finest pizzerias. But lo and behold — I saw people bustling and laughing inside Franny’s! At the entrance there was a drape when I crossed the doorway. I knew I was in a special place.
Service was top-notch here. Four servers total catering to me, all super-friendly.
They make their sausage in-house, and so when the recommended this I ordered their sausage pizza. Sausage did turn out excellent. The mozzarella was good, but sparse. Crust is really thin, droopy, and airy texture like flatbread. And sauce wasn’t so great. It was still very enjoyable, but not a big fan after this visit. Shame because the pizza looks fantastic from the photos!
Hey there, Pizza Friends. Sad stuff. As much as I enjoyed the beautiful streets and neighborhoods of Brooklyn on a cool sunny day, I realized that Easter is just not a day for pizza places to be open. (Heck, I should have realized that no places would be open that day). I tried to save up the best for the last of the trip, but it so happened to fall on an Easter sunday. Poor planning on my part, and I happened to miss out on Lucali, Grimaldi’s, Di Fara, Tottono’s. I did fit in Franny’s in there, so all was not a lost hope. But pretty much, this day was the day pizza died :(
Enjoy the photos though. You’ll notice I had to go to an electronics store because I realized I forgot my memory card in my camera, and bought a cheap 1GB there. They had a sweet ping pong table inside. Love it.
Papou’s Pizza
112 E 23rd St
(between Lexington Ave & S Park Ave)
New York, NY 10010
www.papouspizzany.com
I had their version of a Margherita, which had garlic and giant circular slices of mozzarella, and just sprinkles of herbs. The garlic was a nice touch to the pizza flavor. Crust was very crisp which I liked, yet soft inside. Tasty mozzarella. A little heavy on sauce. Overall pretty good. It’s hard to top the basic cheese slices I’ve had so far!
A Random Pizza Shop on 23rd and Lexington
This was a random pizza place I rolled into, I don’t remember the full name so I tried looking it up. All I remember was the location and it started with “Gramercy”.
Anyhow, this was pretty bad pizza. Overly-soft crust made bad texture feel in my mouth. It’s like those old-school Jiffy pizza crust dough they put in a cardboard box. Mozzarella was overdone and unflavorful, and the pizza too greasy. Worst pizza so far.
