Fort Lauderdale

Just me doing some digital scrapbooking....

We flew into Fort Lauderdale.  Maybe the tickets were cheaper, maybe the times worked better, maybe it was closest to the New Haven style pizza restaurant. 

Only Adam knows the answer to that question.

We went to a beach for our first turquoise ocean view:

We saw this enormous spider above our path for our first wildlife view:

It was hot.  And humid.  Mark said, "Now I know why the Spanish were in such a bad mood."  Also, Mark was so hot he wanted to buy some shorts for our first Mark's legs view (he hasn't worn shorts for probably a decade and I had to take a picture to send his siblings to mark the occasion):

I remembered Adam telling me about the winged Pegasus statue so I wanted to see it.  It didn't disappoint, especially since he has a front leg on a dragon's neck.  Why not?  I showed Emma the pictures and she laughed and said, "It's just so dramatic for no reason!"

We finished the day with New Haven style pizza.  I will always be here for it.  We were trying to decide how many pizzas to get.  Mark thought three or four.  We consulted the waiter and he looked at the four of us and said, "Two medium sized pizzas will be plenty."

Adam said, "Yeah, we'll get two large."

We weren't sorry.

Hard habit to break

We have exhausted all the pizza restaurants in our designated geographic area.  Mission accomplished!  To celebrate, a few weeks ago,  we went out for...pizza.

We went out of our area to a new Brooklyn Brothers in Mukilteo.  We liked the old one in downtown Everett better because the atmosphere is more interesting.  (Plus we remember when that was a Dairy Queen in Mukilteo.)  The pizza was just as good though.

And the company.

Across the table, I noticed Braeden's hair.  Having been soaked in chlorine all summer, it is rebelling in strange ways.

not shown:  the teeny tiny curls at the nape of his neck

It's a fascinating study in what chemicals and neglect can do for you.

Then Emma didn't want to be left out of the entertainment that is my phone at restaurants:

Adam took her glasses and gave further proof of where to place the how did these kids get so strange blame:

Adam in girl glasses:  not his best look.

He is entertaining though:

And then the pizza came:

Why yes, it was delicious.

Coming soon!  (Maybe soon...coming sometime) A summary of the pizza quest and how a pizza quest can change your life.

(Maybe not that last part.)

Pizza quest 9

We again broke our no restaurant chain rule and included Alfy's in our quest.  Because it's Alfy's.  It's like we're Norm and Alfy's is our Cheers.  We like it there.  We've been going there for years.  We've gone there for an air conditioned refuge when it was hot and we've sat by the fire when it's cold.  We also really really enjoy the trivia questions that are at each table. 

It's the worst trivia you'll ever see.  That's part of the magic.  The questions are either so random no one would ever know the answer, or they are so poorly worded they don't make sense, or--our personal favorite--sometimes they're yes or no questions.  They're really sort of delightful.

We all gave high marks for atmosphere at Alfy's.  Not because it was anything fancy but because it is familiar and comfortable.

Emma was at Girls' Camp when we went but Mark was our honored guest because he was home from his trip.  I got out my phone to snap a picture of the pizza so I took a picture of our returning hero:

Then this happened.

I don't know why I encourage him.

We ordered the cheese of course:

Rating the Alfy's cheese pizza was kind of hard to do.  It's so familiar it would be like rating milk.  It's just milk.  We all liked it and it soon disappeared.

We also got the Alfy's Special, which we had never ordered before:

It was a typical meat and olive pizza.  We also liked it.

So Alfy's is not the best pizza we've had but it's definitely not the worst and I'm sure it's the place we'll return to the most often.

It's Alfy's.

Pizza quest 8

I have a backlog of these to blog about.  I think I kind of forgot.  Back when Mark was still gone, we went to Boston Pizza.  It is a chain so I don't think it should have counted--we're avoiding places like Pizza Hut and Little Caesar's because they are chains.  Also because they aren't that great.

Sometimes we break our own rules though.  That's the beauty of making up your own quests.

