Let's Get Baked

Homemade oven-fried chicken strips with cumin veggie strings.

The chicken was easy. I used my stash of bread crumbs, and 2 lbs of chicken breast. Tossed the chicken w/ some seasoning, flour-eggwash-crumbs and bake at 400 for 20-30 mins or so.

While the chicken cooked, I cut up my veggies. A blend of Jicama, Asparagus, Red Pepper and Carrots. The goal was to have similar size strands, which came up somewhat close, but without the proper amount of time to spend cutting correctly, I wasn't overly worried about it.

I tossed the veggies with some cumin and Mrs. Dash original blend, then threw them in a saute pan pre-heated with oil & minced garlic.

WonTon Tacos.

Well this idea has been around the block and is widely promoted around the internet.

My take on it was to use whatever veggies I had in the fridge which were pretty limited last night.

Start off by baking the wontons in a cupcake pan. One "shell" per cake hole. I went about 10 minutes @ 350. Might be better off lowering temp and going a little longer to get a better crisp to them.

I used a finely chopped greens mixture that included romaine, green onion and collard greens, chopped tomatoes, and sauteed kohlrabi along with the ground beef. Top with cheese and I used my cayenne tomato suace from the ribs the other day to give a little moisture to the bites.

As you can imagine, the shells don't hold all that much ingredient, so you either need something along with it or eat more or both.

I went with a tossed salad w/ red lettuce, chopped kohlrabi leaves, green pepper, shredded carrots, feta and a homemade vinaigrette (that I made a wee-bit strong).

This was fun and delicious last night.

White wine seared chicken strips on top of a small bed of greens sauteed in raspberry vinaigrette, all of which topped with a goat cheese gravy and a side of roasted lemony potatoes.

Ingredients Lemony Potatoes 4-6 medium potatoes, chunked 1 tbsp Mrs. Dash tomato-basil-garlic mix 1 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper olive oil 1 lemon, quartered, seeded and wedged Chicken 1.5 lbs chicken, cut into strips 1 tbsp olive oil 1 garlic clove, minced 1 handful salad greens per plate 1/4 cup raspberry vinaigrette 1 red pepper julienned 1/2 onion, small dice 2 green onions sliced s&p Gravy 4 tbsp butter 1 tbsp goat cheese 1 tsp fennel seed 1/4 cup milk flour as needed s&p

The potatoes will take you the longest. Skin them, season them as you wish (I used s&p and Mrs. Dash Tomato-Basil-Garlic mix), quarter a lemon and then pick apart the wedges - make sure you've removed the seeds. Toss it all together and set it in the oven for about an hour to 75 minutes @ 350. I'd also suggest taking it out at least once during cooking process to toss again.

You've got plenty of time, so you can cut your chicken, pepper & onions while the potatoes are cooking, if you haven't done so already.

In another skillet, melt the butter to a "browned" state. Add the goat cheese and melt it down as well. Add your fennel seed, salt and pepper, reduce heat to low while cooking chicken.

Heat some oil in a skillet, then add garlic & onions. Cook until translucent. Add the chicken and pour in white wine.

Remove chicken from skillet when done. Add 1/4 cup white wine to skillet and scrape any bits of chicken-garlic-onion left. Pour wine & bits into gravy, add milk and return heat to medium until boiling.

Return chicken to pan to keep warm.

Once gravy is boiling, begin adding flour slowly as needed to get desired consistency. Return heat to low/simmer. Stir frequently.

Warm small amounts of vinaigrette in empty skillet, toss in salad one serving at a time.

Plating: begin with wilted greens, topped with chicken. Spoon 1-2 spoonfuls of gravy on top of both, top with julienned peppers and green onion for color. Potatoes to the side.

I wanted to try something a little different last night.

I bought a pkg of Won-Ton's a couple weeks ago, and thought a homemade won-ton ravioli may be a nice change from the more typical quick spaghetti type meals we make.

The idea was sound, ground beef, sauteed radishes & cheese inside the won-tons and topped with a simple tomato-cheese sauce.

Everything moved along rather well, right up until the point I put the filled won-tons into the boiling water.

To be clear, I'd read a little about what should be done to make sure it works, plus I'd pulled on some info I remember from class last year. I tried to make sure I didn't over-stuff, and I used a thin line of water & a fork to seal the edges of the "ravioli."

