Back to My West Hollywood Stomping Grounds...in Downtown Austin?

Yes! It's true! Austin is now the proud home of it's very own zpizza! I don't know how long this place has been here since I only moved back to Austin from LA a few months ago, but as I was longingly gazing at the Rusticas and other amazing pies on the website, I stumbled across the "Locations" tab, and was shocked to find a zpizza right in my own backyard!

Naturally, I dragged hubby downtown, and I was practically drooling by the time we found parking and got inside.

*Side Note: Parking here sucks. A lot. Plan on making circles for about 15 minutes if you're going on a Saturday evening like we did. There are a few new bars and restaurants on this little strip, and they were packed.*

Once inside, I was shocked. It was empty! Apparently no one else was aware of the zpizza's deliciousness. I was divided in how this made me feel. On the one hand, I thought, "Mmmmm! More zpizza all for me!" on the other hand, I realized that a complete lack of patronage might mean that after a few months like this, there would, ironically, not only NOT be more zpizza for me, but none at all - for me or anyone else...

Inner emotional conflict was quickly crushed - or drowned - by the drool running down my face as I looked at the spinning warming display of individual slices. I thought, as a lady, I should show some restraint, so I wiped my mouth, swallowed the lump in my throat, and ordered a Mediterranean Rustica. B ordered an American with jalapeños, a couple of beers (he had Blue Moon), and then, to my horror and envy, said, "And give me a couple of those pepperoni slices for while I wait."

What?! I'm dying here and he, who was put off by the idea of zpizza for the very same reasons I love it (in his mind, organic = douchey), was going to chow down while I waited 15 minutes for our food? Must be nice to be a guy and not have to worry about being ladylike...

As we sat and waited, I found myself defending my old haunt: No! The one I used to go to wasn't like this. It was Southern California - we sat at tables on the sidewalk. (The inside of this zpizza was very cavernous and had these dinky little McDonald's two person tables that only served to highlight just how empty the place was.) While we waited, I felt increasingly like I was in a fish bowl. It was dark by now, and people were crowded outside waiting for valets to retrieve their vehicles. A few times the odd drunk girl would press her face up against the glass, peering into this oddly bright and mostly empty storefront before eventually squealing, "It's a PIZZA place! Oh my god, I'm so hungry! Let's get PIZZA!" Thankfully (because patronage be damned, I did NOT want to deal with drunk people), they were ushered into their awaiting vehicles by slightly more sober boyfriends or impatient valets.

When the food was finally ready, I started to dig in. As I was grabbing a slice of my Rustica, I noticed B staring down at his pie. It was undercooked (You know when instead of a cohesive layer of cheese you can see that the shreds are still shreds and haven't really melted all the way? Hate that!) and conspicuously devoid of jalapeños. I took it back to the counter and told the guy he'd forgotten them. He nonchalantly told me they were out, and that's why there weren't any on there. So I asked him to bake it longer, and he said that he couldn't since it had already been cut. I was starting to get frustrated, so I asked him for a refund on the jalapeños (it might just be a couple of dollars, but I'm not paying for toppings that we didn't get), and if he could just pop the whole pan back in so that the cheese could finish melting, which he did, albeit grudgingly.

I returned to my food, and as I picked up a slice, all of the toppings made a mad dash for the table. I took a bite, and everything just sort of...gooshed. Let me tell you, there is nothing appetizing about pizza (or any of its relatives, like the Rustica) gooshing when you bite into it. Sauce went everywhere, toppings were on the pan, and my fingers were covered in, well, gush. B looked at my miserable face and asked, "What's wrong?" I sighed and turned my eyes to the pan in front of me, my mouth too full of sauce and wet crust to talk, and my fingers too messy to even wipe my mouth off with.

What had happened? The place that had been my big work lunch treat back in LA (I was a college student and everything in LA is expensive!) was, to put it bluntly, a massive disappointment. B kept asking me if I wanted to get something else, but I couldn't. I was crushed. Somehow the meal that satiated me on those blissful SoCal afternoons just didn't translate out here - and it wasn't just the lack of abundant sunshine that made it so. Everything was undercooked and overloaded with sauce and cheese. I plowed through it out of pure hunger (this seems to be a trend, huh?) and Irish upbringing - you don't waste food - but just ended up feeling sick.

