Thankful for Good Pizza & Good Friends

 

Happy Thanksgiving! While pizza may not be on the menu today, I wanted to give you the rundown on the places I checked off the list this month. These stops were extra special because I had guests at both stops! For those of you keeping track, we are down to one more spot on the original list that I'm saving for the month of December to celebrate the end of this self-established and self-guided pizza tour. 

Cici's Pizza

I've been keeping my eye out on CiCi's because I felt it was one that COVID could have scratched off of the list for me. Some buffets have open back up here and some haven't. All of the ones that have opened up have different rules. CiCi's website told me that either someone would be fixing my plate from the buffet for me, or there would be disposable spatulas. (I was really hoping for the latter.) 

Hungry Eyes Jr joined me for this trip, and to my disappointment, someone was fixing our plates for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that they were open, but I sometimes sense the judgment from the employee having to fix plates when I ask "can I have more than one of those?" But I sucked up my pride and did say "I would like more than the one slice" and we both left happy and full. 

California Pizza Kitchen

I'll admit, I was not excited about checking this one off the list. Granted, I've only had their BBQ chicken pizza because the people I have been here with before said I HAD to try it. I didn't like it. Just a heads up, I have tried multiple BBQ chicken pizzas in my life and I have not liked any of them. So I shouldn't have held that against CPK. 

Since I wasn't overly excited about this one, I asked my crew to join me. It ended up being the 3 musketeers and the entire night was a blast. It was great to catch up and chill, with some good food to boot. We started with the street corn (not pictured because of the hunger levels of yours truly) which was fabulous! The parm and feta along with the spices made it extremely tasty and I could have eaten an extra plate of it. 

Then we ordered pizzas, and I went with the 5 cheese and tomato. (Knowing full well I was going to take the tomato off...it's a texture thing.) I love multiple cheeses on pizza and this combination - fresh & traditional Mozzarella, Monterey Jack, Romano and smoked Gouda - was phenomenal! My original intent was to leave with some for lunch the next day, but that didn't happen. 

All of this deliciousness was gone before dessert

Two of the three amigos opted to end the night with dessert. One opted for the butter cake (which looked fabulous) I debated between the Belgium Chocolate Soufflé and the Red Velvet cake. I opted for the Red Velvet, and while it was good...I need to go back for the Belgium Chocolate one soon. Even if I go just for that! 

This month's winner for best pizza was really a no brainer. Cici's is good for what it is, lots of pizza at a great price. But as far as quality goes, it pales in comparison to most actual pizza restaurants. 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

 

From the Hungry House to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! It's been a very non-traditional year for us all and we decided to keep with our new Thanksgiving tradition - cook the things we love and buy the other stuff!

We are a small family of 5 here in the Hungry House, and when I lived out of state the Hungry Folks would come visit and we got used to buying items for Thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes we went non-traditional with BBQ, sometimes we stayed traditional, but we started to realize that the stress of cooking all the things wasn't worth it to us. 

We began narrowing the cooking down to the things we really enjoy cooking (usually cornbread dressing for Momma Hungry and corn pudding for me) and then buying anything else. This year, Momma Hungry has been in and out of the hospital and her arthritis has been really acting up, so it was down to just me to cook the corn pudding this year. 

I found this recipe in a cookbook and it's the simplest corn pudding ever. Whole kernal corn, cream corn, sour cream, butter, and Jiffy cornbread mix....pop in the oven and out comes this deliciousness. One of these days when I make it I'll actually remember to take the butter out in the morning to soften, but even with me not being able to get all of the lumps of butter out when I mix it, this still tastes delicious. (And sometimes has been the only thing that I've eaten for the leftovers...it's seriously that good.) 

Since my mom wasn't feeling up to making her amazing cornbread dressing, we bought some at the same place we got our turkey, Frank's. For those of you who haven't been to Frank's, it's seriously the best breakfast place in Baton Rouge and you should click on that link to peep the menu, head there tomorrow and thank me later. You get a crazy amount of food, and I've never had anything I disliked. 

Back to the thanksgiving meal though, we got our turkey at Frank's and they even provided the can of broth to heat it with AND gravy to boot. (Good people there, y'all!) The turkey was so good and the cornbread dressing reminded both my mom and I of her mom's cornbread dressing. 

Obviously you can't have Thanksgiving without rolls...I take that back, I'm sure you can, but I wouldn't want to. After all, I probably eat at least 3 rolls every Thanksgiving dinner. (I had 4 today, but I justified that they weren't overly big rolls so they really counted as 2. Let me live in my delusion.) Kept it simple with some Rhodes rolls from the freezer section of the grocery store. We try to keep these on stock in the Hungry House, but they have been hard to find lately. 

