Pinthouse Pizza - A Microbrewery and Pizza Joint in Austin, Texas - Another Foodie's Review

Dear Steemit Friends,

People Love Pizza! That is a general fact. No matter who you are or where you live, in some form or fashion, you will always at some point crave a pizza. What else goes better with Pizza? A cold alcoholic beverage to wash down that cheesy covered goodness. As I was driving home yesterday from a day of full of errands, a craving for Pizza came suddenly came over me. Once in a while, this will happen, especially when I haven't had one in a few months. For the most part, my wife and I are trying to not eat out during the weekdays not only to minimize our expenses but also because cooking can be a fun and healthy past time.

It just so happened that right off the freeway on the way home, we spotted Pinthouse Pizza. We had heard about this place from a few friends who previously visited and said they quite possibly might have the best pizza in town. We decided to stop and try it out.

In 2012 it was one of the most anticipated restaurant openings of the year in Austin. When the first Pinthouse Pizza opened lines of people waited for hours just to get a seat. It was one of the very few Microbrews and pizza joints at the time. It is a casual and noisy place where one can go to enjoy a freshly oven-baked pizza topped with fresh ingredients, a huge selection of bear, and a lively and energetic atmosphere. It's a place where you can go to watch a game and/or just catch up with some old friends.

When you enter the establishment, you will notice a big open room that operates more like a bar than a restaurant. On one side of the room is the bar, where you can order from a number of different draft beers. At the backside of the room is a separate counter where you can order your pizza and a number of other entrees and snacks. You can't however, do both at one counter. It's like a separate bar and restaurant in one. There are 2 locations in Austin and the layout of both is almost identical.

As you can see from the two images above, the beer selection is vast. The Pinthouse has about 6 different brews of their own and a huge selection of beers from other breweries. If you have a hard time choosing which one you want, you can select the combination (the name escapes me) which gives you a sample setup of up to 5 beers to try out.

This place is definitely a beer-lovers heaven.

When it comes to the Pizza, the selection is also pretty large. There were a lot of specialty pizzas which looked great - probably because I was hungry at the time, and the best part is that everything down to the soft drinks, is organic. We decided to order a number of dishes so we could have a variety of items to make our meal interesting. Below is a snapshot of the menu with all the good eats that this restaurant has available.

Aside from the beer, we decided to get a couple of sodas. The all you can drink fountain machine had a number of organic Sodas to choose from. All of the drinks used pure sugar cane that gave them a natural taste and made them a little sweeter.

We decided to warm our stomachs and start with the Pinthouse Salad. I assumed this was a signature dish since it carried the restaurant's name. It was made of Baby spinach, red onions, candied pecans, cranberries, and covered with a house-made poppy seed dressing with blue cheese sprinkled across the plate.

The salad was tasty. It had a fresh organic taste and was a little bitter mixed with a little sweet - I assume due to the mixture of the dressing and some of the sweet ingredients laid on top of a bed of spinach leaves. It didn't take us long to polish off the salad when suddenly, our second appetizer was brought over - The House Nachos.

It was an insane plate of goodness. The chips were warm and flaky and had a puffed texture to them. They were lightly salted and tasted amazing when covered by the gooey warm goodness of the Queso. Unlike most queso's, this one had a light smooth texture to it. It wasn't salty or tangy but had an amazing flavor that is hard to describe. I could not stop eating them even though I realized I didn't have much room left for the pizza.

I also decided to order a pizza roll which is something I always do. I love Pizza Rolls! Who can resist a bread filled finger food filled with an oozing center mixed with cheese and other organic ingredients? Definitely not me. Biting into the soft crusted pocket revealed a soft cheesy center. It was so rich and flavorful that I devoured the entire roll in just a few minutes. Maybe even seconds.

The size of the Pizza Roll was fairly small, however, because of the taste, I did not regret ordering it at all. It is one of the "top-of-my-list" Pizza Rolls to date! I topped it off with a little bit of Jalapeno Ranch to give it that extra cool and spicy kick and it was amazing!

For our Main Entree, we decided to order the OOH LA LA Pizza. With a name like that, who could pass it up? The Pizza is made using a homemade Red sauce, a house cheese blend, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, baby arugula, spicy local honey, peppadew peppers, and dusted with Parmesan cheese.

I was surprised with my first bit of the Pizza because it had a spicy and sweet taste to it. Spicy I'm ok with, but the sweet taste was something new. I have had a number of pineapple-covered pizzas in my day of which I'm not sure if I am a fan of, but the honey flavor was a bit different. Typically I don't like my meals to be sweet (which was something I had to get used to living in the Philippines), but this one actually tasted quite good. It was a subtle sweetness that gave the pizza an interesting twist. The fresh organic ingredients were great and gave the Pizza a fresh and flavorful taste and the red sauce was not too bitter and overwhelming, which generally happens to be the case with a lot of pizza joints.

It took us a couple of hours to finish eating, especially with the number of beers we had from the sampler, but overall we enjoyed every dish. The drinks were great and we got a number of refills to try and get a good sample of all of the organic drinks available. Between the beers and soda, we ended up visiting the toilet several times.

The friendly environment and laid back atmosphere make it easy to just kick back and enjoy some good ole comfort food. I didn't pay much attention to any of the games going on, although if that is your thing, there are many large screen TVs mounted around the restaurant for you to enjoy any sporting events you might be interested in watching. After finishing about half of the pizza, half of the chips and queso, almost all of our drinks including refills, and completely devouring the salad, and Pizza Roll, we decided to take what was left home. The all in price for the meal was around $31 USD which is not bad for the amount of food we got.

Overall I think this restaurant/bar tops my list of Pizza joints to visit. Is there a better Pizza out there? I think so, but this does stand out as one of the better places that I would definitely visit again and again. I really enjoyed the food and did not find anything I hated about any of the food or drinks that I ordered. If you are to ask me, I would definitely recommend this place as a restaurant to check out. You won't find it anywhere outside of Austin, so if you are in the neighborhood, you should stop by.

As usual, I hope you enjoyed and found my review interesting and informative. If your ever in the Austin area, I recommend you check this place out. If you know of any other establishments you would recommend i try, please let me know in the comments section below. If you do have any questions, inputs, or feedback, please also share those with me.

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