B enjoyed his pizza well enough, but only ate a bit of it because the wait between his first two slices and our food actually being ready had given his appestat time to kick in, and he was full. When he forgot his leftovers in Malaga next door (where we went for drinks), we didn't go back. I don't like to waste food, but I'm not a glutton for punishment either....

The Ranking

(all rankings are out of 5)

• Food: ☆☆
• Maybe we went on a bad night, but consistency of quality is important too.

• Atmosphere: ☆
• zpizza will remain a lunch spot for me, if I come back. This is not the sort of place you go to dinner, and, to be honest, it's not that convenient for me to pop in for lunch, so this might be the end of my love affair with zpizza...Unless, of course, I move back to LA!

• Service: ☆
• The guy was friendly, but didn't bother telling us he was leaving a topping off, and, let's face it, this is a healthful alternative to fast food, but it's still really self-serve.

• Price: $$
• I may no longer be a starving uni student in LA, but at this zpizza, the quality of food still did not justify the cost.

The bottom line?

Here in Austin, I'd still head to Milto's any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Seriously, the twice on Sunday thing has happened before. Though it might have been a Tuesday...

Late Night Bite at Doc's Backyard

To be upfront with you all, we (my husband, B, and I) really did NOT want to end up here. Not because we dislike Doc's, but because we were really hoping to get out there and try something new. I can tell you right now, that if you get caught up in a Law & Order marathon and end up getting out of the house just after 9 on a Sunday night, your options are rather limited! But anyway...

After calling Hickory Street Bar and Grill, Union Park (whose number was disconnected), Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant, and Cuba Libre, I was frustrated and pulled into Doc's with 25 minutes to spare until the kitchen closed. Normally I don't like to be that customer who comes in at the last minute and expects to sit down and eat a full meal right before closing, but they're open until midnight, and I knew we wouldn't be ordering course after course, so I didn't mind. Apparently, Sunday is also quiz night, so there were plenty of other people still ordering nibbles to keep them at the top of their game.

As a brief aside, unless you're taking part in quiz night, I wouldn't recommend going to Doc's on a Sunday after 8 p.m.. Since it's all one room, it's hard to get away from the shrieking and obnoxious 5 second clips of songs (I turned to my husband and said, "What the hell? Are they going to play the first five seconds of EVERY Beatles song?" just after we arrived, only to realize a few minutes later what was going on.) to enjoy your meal. And why is there always one girl who feels the need to let out a shrill scream every time her team gets an answer right? There seem to be a lot of screamers at Doc's, because every time we've been there (when it's been anything other than dead), there's always a 40-something woman who's clearly hired a babysitter for the night and had one too many tequila shots before hitting the shuffleboard tables. And let me tell you, I've been around plenty of obnoxious drunks, but none of them ever seem to top the older married men and - especially - women who are "cutting loose" for the night.

Okay, so not as brief of an aside as I'd hoped, but back to our meal. The first 10 minutes (remember, we only had about 20 left to order) went something like this:

• 0-1: Arrive at Doc's, note the 10 p.m. kitchen closing time on the door, and think, "We'd better get a move on."
• 1-2: Genuinely surprised (and feeling a little bit better about not leaving the house until 9) that it's so busy for a Sunday night. As I noted earlier, we quickly became annoyed with the whole quiz night thing, which just did not have the same feel as a British pub quiz. We grab a table.
• 2-4: We wait for a server to come by and give us menus, and we really work the "Smile, raise eyebrows and a finger" routine to try and catch one of the girls' attention without interrupting what they're doing. No such luck.
• 4-6: I go to the bar to ask for a menu, where I'm consistently ignored. Finally, I head over to the little computer registers they have right by the kitchen door, and try to get a server's attention. Luckily, I notice some menus by the shuffleboard table, grab two, and return to our table.
• 6-10: We wait. And wait. In an act of desperation - we're talking 10 minutes until they stop taking orders! - I physically put my hand out in front of a waitress (not carrying anything of course, I'm not that big of an ass) and ask, "Can we get some help?" The kicker? She says, "Oh, I thought you all were being helped since you had menus and everything." Sheesh.

So we order. And I'll tell you right now, you should not go to a sports bar and expect to be greeted with a menu that offers a wide variety of healthy/un-fried vegetarian options. I didn't expect it, and neither should you. There's nothing more obnoxious than some trendy vegetarian expecting to go all the same places they went last week (when they still ate meat) and then being shocked and offended that there's not a single vegetarian entree at Beefy's BBQ. But I digress...