The restaurant was OK as restaurants go.  I would prefer if there weren't TV screens in all the corners of every place we go to but there was a baseball game on and it led us to reminisce to the last time I was a loyal Mariner's fan, back when they were having a great season.  (I don't know if you can call it a loyal fan if that's the only time I'm loyal...)

So reminiscing about baseball is kind of fun.

We ordered the cheese pizza:

Eh.  It was nothing special.  Especially the crust.  It was bland and tasted like a pretzel after someone had licked all the salt off of it.

The specialty pizza we ordered was a barbecue chicken.  I usually like this kind of pizza a lot.  This one was pretty good at first.  The sauce was good.  The fresh cilantro was a nice touch.  And then you'd get to the end of the slice and taste nothing but the dead crust that tasted like your foot was asleep.
 

So I went away from Boston Pizza thinking, yeah, we never need to go back.

Pizza quest 7

Our most recent pizza quest was at Elliott Bay Pizza which is Mill Creek.  (It was awhile ago...we are due for another pizza.)  We were picking up Braeden from work (this was pre-Loki) and Geri called us.  We invited her to join us so we could get another opinion.

Since we had one extra person, we took the opportunity to order one extra pizza.  The math adds up.  Sort of.

We ordered the cheese:

It was my favorite cheese pizza we've had so far.  It had sharp cheddar cheese as one of the mix of cheeses.  What's not to love about sharp cheddar?  Adam wasn't as fond of it as I was but I thought it was goooooood.

We ordered the Elliott Bay Special:

The crust and sauce were wonderful so that's always great.  Almost all of the specialty pizzas are heavy on meat and I usually don't like those types of pizza and wouldn't order them but they're pretty good.

Look at this.  The pizza quest is widening my horizons.

For our third bonus pizza, we ordered a pesto pizza with chicken and artichoke hearts:

We didn't officially rate it but I was a little disappointed by it.  I love pesto but there was maybe too much of it.  Also, the artichokes weren't marinated so not as flavorful as they could be.

It was still good.

Pizza quest 6

This is from awhile ago.  I am behind on these posts...

We have certain guiding principles as a family.  Certain truths that we can live by; words we could stitch on a pillow.  Well not anymore.  Even though I'd like to think that life is like pizza and even when it's bad, it's good, that is not true.

And it is demoralizing.

We had pizza that was bad.

It was so bad that even though it was pizza, it was not good.

Over a week ago, we went to #1 New York Pizza in Clearview.  It's on the outer edge of our geographic boundary for pizza restaurants.  I wish it had been outside the boundary.  Then I would never have tried the pizza.

We couldn't tell if it was open or closed.  They had a sign for each.  It turned out they were closed but willing to fill our order anyway.

It seemed promising.  We like New York style pizza.  We like the flimsy crust you have to fold over.

Also, it was sort of a dive.  Places like that are usually promising.

Adam became buddies with the owners.  He ordered the cheese pizza, then asked the guy to make him the kind of pizza he would personally like.  Adam said surprise me.

This sign was Mark's favorite part of the restaurant.

 Meanwhile the rest of us sat in the car and Emma taught me how to play Trees of Doom on my phone which is a game she downloaded.  I played for about 20 seconds but that is the limit of my interest level in games like that.

Adam emerged with fragrant boxes of pizza and we headed for home.  Braeden wanted to start eating in the car but you don't give rookie West Coast kids New York style pizza to eat in the car.  There's a certain skill involved in not getting it all over your shirt.

Once home, we each started with a slice of the cheese.

I thought it was OK (overly oregano-ed) but everyone else loved it (which is why overall, the restaurant scores high).  Braeden, who could win a prize for his speedy pizza inhalation, started on a slice of the "specialty" pizza before the rest of us were halfway done with our first piece.

He took one bite.

He grimaced.

Braeden, who has never met a piece of pizza he didn't like, set down the slice.

"You're not going to eat it?" we asked (in dismay).

"No."

So then Mark didn't even want to try it but he had to because we're having a quest here.

Mark took one bite of Braeden's rejected piece.

Then he passed it on to Emma.

She took a bite.

She handed it to me.

"Is it that bad?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

So I took a bite of the family slice.

And yes, it was that bad.

