Friday, July 13, 2018

Salmon Pizza from Vittorio's for #FoodPornFriday

Okay I know I just featured Vittorio's Slice of Italy for #FoodPornFriday a few weeks ago, but come on, look at this pizza my wife was served last night! I couldn't pass on the chance to share this beauty. 

I don't even like salmon (except in sushi) and I'm so so on arugula but I have to say that the Salmon Pizza (#21) that my wife got last night for dinner looked damn appealing. Besides smoked salmon and arugula this pie also has melted mozzarella, fresh tomato, and fresh mozzarella. 

17. Contadina
The rest of the pizzas the family ordered were equally good, though may not be as appetizing looking. I went with the Contadina (#17) which had Mozzarella, bacon, sausage, and potato. My dad went for a Jessica (#15) with tomato sauce, mozzarella, ham, pepperoni and sausage. My mom stuck to basics and got a Pepperoni (#2) but had them add green peppers. Little G tried something a bit more unique, a Patate (#10) with mozzarella, potatoes, egg, and sausage. 

Overall the entire family is still enjoying Vittorios and they still get a strong recommendation for me. 

Friday, July 6, 2018

#FoodPornFriday - Our anniversary staycation at The Grove Hotel


Today's #FoodPornFriday I flashback to our Wedding Anniversary back in May. Often we go out of town for our anniversary but this year we decided to stay local for various family reasons and to save some money. We decided on Kingsville for our staycation.

Normally when we go to Kingsville we stay at Jack's Gastropub. More accurately, we stay at INN31, upstairs at Jacks. This wasn't an option this time, but my wife found The Grove Hotel just down the street and we decided to check it out. 

The Grove Hotel is a historic building in Kingsville (it's from 1854) that was recently renovated. A big part of that renovation was adding The Grove Brew House to the side of the existing hotel. The Brew House is a high-end brewpub serving a wide variety of beers, booze, and food. 

My wife managed to get us the Brewmaster Suite, which was an awesome room. Besides being huge, with a nice big sized bed, lots of tables (great for gaming on), it also had one of the coolest features I've ever experienced in a hotel room: a door leading into the brewpub with a private balcony. That's right we had our own private access to the pub, with a cool balcony that was also wide enough to fit some games on. 

We had a lot of beers on that patio and played quite a few games of Azul. It was awesome to be able to sit out there, go back into the room for a bit, use the washroom and go back out. We were even able to bring some drinks back into the room at the end of the night.

About those drinks. Grove currently has 7 beers in their Brewmaster Series, which you can get any time. These include a Blood Orange Hefeweizen, a Lager, Four Ales (Cream, Brown, IPA and APA) and a Stout. They also have seasonal beers they call One Hit Wonders. Right now there are four, including a Sour, a Marzen, an Altbier and a Porter. Of all the beers I tried the Clubhouse Stout, George The Ghost Hefeweizen and the Chocolate Salted Caramel Porter were the best. The fact they are actually a brewery also means that you can get any of their great beers to go. Though we did learn that they often run out of growlers so the One Hit Wonders may not be available for takeout. 

The Grove Brew House also serves food. One night we took advantage of their late night menu and had some flatbread pizza that was rather good. It had chorizo on it, and that's never a bad thing. At some point we plan on going back and getting a full meal, it's just that there are so many amazing places to eat in Kingsville. 

Now the bad news: it's not cheap. Flights of beer cost more here than anywhere else in Kingsville. The Brewmaster Suite was over $200 a night. The flatbread pizza was $18. Now those aren't crazy prices and you get what you pay for, but it's more than we pay to stay and drink down the street at Jack's. 

Overall, we were impressed with both the hotel and the brewpub portion of the new upgraded Grove. I know the shots of our private balcony I shared on social media during the stay were very popular and I know at least one person who called to try to book a wedding reception. It is a rather cool place to stay.