They looked fine.

Everything I read said they'd be in the water for about 3 minutes.

I found even that may have been long.

My first few went way too long, and became pure mush around the edges, much like pasta does when it cooks too long.

The next set of 4 went in, and came out at about 3 minutes. It was better, but still mushy and wet. It was here, that I decided my last set would be in, and come right back out basically.

The last set of four dropped in, I found a plate, and began digging them back out. I tried to grab the one that sank first, thinking it would be the most water-logged, so while draining it, the others cooked just a little longer.

I ended up with four decent raviolis. It wasn't perfect, but it was much better than the first few attempts.

The end result gave me 4 essentially al dente ravioli. The stuffing was good and the sauce was good, although I needed to soften the carrots in the sauce a lot more.

New addition to the menu, Ginger Snaps.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm playing with oranges, and used some in this recipe.

Essentially, I swapped out half the molasses for orange juice and used some orange zest w/ brown sugar and kahlua at the end to pipe it up a little more.

So about a week ago, I made a mistake, I fell victim to the grocery ad and bought a "bag" of navel oranges.

My brain suggested that they were in season and since I love juicy oranges, I'd be ok.

Then, Sunday morning, I went to grab one and my thumb went straight through the peel.

Emergency set in, as I saw I had 9 left in the bag.

My challenge became how can I successfully use the remainder of the oranges before they go bad. It almost developed into my own personal Iron Chef, except I had a couple days instead of a few short hours.

To start, I knew I'd make an Orange Chiffon Cake, it was a gimme recipe from my days in school, and to this day is one of my favorite cakes to make. Turned out pretty well, work gobbled up most of it.

Sunday night, I planned out an orange-ginger chicken dinner. Mistake number 2 was not labelling the meat I refroze in a container. I believed it was chicken until it was rethawed, when I realized it was pork.

While that's not a huge mistake, it's a little costly when my wife doesn't like pork.

The recipe remained largely the same, chopping up the pork and marinating it in freshly squeezed orange juice with a bit of orange zest.

Nice quick, healthy dinner polished off with broccoli and rice.

It's now Tuesday morning and I've still got 5 (I think) oranges left. Tonight will probably get me making cookies again, something to the effect of Orange Ginger Snaps, as soon as I can wrap my brain around how to substitute ingredients so as not to make them runny and too thin.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables with Mascarpone Gravy

Holy awesomeness.....

I stocked a whole chicken before Thanksgiving, thinking we'd use it (and a turkey breast) for a family Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. Since that never came to fruition, it was time to make do with what I had.

My other key ingredient was 2 oz of Mascarpone I had left over after using the rest of the container making Fudge Mascarpone Brownies.

Pulling ideas from online & my classwork a year ago, made roasting the chicken w/ a stock of vegetables the easy and delicious answer.

About 2, I started chopping up carrots, boiler onions, green peppers and skinning gold potatoes. When done, I skinned the chicken as best I could, while leaving it whole.

Season the chicken with salt & pepper, I also poured some fenugreek and tarragon into the chicken cavity along with a bay leaf. Sear the chicken whole in a large skillet, turning to get both sides, but try to get the breast side seared better, as it's the better presentation side.

Pour a couple cups of chicken stock & one cup of white wine into your roasting pan, then add enough water to make sure the lower part of the chicken has enough coverage.

Put the chicken and the reserved vegetables into the pan (use some crushed garlic to if you should choose), then shove it in the oven at 400 degrees for 2 hours or so.

The fun part was making the gravy.

After the chicken cooks the full two hours, take it out of the oven and let it sit to allow the chicken juices to reset. Meanwhile, steal about a cup and a half to two cups of the roasting juices and set it in a pot to boil.

Once it starts boiling, add the mascarpone and whisk until melted. At this point it should still be extremely runny, so you'll need flour or corn starch to help thicken the gravy.

I used about 4 tablespoons of wheat flour, some salt & pepper to finish off the gravy, then let sit for a couple minutes to thicken.

End result: this was delicious. The chicken was fall-off-the-bone tender, to the point even the wishbone was split. The breasts were a bit drier than the dark meat, but that's not a huge surprise.

As you read many of my posts, you'll notice me mentioning things like homemade chicken broth or cheeze-it cracker crumbs, both of which are simply made at home and can save you a bundle on your grocery bill.