The garlic was overpowering and there was just a bad mix of flavors.  Adam scraped part of it off and choked down a piece.

So either the guy at #1 New York Pizza has no taste buds or he had a malicious wish to give us nasty pizza.

We'll never know.

Pizza quest 5

We had our best pizza so far last Monday night at The Rock.  It's a restaurant where you sit down so we could soak up the atmosphere (and form opinions about it).  It has a rock and roll theme.  I appreciate a theme that is undertaken but not overdone and I think they achieved that.  Skulls and blaring music isn't really my favorite but you can't fault them for nailing down a concept.

We ordered the requisite cheese pizza and it was hands down the best we've had.  Plain cheese pizza will never be my favorite but this was good.

It took talking to a few employees before we decided which was their specialty.  It's interesting to me that few restaurants know what their specialty is.  We settled on The Founders Pie.  It did not disappoint.  It had pepperoni and sausage, some crazy good sauce and dollops of ricotta cheese on top.  Also, as a bonus, the sausage was good.  Not a caraway seed in sight.

Adam asked the waitress how big the two extra large pizzas were.  Would they feed our crew?  She said, "Oh yes, you'll have a few pieces leftover for lunch tomorrow."

I looked across the table at my ravenous children.

I knew we'd need a back up plan for lunch the next day.

And I was right.

Pizza quest 4

I am realizing that our results are skewed because sometimes we have the decidedly unpicky teenagers with us and sometimes we don't.  Adam told me that he'll adjust it all in the end, to which I say good.

May I remind you, this is serious business and we have to find the best pizza.  (Not just what the perpetually hungry Braeden thinks is best.)

We picked up pizza at Garlic Jim's.  (In case you're wondering if we're tired of pizza yet, we're not.  It's pizza!)

The atmosphere was nice for a take-out place.  Clean and reasonably attractive.  Braeden gave it a five because while we were waiting, the employees surreptitiously sneaked pieces of pepperoni pizza out of a box and slunk away to eat it.  They all seemed to be hiding from each other but they were all doing the same thing.  Braeden thought it was funny.

Like I said, he's not very picky.

We of course ordered cheese:

And their specialty, garlic chicken:

They were both OK.  The first piece was best because I was starving--it was about 9:00.  That's sort of how our evenings have been.  The cheese was rubbery and the crust was salty though as I ate another piece.

I don't have Adam's cleverly made graphic yet with the specifics because he's as busy as he is clever.  And that's saying something.

I know I'll get it though and I will update this post when I do.  Because he's as reliable as a 1995 Saturn.  And that's saying something.

Update from Adam:  I'm not sure whether the comparison to our 1995 Saturn is a compliment when it comes from Thelma.  Yes, it's a reliable car, but she won't drive it.

Here is the "cleverly made graphic".  

Pizza quest, part 3

A great thing about having a pizza quest is that if you are (for example) up to your elbows in paint (for example) because you are manically painting a room and its trim all in one afternoon (for example) it is nice to tell your husband that it is a good night for the pizza quest.  And of course, another good thing is to have a husband who is wonderful and heartily agrees with you and doesn't mind the paint up to your elbows thing. (He even helped me finish up painting.)

I really am a messy painter.  I had paint on my face and arms and fingers and toes.  It didn't help that I was painting a bathroom which is my least favorite room to paint because of all the stuff you have to paint around.  Also, my siblings stole all the height in our DNA and left me with none.  I had to climb on the edge of the tub and stand on the sink to reach things and neither of those things helped with the messiness.

I won't begrudge them the height though (too much) because I do have an easier time finding clothes.  So there's that.

Also, in addition to being a messy painter, I am really good at tangents.

So, the pizza.

First we hunted for a coupon to Romio's because we knew we had one floating around somewhere.  We found it (in the door to the van, driver's side).  We drove to Romio's and the parking lot was suspiciously empty.  Turns out the restaurant has closed.

"How many times do we drive by here and we didn't know it was closed?" I asked Adam.

"Maybe that's the problem," he said.  Poor Romio's.  Nobody notices.  And we had a coupon and everything.

