Sunday, August 25, 2013

Brooklyn Heights Pizza

    Its been about three and half months since my last blog.  Sorry its taken so long to finally find the time to write another review, but as it stands this trend isn't going to change any time soon.  However with that being said, let's get to the review.

    Brooklyn Heights Pizza ( http://brooklynheightspizzeria.com/ ) is a little pizzeria/restaurant tucked away in an up and growing part of northwest Austin in the Avery Ranch subdivision (14900 Avery Ranch Blvd C-700, Austin TX 78717).  Upon entering the the restaurant the first thing you notice are the giant ovens and the pizzas lined up waiting to be fired.  The second thing you notice isn't visual, its the neurons firing from your olfactory receptors binding with the flavor molecules in the air.  In other words...its smells wonderful; garlic, Parmesan, roasted tomatoes, bacon...what more could you want to smell when you first enter a restaurant.   
    Food time!  Brooklyn Heights Pizza has an impressively large menu and it was tough for my sister and I to decide on just a few items for dinner, but obviously we did.  For appetizers we ordered the Garlic Knots: "House made garlic knots stuffed with fresh garlic and fresh mozzarella, served with marinara." 
These were tasty.  The only negative thing I can say about this appetizer is that you should have them before you eat anything else.  The flavor of the garlic and cheese though good, is very slight and can be lost if your tongue has already been coated by any thing else. 
    The other appetizer that we decided to try was the Pepperoni Rolls: "homemade pepperoni rolls with marinara or ranch." 
I wanted to order these to compare them to the ones from Double Dave's version.  The pepperoni and cheese actually shined through as the key component of the rolls instead of the bread, though the bread was as soft and light as the Garlic Knots.  So I would say that I actually liked these rolls better than the ones at DD's (Sorry DD, I still like y'all's buffet).
    Entree time!  We decided to get a large half and half pizza so we could try two different specialty pizzas.  So me being a devout meat eater, decided on non-other than the "Meat Lovers: Italian sausage, pepperoni, smoked ham, Genoa salami and fresh minced garlic."  My sister had the "MauiWowee: smoked ham and pineapple" on her half of the pizza. 
 The MauiWowee was excellent.  Replacing Canadian bacon with smoked ham on a Hawaiian style pizza was a good choice and worked really well the pineapple.  I think I actually prefer it over the Canadian bacon.  But the Meat Lovers portion of the pizza would have been worlds better if not for the garlic on top.  The garlic absolutely masked any of the flavor of the sausage, pepperoni, smoked ham and Genoa salami.  Its a shame too because I wanted to enjoy the combination on what was a superb thin crust pizza. 
    Overall Brooklyn Heights is a must try.  We'll go back again, but hopefully we'll be able to dine in and enjoy the atmosphere and a few libations instead of just placing a pick-up order.  Oh and for the slightly more motivated (and uber hungry), Brooklyn Heights has a pizza challenge that the winner or winners can earn $200 if the entire pizza is consumed within an hour.  All the details are on the website

    That's it for now folk's, so until next time, I wish y'all happy eating. 
-Henry