Last, but most certainly not least, the dessert of the day. "Hungry Eyes, which pie did your family go with?" None of them! We bought a 7-Up cake at the store and called it a day! 7-Up cakes are one of Papa Hungry's favorites and for one bought at the store that wasn't made on site in their bakery, this is the moistest 7-Up cake! It's so good and it's become our go-to quick and easy pick up dessert. (Picture of half of it because Papa Hungry kept it hidden so nobody would eat it before today and then it was dug into before I had a chance to get in the kitchen for a pic.) 

While the food was delicious, it was a great day to be with family. We didn't just keep the food simple, we ate in our pajamas (except for Grandma Hungry, she always gets dressed for the day) on paper plates in the living room. Nobody sat at a table, instead I sat on the floor while Jr. and Momma Hungry sat in the oversized chair and Papa Hungry and Grandma Hungry sat on the loveseat. We watched Pokemon Journeys and just enjoyed me not having to go to work and all of us being able to enjoy a good meal. 

The Hungry House hopes that all of you had a great day and many things to be thankful for! 

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Food Truck Sundays

 

One of the best parts about my life is that I have found a church full of foodies who love to eat as much as I do. A few times a year, our church has "Food Truck Sundays" where they have a couple of different food trucks from the area come out and the church will pay for your meal (up to a point). It's great. 

This last time, we had one of our favorite combos which was Kona Ice and The Big Cheezy. I mean, how can you go wrong with snocones and grilled cheese? 

We had appetizers of snocones while we waited in line to order our grilled cheese. Hungry Eyes Jr. got a variety of flavors, while I stuck to straight Tiger's Blood...which is truly the best flavor. Meet Hungry Eyes Jr.! She's one of our main photographers here on the blog and is always trying to help me up my Instagram game. 

Hungry Eyes Jr is very serious about her Kona Ice

While The Big Cheezy is known for their amazing specialty grilled cheeses (go for the Buffalo Chicken...trust me!), we opted to get just some OG sandwiches to pair with the tomato soup that was also being served.  While Jr rated it a 7/10, it was still a solid grilled cheese sandwich, but after all, an OG grilled cheese is just a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Judge us if you want, but the reason we didn't go too crazy on the grilled cheese is because we had bigger plans for post-lunch. Insomnia Cookies is a block from our church. We obviously had to walk over for dessert since we had just finished lunch. Jr opted for a peanut butter and I went with the classic with M&Ms. 

A food tragedy struck as we were walking back to our car. 

I asked Jr if she wanted to eat her cookie on the walk back (mainly because I wanted to eat my cookie on the walk back). Obviously, she said yes, so I went to pull her cookie out of the bag. Her cookie was still warm and before I knew it, half of it was falling to the ground of the parking lot. 

Tragic. 

Being a good parent, I let her have my whole cookie, while I ate the remaining half of hers. (After explaining that the 5 second rule did not apply to food that had fallen on the ground outside...especially not in a parking lot.) 

Photo by Hungry Eyes Jr

All parties left happy and full, and anxiously counting down the days to the next food truck Sunday where we may venture away from the OG grilled cheese (and the go-to Buffalo Chicken) and try new things. After all, no grilled cheese is truly a bad grilled cheese. 

Have you been to Insomnia Cookies, The Big Cheezy or Kona Ice? If so, what are your go-to orders at each? Help us expand our horizons! 

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Sunday Special - Saltgrass Steakhouse

 

This morning started out with a visit from someone to check on the A/C at the Hungry House, so Momma Hungry had plenty of time to think of choices for lunch while she and Papa Hungry stayed behind while Jr and I went to church this morning. Her choices: TJ Ribs, Saltgrass, Mike Anderson's and Acme. (Told you last week that Acme is quite popular in the Hungry House) With there being a Saints game at noon, we figured Saltgrass would be the least crowded with Saints fans watching the game. 

I'm going to start by saying that I understand why Saltgrass doesn't continue bringing you the complimentary bread after one loaf, but can we talk about the baby loaf we got today? If you're going to put Shiner in your bread and make me addicted to that and whatever it is you put in your butter, can I at least get a loaf the size of my table? (No? Ok...a baby loaf it is) Better yet, have me pay for an extra loaf! I would pay for extra Saltgrass bread in a heartbeat. 

Even though I was dreaming of the bread, Jr wanted to get an appetizer so we got their queso. I know, not what you would traditionally think one would get as an appetizer at Saltgrass, but y'all, this queso is really good. And it comes with some homemade chips. AND they throw in a giant jalepeno (peep lower right for that big boy)

After all, you can't go wrong with cheese. 