This will be a running feature on this blog with simple ideas for you to utilize to gently lower your grocery bill.

Today I'm going to focus on Bread crumbs/cracker crumbs: Don't buy the packaged store bread crumbs. You've got everything you need in your house already and you're probably just throwing it away.

I started making my own bread crumbs about a year ago, after I realized I was just wasting the heels and still spending money on pre-packaged bread crumbs. The lightbulb came on and we bought a nice mallet. Now, when we near the end of a loaf of bread, or we're worried it's going to become moldy, I'll either oven-toast the remaining bread or just let it sit out overnight.

Keep the bag. When you use the mallet, you're likely going to destroy a ziploc bag, so save yourself there by keeping the bag until the bread is hardened enough to smash. Once it's "stale," put it back in the bag and pound it out until you have your own breadcrumbs. I'd recommend only doing a couple slices at a time, it'll be easier to make sure you've smashed down all the pieces and have no large floaters in the bag.

This also works well with chips, crackers and certain kinds of cereal. We're constantly throwing away the crumbs as we near the end of the box/bag. Instead, for a more flavorful crumb choice, when it gets low, set it aside and take the time to pound it down into crumbs the size of fine sand.

Obviously, I'd recommend keeping the cracker crumbs and the bread crumbs in different storage containers. They've already dried out, so they'll keep for a while, and it's easy to replenish.

I've used this process to finish off bags of Doritos, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a few other grain products. I generally have 3 containers in the cabinets at all times for my most frequent crumbs.

One of my many new year's resolutions is to return to blogging, and since we're just a short time away from the new year, I think I'll just start now.

This idea came to me today while working the lame-o 8-5 job.

I started thinking hamburgers, but didn't want to grill tonight. I also figured I needed to use up some potatoes, as I found another bag that I'd forgotten about.

So I drifted to sliders, but instead of bread, I used sliced potatoes breaded with cheez-it crumbs (and some w/ regular bread crumbs).

Start with the potatoes, as they'll take the longest. I used my mandoline slicer to keep an even thickness to the 2 potatoes I cut up. I also left the skins on this time mainly as a time-saver.

Use your 3 bowl set up for the breading: bowl 1=flour; bowl 2=egg; bowl 3=crumbs. Common sense and knowing how to count should tell you what to do with the bowls.

I burned the roof of my mouth during lunch today, and it's quite possibly the worst pain I've ever had in my mouth. So, I decided the potatoes needed to be soft, so I popped them in the oven, but didn't want to end up with crispy results.

While they were cooking, I started the veggies, which was just a can of peas & a can of beans, but I tossed in some basil & ginger to add some flavor to an otherwise boring veggie side.

For the record, I don't like canned peas AT ALL, but they are a favorite of my wife's. I'm okay with the beans, but adding flavor always makes them better.

While all that's going, I balled up some ground beef w/ a simple season mix of garlic, s&p. Made some small patties, just like sliders and threw them in a skillet until done.

RESULTS: The flavor of the cheez-it potatoes was awesome. They still hurt my mouth because, well, crackers even in crumb-form, aren't exactly soft. Putting 2 potato slices around a slider burger seemed like an easy idea, but realistically, it was a bit more difficult to maneuver into your mouth. It lacked the soft, spongy feel of the bread and thusly eliminated any chance of squishing down the burger to make it fit in your mouth.

The vegetables were exactly what you'd expect from my brief description: plain with a small touch of flavor and I was okay with that tonight.

I'm probably going to get some flack for this one.

I'm not a fan.

First off, I was quite surprised to see the layout of the "pizzeria." It reminded me of a cafeteria only with an opening where you could see the kitchen and everything the employees are doing.

The pizza itself was ok. We got a combo deep dish (the specialty). For me, the downside was the flavor of the sauce. I can see how others would enjoy it, but something in the sauce just wasn't fully enjoyable to me, thus I'm not docking Pudgy's for that.

I will however dock them for the burnt crust. I understand with a deep dish the cooking time is different than it would be with a regular crust or thin crust. I also understand that when making the dough to order there's some slight variety expected in the shape of the crust. Ours was 1/4-1/2" thicker on one side than the other, which I'm sure directly impacted why one side of the crust was nearly black while the other was somewhat doughy.