We drove around the lake a few hundred feet to Amante.  We only had Mark with us.  (He is quickly becoming my favorite because he is the only one that will stay home with me.  Teenagers are fickle and nomadic.)

Amante is a sit down restaurant so it provided me opportunity to critique the restaurant's atmosphere. (Which is one of my favorite parts of eating out.  My dream job would be redecorating restaurants.)  I gave it big points for  having Frank Sinatra music playing.  I liked the black and white photos on the walls and the wine colored curtains and upholstery.  They carried the wine theme a little far with kitschy signs (like you'd buy at a craft fair) about wine and glowing grapes along the walls.

This photo wasn't taken by me, I found it on the internet, but they had a lot of signs like this:

Almost as cheesy as their cheese pizza.  (What a segue!)

The cheese pizza was too cheesy.  I like cheese as much as any American (but not American cheese) but not too much!  Especially when it's melted.  A little goes a long way.

Their specialty was the Amante Specialty (really, that was the name).  I wouldn't have ordered it because it had prosciutto and sausage and the like on it and I usually prefer pizza with vegetables but it was quite good.  I liked it much more than I thought I would.

Adam thought there was too much basil but I'm not sure that is a thing.  I love basil.

Pizza quest, part 2

We were off to such an enthusiastic start with our pizza quest that we did it two days in a row.  (Also we were having a party at our house on Saturday night and it was easier to pick up pizza than make dinner.)

(Also when isn't it easier to pick up pizza than make dinner?)

This time we got pizza from Frankie's.  I didn't even know this place existed but I probably drive by it every day of my life.  Probably more than once.

I'll keep driving by in the future.  No need to stop again.

We picked up Braeden from the pool right before picking up the pizza.  He was newly sunburned and exhausted but still able to pose in his goofy way.

The cheese pizza:

It was completely soggy in the center.  Not easy to eat but Mark gave a noble effort.

Haven't you always wanted to see a picture of us eating messy pizza?  See, dreams do come true.

Their "specialty" was the Feeding Frenzy.   It sort of seemed like another pizza where they just tried to use up some leftover ingredients.  I liked the fresh green peppers and pineapple and tomatoes but the sausage had caraway seeds in it and I think that is a crime.

It was OK.   
 

turns out teenage boys are less picky than others about pizza...

Adam's quest

Adam has a quest so it has become my quest too.  (I'm always up for a quest.)

We are going to find the best pizza in the area.  We are taking this very seriously (because pizza is serious business).

We outlined a geographic area and are finding the best pizza in those parameters.  (My personal favorite is Brooklyn Brothers in downtown Everett and it's out of the area...actually my really real favorite is in New Haven, CT and that's waaaaay out of the area.)

At each place we are going to sample their cheese pizza and then their self appointed specialty.   We have a five star grading scale.  If you're thinking, those Davises certainly have a lot of time on their hands, that is not strictly true.  But we do have priorities, people.   And this is pizza after all.

Last Friday night we started the search.  Adam has long been intrigued by CanAm Pizza, complete with Canadian and American flags on their logo.

It is a takeout place so the atmosphere--which matters a lot to me--was less important.  (Although it still matters to me.)

The place was clean and didn't have a weird smell so that's good.  It was a sort of utilitarian mix of eclectic things.  I wouldn't say they put too much effort into making it aesthetically pleasing.

Adam surreptitiously snapped this photo while waiting to pay.  On the counter they had a fountain with a spinning golf ball in it.  The golf ball was partially decayed.  Also a stack of maps of Anacortes, WA.  Anacortes is 60 miles away but you never know when you may suddenly need a map while picking up your pizza.

We took the pizza to a park to sample it.

The cheese:

It was OK but the crust wasn't that great and you have to have good crust, right? I think Mark gave it more stars, but this isn't about Mark.

Their specialty, the "Ultimate":

I think it was more an attempt to clean out their refrigerator and get rid of leftovers than a carefully created recipe of ingredients that went well together.  It wasn't good. 

Of course we still ate it.  Life is like pizza, even when it's bad, it's good.

Here's what Adam made because he is awesome:

Braeden and Emma didn't participate because they weren't home.  Turns out that's an economical way to go.