For entrees: Jr got the kids chicken sliders, Momma Hungry got the friend shrimp, Papa Hungry got the country friend steak, and I got the grilled chicken sandwich. The grilled chicken sandwich?!?! I know, it's so off-brand for me. However, this isn't just any grilled chicken sandwich. It's smothered in melted Jack cheese and topped with bacon. You could say it's more of a melted cheese and bacon sandwich with grilled chicken...on a homemade bun to boot. 

Delicious! And I can feel better about my meal by saying I ate something healthy because the chicken was gilled, and there is some green vegetable think on my plate too.  I added even more green but cutting that massive jalapeno from the queso and adding it to my sandwich. Seemed like a great idea in theory because I love jalapenos and don't mind the heat...but this one ...had me wishing I had ordered a glass of milk because those seeds hit HARD! (It was so good though, even though I'm sure I lost some taste buds!)

Special shoutout to our server, Megan! This woman was awesome. Super friendly, always checking in on us, if you hit up Saltgrass ask if she's working, you won't regret it!

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Slices & Crust

 

My mom has had some health issues, non-Covid related, and has spent a fair amount of time in and out of the hospital these past few months. One of these trips led me back home to hang out with kiddo while she was in the hospital, a perk of the time I got to spend working from home during quarantine. We decided to check out the new pizza place is town - Crust Pizza Co. 

We worked up an appetite playing cornhole waiting on our food. Kiddo is becoming a pretty good cornhole player, so I might need to step up my training. Kiddo tends to think we have to get an appetizer, so obviously we got the garlic cheese bread, pepperoni rolls and the kids pepperoni pizza to share. Definitely check it out if you're near one!

Another quarantine detour was the not so long journey over to Geismer to Big Slice Pizza. While you would expect to get a slice from a place named Big Slice (and you can!), after looking over the lunch specials the new personal pizzas seemed to be the better value for the price, so I went with that. However, next time, I'm going to get the slice ... and maybe some wings. But check out those big slices of pepperoni and Italian sausage! 🤤

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For the 10th Month of Pizza ...

 

Wow, at this point, I've been eating so much pizza, AND IT IS AMAZING! October took us one step closer to the end of our journey to eat all of the pizza in Baton Rouge. And we are down to only 3 places left on our original list! There's a few more pizza places on the radar to open this year, and if I get there in 2020, it will just be an added bonus to the list. 

BJ's Brewhouse: I can't believe that it took me this long to bring kiddo to BJ's. Back in the day, I used to eat at BJ's quite often. Now that I'm old, I rarely think about it because it's by the mall and I avoid the mall like the plague. However, I have kiddo ready to go back because after our meal, I got the most amazing dessert on the planet - the pizookie trio. I wanted to get a small pizza, but they were out of smalls. My options were a mini or a large, and I opted for the mini since I knew a pizookie trio was in the plan for dessert. 

I didn't tell kiddo that the plan was to get the pizookie trio, and she hesitantly asked if she could get the mini pizookie on the kids menu for dessert. When I mentioned getting the trio so we could try 3 different kinds, she was beyond excited. While my favorite is the triple chocolate, I let kiddo pick our choices. Her choices shocked me. 

From Left to Right - Sugar, Chocolate Chunk, White Chocolate/Macadamia Nut

Something else I learned! Did you know that BJ's donates a portion of their pizookie sales to the Cystic Fibrosis foundation? Even more reason to indulge in a tasty treat after your meal!

Hungry Howie's: I've got to be honest. Going into this challenge, I DREADED scratching this one off the list. I have never been a fan, and I don't enjoy the idea of a flavored crust. I was hoping to be able to scratch it off during softball season because our event manager usually orders this as one of our tournament meals, but ... COVID made me spend my own money on it. 

I opted to go with the deep dish because (1) I didn't know they had this as an option and (2) deep dish is one of my favorite styles of pizza. I met up with some friends for happy hour appetizers and placed my order before we left. The timing was perfect as my pizza was coming out of the oven when I arrived. I tried a slice in my car before leaving and ... is this really a Hungry Howie's pizza? Y'ALL! It was so good!!! Note to readers, if you don't like one type of pizza a place has on the menu, don't write it off! Go back and try something new. You just might love it. 

Fleur de Lis: This is a true Baton Rouge classic. They began slinging pizza back in the 40s and while they are known for the "square" pizza, which is a large, they also have a small which is circular. Fleur de Lis is no frills. The building looks super run down, they are a cash only business, you walk inside and you would think they forgot to pay the electric bill at how dark it is, but their pizza is always listed as one of the best in Baton Rouge. 