We dined around 5:30 Friday night, so the busy-ness of the business was likely just starting to build.

My other issue comes from being able to see the staff cooking. Most of the time I enjoy watching cooks and chefs do their work, there's something magical about watching good cooks doing things right and having a greater understanding and appreciation for what you're about to digest.

This particular evening, one of the employees must have had some issue with his nose running, as he was continuously rubbing his nose/mouth area onto his forearm. By continuously, I mean 20-30 times over the 40 minutes we were in the pizzeria. This gentleman was slicing the pizzas and stuffing them into the boxes. Since I never saw his hand reach his mouth/nose, I wasn't particularly disturbed by it and he did vanish a couple times (I'm hoping to blow his nose, properly wipe and/or wash his hands).

The quality of Pudgy's was acceptable. The cost $26 (or so) for a large deep dish seemed appropriate and we left with a little bit of leftovers, as just 2 pieces was more than enough to fill you up.

Brewsky's is a nice sports bar & grill. I've been an occasional patron for years, and have never been disappointed with the service or the food.

That said, it is what it is. The best bar and grills tend to center their menu around burgers, fries, pizza, sandwiches.

During this visit I decided to try a wrap (turkey bacon or something like that). When you weren't chewing on a mouthful of tortilla shell, it was good, but unfortunately the ends of the wrap were entirely composed of shell and air. It certainly left something to be desired. I also had the fries because I'd had them before and knew they were pretty damn good.

My wife on the other hand gambled on the sweet potato fries. Since these are a hot trend right now, it was worth the gamble, but didn't pay off. I'm leaving my judgment out of this because I don't care for sweet potatoes in any way. She didn't care for them as they were a bit soggy and didn't really have the flavor she hoped for.

The junior menu is acceptable with burgers, chicken fingers, grilled cheese, the usuals and all seem to be just fine for our little traveling friends.

I was introduced to Ming's a long, long time ago, by a very good friend. For years, it was one of my "go-to" restaurants as the price was great for college kids and the food was good.

Or so I thought.

This weekend, I returned to the small Papillion restaurant for the second time in 8 years or so. Inside, not much had changed, a modest upgrade to the decor and the disappearance of the soda fountain. In it's place was a soda fridge/cooler, much like you'll find at a gas station. While I was disappointed with the change, I don't think it matters much as I don't believe they offered free refills with the soda machine anyway.

The menu looked like an upgrade (from what I recall). Many options sounding very good and when you see nearly every dish being offered at $5-7, it tends to make your wallet feel a little better.

Back when I was frequenting Ming's I'd probably order a Teriyaki Beef or Pepper Beef or something along those lines. These days, my palate has evolved and I'm much more likely to try something I've never had. Friday night, it was the Dragon and Phoenix, which was shrimp and chicken with a general mixture of vegetables.

Our order was to us in a matter of minutes and was steaming. The portion size was, just as I'd recalled from before, huge. The taste however, wasn't as wonderful as I'd remembered.

I am willing to chalk up some of my disappointment to trying a menu item that I'd never had at Ming's prior to this visit. On the other hand, the egg rolls were extremely dry and lacked flavor. The dish itself was soggy and mushy and again didn't really feature the flavors that good chinese is known for.

I can't pan Ming's completely. For the price of the meal, you shouldn't be expecting much better than a Burger King or Arby's. With that understanding, you get what you pay for, an ok meal at a great price.

I won't likely be returning anytime soon, as I've since found many other restaurants where the cost is just a smidge higher, but the flavor and quality of the food are significantly better.

I managed to get my hands on a gift certificate to Piccolo Pete's this week. I knew nothing of the restaurant outside of it having a long-tenured history in South Omaha.

My wife and I visited last night (my first visit, her second) and were immediately surprised by the size of the restaurant on the inside. From the outside, it would appear that seating will be very limited, but inside was wide open with loads of seating. We were there for an early dinner, so we didn't really see what the busy-period on a Saturday would look like.

I ordered a New York Strip - Medium Rare which came back to me perfect. The inside was very juicy and had a fabulous red color. The steak was seasoned well and aside from a touch too much fat on the steak, I couldn't have really asked for anything different.

While making our decision on what to order, we noticed all the sides that come with the dinner meals: soup, salad, choice of potato, choice of noodle or vegetable, plus bread.