Since it was late (and I already knew exactly what I wanted), we decided to skip appetizers. I LOVE fried pickles, but I tend to feel queasy when I eat a ton of fried stuff, so it was better that we didn't indulge. Like I said, I knew what I was going for, and B was trying to decide, so we ordered a pint of Budweiser (for him) and a Pink Lemonade (Pink lemonade vodka and...you guessed it! Pink lemonade!) for me.

When the waitress came back with our drinks, we ordered. For B: A Lone Star Chicken Sandwich with mayo and the guacamole on the side and a side of French fries. For the Veggie: Mini Tostadas with no meat and guacamole as a substitute, and a bowl of queso as a replacement for the non-veggie rice (they use chicken stock).

I will not eat at a restaurant that insists you pay extra to receive something when you're losing out on something, and luckily for us vegetarians, Doc's does not do that. The server said she'd have to check with her manager, but when all was said and done, there was a $1 charge on the bill to add the queso, and then a $1 credit to remove it. I don't really care how it gets done, so long as I'm not paying extra. I hope that doesn't sound unreasonable, but the $1 here, $1.50 there adds up over time, and why should it when I'm getting no more or less than anyone else paying for the "same" meal?

When the food came out, we dug in. I always feel bad writing a review of a restaurant that I've gone to while:

• a) Starving
• b) Drunk
• c) Both a & b

because I feel like I can't give an honest review (or remember anything to review if situations b or c are in play!). That being said, on this particular night, I was only "a) Starving" since I had to drive, so I can remember the experience , and also that fact that since I was starving, just about anything would have hit the spot. Don't get me wrong - the mini tostadas were not horrible, but I can say with absolute certainty that they were not wolfed down because they were so amazing I just couldn't get enough. The guacamole was...sparse, but luckily hubby gave me the guac he got on the side, which ended up being enough. I had to ask for salsa (there was no sauce or flavoring of any description, which I found weird), but then she also asked if I wanted some chips, which was nice. Unfortunately, Doc's has really heavy, somewhat bland/stale tasting chips, so I ended up avoiding them.

Random, but small annoyances: We had to ask for utensils, and salt, and pepper. I might have been able to overlook this if it didn't happen every time we come here. It seems like whenever it gets slow and/or close to closing, the waitresses decide to fill their time by collecting all of the salt and pepper shakers. Weird. Also, the tostadas come with diced tomatoes on them, and then a heap of pico de gallo on the side. It's too much to have both on, so you're wasting one or the other, which I hate to do. Plus, I prefer the pico, and trying to get the tomatoes off the tostada without losing the lettuce was a feat.

All in all, my dish was what you'd expect from a Mexican dish at a sports bar. You can flavor it up to make it a decent vegetarian meal (add a bit of salsa here, some guacamole and queso there...), but it's nothing special. But hey - at least it wasn't just a conglomeration of different deep fried vegetables, right?

B was also just satisfied with his meal. He ate half of the Lonestar Chicken Sandwich after waiting for utensils so that he could spread on the mayo they didn't put ON the sandwich, and about half of the fries. They were overly greasy, salty and lukewarm when they arrived (and B LOVES a salty chip), and by the time I tried one 5 minutes later, they left that greasy coating on the roof of your mouth and were cold and mealy inside. We ordered another round of drinks - this time a pint of Budweiser for both of us - and went to sit on the patio.

The food at Doc's seems to be inconsistent, as the queso Sunday night was better than normal (read: actually liquid instead of congealed), and my husband's chicken fully cooked (hurrah!), but I can definitely say that we've had worse experiences here. My advice? Come to Doc's for the beer (which is hard to screw up so long as it's served ice cold) and nibbles, but don't make it your destination for a full meal unless you're into food that's neither here nor there flavor-wise.

P.S. In the colder months, the outdoor fire pit is great, and in the summer, I love that they have the fans that also spray a fine mist of water on you. If I had the luxury of being able to afford taxis everywhere, Doc's wouldn't be a bad place to spend a Monday night knocking back cheap pitchers of Budweiser and relaxing on the patio where the screams of the Real Housewives of South Austin playing shuffleboard would at least be muffled if they kept the garage doors down...