Since I only had enough cash for a small, I went with a small pepperoni. A small is $8.52 for those of you who want to taste this goodness for yourself. AND YOU SHOULD. There's a reason that this pizza is always listed as one of the best in Baton Rouge, and it's because they must put crack it in. I finished my pizza before I was halfway home. Actually, I stopped at Sonic to get a slush and pretty much had shoved the whole thing in my face before the drink arrived at my car in a very unladylike fashion. 

I'm not going to lie, I thought this month would be an easy bet on best pizza of the month. However, I found it extremely difficult to really pick one. I liked all 3! But there's no ties in the monthly competition, and it came down to which pizza was the first one of these three when I thought about when I could go back. So, winning by only a slight margin (which I never thought I would say that if Hungry Howie's was a choice is...)

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Sunday Special - Acme Oyster House

 

The Hungry Eyes fam usually goes out to eat on Sundays after church, and Acme Oyster House is in the standard rotation. When Gigi Hungry is joining us, it's an almost guarantee we will eat here. It's also the Sunday go to when we can't make up our minds on where we want to go eat. We're also those people with a standard order and don't tend to branch out. 😂

Appetizer

We're always going to get the meat pies as an appetizer. It's essentially non-negotiable for our family. And if I'm with other people and they get an appetizer that isn't meat pies, you can bet I'll order them for my meal. The chipotle ranch they come with is just that good. The meat pies aren't half bad either. 

"Entree"

So the standard orders are as follows: Hungry Eyes Jr goes with the Junior Dawgs, Hungry Mom & Pop split the fried seafood platter, and I usually go with another appetizer for my main meal - the Boo fries. If you haven't had the boo fries, let me tell you why this is more of a meal than an appetizer. Imagine a plate of fries topped with melted cheese (which is an appetizer) AND THEN top it with some roast beef smothered in gravy. Peep below...

See? That's more like roast beef and gravy with a side of cheese fries. Instead of it being laid out like the entrée that it truly is, it's all combined together like a plate you would normally see on Thanksgiving. Get it as an appetizer, get it as an entrée, however you get it, just get it. 

Dessert

Dessert usually isn't something we get, but since it's Poppa Hungry Eyes birthday month, and he had a birthday reward, he got a bread pudding! As the only person in our family to enjoy bread pudding, it came home with us and ended up in my belly. 

I know that it's kind of a thing to put raisins in bread pudding, and I can overlook that but can we, as a society, normalize raisins not being in bread pudding? How about normalizing chocolate chips instead? Either way, I can normalize the Acme Whiskey sauce being put on a variety of desserts. Can y'all please sell this by the bottle? 

Do you think we should shake up our standard orders? What's your go-to order at Acme? Any advice for restaurants we should hit up for lunch on Sundays? Drop them in the comments!

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Taste & See Hibachi Sushi

 

While I would be willing to eat pizza almost every day, most people don't seem to be on that train of thinking. This past weekend, kiddo and I were trying to decide where to go for lunch. Kiddo is one that likes to be given choices. She isn't a picky eater, so most places are in play with her. However, she likes to remind me that Japanese food is her favorite. I decided to take kiddo to one of my favorites by campus, Taste & See. 

Taste & See (and it's predecessor, Kalamari, or Lightening Bolt as we called it) has been in the lunch rotation for our office for a while now. How can you go wrong with buffet with sushi and hibachi? I decided to take kiddo there today, and while I'm a little sad that the buffet is gone (thanks, Covid), I was glad to be able to get some of my favorites and share the experience with her. 

The best part about eating with kiddo is the communal nature of all meals as we tend to order a bunch of things and then share them. We started with the spring rolls for an appetizer and I'm not sure what sauce they serve with it, but I would like a few bottles shipped to my house to put on everything.

We had to get hibachi, it's one of kiddo's favs. Hibachi there is only $9, and clearly enough for 2 people. We got the shrimp hibachi with fried rice and I almost regretted ordering sushi too because I wish I had gotten a second helping of this rice. 

I kept it simple on the sushi order - a crunchy roll and a shrimp tempura roll. Kiddo hasn't branched out on any of the raw stuff, but she does like certain items in her sushi rolls and likes to remind me that she likes sushi. Kiddo preferred the shrimp tempura roll, I preferred the crunchy roll, but kiddo REALLY preferred the hibachi. 

If you're craving Japanese food when you're by LSU, check them out!

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The Table Less Traveled

 During Quarantine 2020, on one of the bazillion times I was scrolling through Instagram, I saw someone I follow who had done some cooking classes through The Table Less Traveled. The Table Less Traveled is a travel company located in Seattle, and since people weren't allowed to travel out of the county, they were bringing the chefs to the people via Zoom. 