Soup: Last night was vegetable beef, only my bowl came sans beef. The flavor was good, lots of tomato flavor and large chunks of vegetables abound. My wife graciously split her "one" piece of beef from her soup so I could see the tenderness of it. Overall, the soup was a winner.

Salad: There were 3 ingredients in my salad - iceburg lettuce, one large hot pepper and italian salad dressing. I was quite disappointed there weren't at least carrot shavings or 2 sliced olives or something to provide anything extra for flavor to the salad. The dressing was put on prior to arriving at the table and weighed down the salad nearly to the point of drowning it. Since attending culinary school, I've become a salad lover and paying much more attention to the detail going into salad preparation. Pete's failed here.

Potato: I ordered a baked potato. Just like the salad, the potato came back to me plain. Apart from the packaged butter and packaged sour cream, there was nothing else, no cheese, no bacon bits, baked salt, nothing. It forced me to get creative at the table, using the parmesan cheese that sat on the table as well as the ground pepper and salt. I'm also not a fan of the packaged sour cream, although as my wife pointed out, it is nice for those who may be lactose intolerant and forget to ask or even for someone who wants just a little on top.

Beans: Well, if you think I was disappointed with the salad or potato, you ain't seen nothing yet. My suggestion here, is if you want beans, bring your own can in and ask them to cook it and take a dollar or two off your bill. That's all it was, canned beans... for a $25 steak meal... no seasoning, no added ingredients, just Del Monte or Green Giant out of a can - at least that's what it tasted like. Utterly disappointing.

The bread appeared to be from Rotella's, which is nice in and of itself, but like all the other sides, they did nothing with it.

Our bill (including tip) wound up at $60 for the two of us. As a whole, that's right in the neighborhood of what you'd expect from a nice steak meal and still being satisfied. However, with the lack of care put into 3 of the 4 sides (not counting bread), the cost well outweighed the end result which did happen to be a very good steak.

Friday night was a little different. Following a funeral for a woman I'd never met (somewhat distant relative of my wife's), we were invited out to a dinner/reception at Eddie's Catering in Omaha.

Being a catering company certainly alters the way you review the dining options from said establishment. I'd known about Eddie's for quite some time but really have no idea if I'd ever eaten their fare before.

As a buffet type dining atmosphere, presentation of individual plate was not available. The meats included sliced turkey, sliced roast beef in gravy and fried chicken. I'm a dark meat lover, so I tried the dark meat turkey which had nice flavor. The roast beef seemed dry, and I particularly liked the fried chicken

The sides began with mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes. The scalloped potatoes were bursting with flavor, while the mashed potatoes again seemed dry which may have contributed to the underwhelming taste of the spuds.

Also available was green beans sauteed with sliced almonds, as well as a corn dish with red peppers. The beans may have been the prized piece of the meal. Loved the flavor and the texture, and this coming from someone who's really not much of an almond-lover. The corn on the other hand was mushier and disappointing.

Eddie's also provided a small fruit salad and lettuce salad that were both acceptable.

I found the entire "menu" for the evening looking nice, but not living up to my expectations. A few positives like the beans, scalloped potatoes and fried chicken, but those were equalled out by the unappealing corn and roast beef.

I'd be interested to see more of what Eddie's can do, while at the same time feeling cautious about my choices.

We were shooting for something pasta oriented and near our hotel for our final dining experience today. Chiusano's Pizzeria was our endgame.

Our cousins said the pizzeria is relatively new and since they'd not yet tried it, we all sat down for one final lunch in Kansas City.

The menu was loaded with different pizzas, many of the same options you'll find elsewhere and pizzas were $10 for a 9" or $20 for a 16", so price was decent for the pizzas. Everything else (sandwiches, kids meals, salads, etc) seemed a little high on the price scale, but not extravagantly.

We chose a Teriyaki Chicken Pizza (9"), enough to feed 2. The flavor of the chicken was great. It bore a very strong resemblance to what you'd expect from a top-notch oriental restaurant. As a pizza, it was decent. What it lacked in toppings, it made up for in flavor, which essentially made the meal a wash quality wise.

The kids chose fettuccine with red pasta sauce and chicken strips (2 separate meals). The fettuccine was ok, seemed a touch spicy for a kids meal, but not too bad. I didn't get to try the chicken, but my daughter ended up devouring every last inch of the strips. I only make a point of that because she tends to overanalyze her strips and tear off the "tough" parts at other restaurants.