The classes were pay what you can, which was in my extremely tight budget and I'm forever grateful for the amount of time they made the courses pay what you can so kiddo and I could enjoy them. They are at an actual price now, which is not really in my budget, but we got to spend quality time with Marika & Emanuele (pizza, fried pizza, and biscotti), and Domenico & Maria (Lemon cake and stuffed pizza). 

Y'all, kiddo loves Marika. And Marika was always so sweet and so patient with us. We did more classes with her and I wish we could afford to go visit her. She was amazing. Our stuffed pizza class, got cancelled as we were the only participants but I googled and found a recipe to try anyway. It had similar ingredients so I take it as a win. Thanks to Marika, I became extremely uncomfortable making a dough by hand...with my hands as the mixing instrument. (I hate the feel of wet flour on my hands.) However, I've heard that you can't truly appreciate life if you aren't uncomfortable. Behold, the fruits of our labor!

Regular Pizza: 

Fried Pizza: 

Stuffed Pizza: 

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Then 2020 Changed

 

Put some Alan Jackson on for this post because March seemed like the day everything stopped. I remember being at one of my favorite non-pizza restaurants in the city with some of my favorite people (Shoutout to Overpass Merchant!) when the governor announced that all non-essential businesses would be shut down due to COVID-19. Now, we were all still in shock finding out that working in a live entertainment type business might not have been a solid career choice. (Yes, college athletics is a live entertainment type business.) 

These next few months made me feel like my resolution to eat all of the pizza wasn't going to be possible. I was angry. This is one resolution I can truly accomplish and it wasn't me preventing me from finishing. It was the governor! Ok, so it was really a global pandemic, but I needed a person to blame for my failure because it didn't seem right to blame it on a global pandemic. The virus wasn't on my tv screen telling non-essential businesses to shut down, it was him. Anyway, sorry JBE...I'm very grateful for you letting restaurants open for take-out orders and eventually open back to limited capacities because it helped me get to a point where I saw that I could accomplish this if I put forth a little extra effort. 

Motza's Pizza: Starting off with one not on the list, because this guy was a new kid on the block who didn't make the original list. Motza's opened during quarantine (bold strategy!) and it's become somewhat of a staple for us here due to its proximity and pizzas that more than just I like. The family really loves their taco pizza...I love that on Tuesdays LSU employees get 20% off. 

Red Zeppelin: This is one of our friend Brian's favorite pizza spot in the city. (Go visit him at Fuzzy's!) I can admit the reason I don't go here much is the location. The pizza is good though, I'm just not overly big on making left hand turns on Perkins not at red lights, or driving up Lee when there is traffic. Also, I'm clearly pretty bad at getting pics of pizza, as you have noticed, so this one is out of the box. 

Rocca: I don't have a picture for Rocca, and for that I have failed you. I went into this pizza tour with Rocca being my favorite pizza place in Baton Rouge. You can get slices for lunch, and their Four Cheese is seriously one of my favorite things in the city. The reason I don't have a picture for you, is that I ate this pizza pretty much in my car...on the drive home...because this was back when we still couldn't eat at restaurants. I was starving, and Rocca isn't close to my house. I wanted the pizza to be hot when I ate it, so I ate it on the drive home. But if you haven't been, then go. 

Pizza Hut - No one out pizzas the hut! Pizza Hut's stuffed crust is true love in carb form. This is my go-to when I'm alone by myself. Anything less than the stuffed crust from Pizza Hut disappoints me, so I've learned that it's stuffed crust or nothing. 

Schlitz & Giggles: This is a pizza that I used to LOVE when I was 22. This is a pizza that now that my palette has matured, would not be the go-to like it was over 10 years ago. I checked it off the list, but won't be going back any time soon. Maybe I had built it up in my head, maybe I've matured. 

Pastime: This was my birthday pizza. I haven't been to Pastime since I lived here the first time around. Obviously I had to use my birthday as an opportunity to check a new place off the list, and since kiddo and I were headed downtown, I figured Pastime was the spot to hit. Y'all...I don't know that I've ever had the pizza from Pastime but there is a reason that the internet kept saying this pizza was one of the tops in Baton Rouge. I loved it. I want to go back. Hit me up if you're heading that way, reader. 

Quarantine made me lose hope in being able to complete the tour in 2020. While more pizza places may pop up, and some people think I should have included places that offered pizza on the menu but that Google didn't tell me I should go to, I had a little extra time in quarantine to reaffirm that Google's list was the one I should stick with. After all, I really think I can finish this. 

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