The fries were fine, crisp on the outside and soft and hot on the inside. Everything you'd want from a basic fry. Seasoning left a little to be desired.

Overall, Chiusano's was a decent meal. Price for everything came out to slightly more than you'd pay at fast food and still tasted way better. The creativity for the pizza toppings gets a bonus point, although based on the one we tried, I'd venture to guess a little more toppings could be helpful.

Our last visit to Kansas City ended in a disappointing trip to a hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint (Wynedotte BBQ???) based entirely off the suggestion of a hotel clerk.

I wasn't making that mistake again.

This time I did my research before hand. Armed with a list of about 10 recommended barbecue joints, and some previously viewed video clips of local restaurants, the decision boiled down to location and amount of time we'd be spending in line.

The top of the list... Oklahoma Joe's.

First I'd like to congratulate and thank my two wonderful children (and their 2 cousins) for being as patient as they were waiting in line for over an hour just to order food.

Then, I'd like to tell you that Oklahoma Joe's was worth the wait and the money (although I think I was overcharged for my ribs).

The set up: We visited the original Oklahoma Joe's, embedded inside a gas station like we see with so many McDonald's and Subway's in Interstate towns nowadays. The line however, was wrapped through the building and almost around the first corner of the building on the outside.

We were told it would be about an hour wait to order, which was pretty close to correct (about 70 minutes). At the half-way point, (when you enter the building, it's a gas station/restaurant combo, so you're entering just to the side of a fuel pump and a few feet from a station attendant), you pick up a copy machine produced menu. The reason is simple, if they've got a line like that every night, there is ZERO reason to print them on some nice laminated paper, the "printing" is irrelevant. What matters is what you're ordering.

And even that doesn't matter because everything was pretty fucking good.

I ordered the 1/2 slab of ribs (but am pretty sure I was charged for the full slab). It came with a side (beans, slaw, spicy slaw, potato salad, something else I don't remember that's probably more beans) and texas toast.

The strange part is that being a non-traditional "fast-food" place, you get your food almost immediately. I'm sure it's done that way on purpose, since you've already waited 60+ minutes, any more time to wait after ordering is just not smart. Instead, they've got plenty of everything at least parcooked, so once you order, they finish it off in seconds/minutes and you're good to go.

The ribs were delicious, very tender, juicy and full of flavor. Didn't really need sauce, but being there, you had to at least try the 2 flavors on the table, original and a hot sauce who's name I don't remember even though the name was sheer genius.

The fries were equally good and my wife's Z Man sandwich(?) was awesome as well - a brisket with 2 onion rings on top. The potato salad was easily the low point, and while it wasn't bad, I'm certainly not going to spend much time discussing it with anybody.

I'd been searching for weeks for groupon type deals for any restaurants that would be near our hotel in Kansas City (and I highly recommend doing so, as it doesn't hurt to internet window shop before traveling).

Apart from a restaurant that serves Duck Tongue Tacos - which I was not permitted to buy because I would be the only on eating - all I came across was Papa Keno's Pizzeria.

Entering the establishment, brought a full-of-flavor aroma to my smelling buds. The well-sized pizzeria offered more than just your typical flavors. Of course traveling with 2 children under the age of 8 doesn't present the opportunity to dabble in the more "experimental" flavors I would enjoy.

We ended up with an 18" hamburger pizza that we carried out back to the hotel.

Opening the box from a new pizza place is damn near like opening Christmas presents as a kid. You can guess what you're going to get but you tend to be surprised rather easily.

This time, the number one surprise was the size of the slices. The 18" pizza was only cut into 8 pieces, which obviously means they were pretty large. I would consider the crust to be thin, and because of that plus the size of the slice itself, you had to deal with serious pizza-dangle (my term for when the end of the pizza hangs down to the point you're afraid the floor will end up with more toppings than your belly will).

Flavor-wise, it was excellent. A light but robust garlic flavor on the crust accompanied a well-presented flavor of beef and cheese toppings.

My only 2 disappointments were completely of the fault of us as the customer. First, the pizzeria was 15-20 mins away from the hotel. And of course there's the eating pizza with 2 children factor.