This past weekend was Amelia’s 25^th birthday and what did CPM do to celebrate?  We spent a couple of days in Reno, NV to have a rockin’ good time at the Motley Crüe/Alice Cooper concert.  Woot! Woot!  The show was pretty awesome.  Motley Crüe is on their “final” (um, sure) tour and Alice Cooper was playing his like 50 bazillionth tour with the promise to keep on rockin’!  We also got to meet the rockin’ opening act – The Raskins – twin brothers Roger and Logan Raskin and their band.  It’s always a bonus when bands take time to meet and take pictures with fans.  You have seize these opportunities when they come along – if you wait until bands are big name, you never will be able to meet them in person without buying VIP packages.  The Raskins also had signed posters and CDs for the fans.  It was a cool show and even more awesome – the Reno Event Center venue is less than two blocks from The Eldorado, our Reno hotel of choice.  We were surprised to find the Event Center serving snacks, drinks and beer.

But what about the food?!?!?!?  Right, the food!

We didn’t have any food during the concert but we absolutely have to talk about a couple of the local joints we enjoyed along the way.  Remarkably, they were both “pie” places, which is good because we are “pie obsessed”.  The first stop was Z Pie at the West Street Market.  They are fine purveyors of the gourmet pot pie.  Seriously?  A restaurant dedicated to gourmet pot pie?  Can we just park a tent in the plaza?  Sweet!

But beyond just awesome pot pies, when you buy pies at Z Pie, 100% of the proceeds go to The Eddy House, which is a non-profit organization helping young adult males who have “aged out” of the foster care system.  The Eddy House provides a safe place for these young men to pursue educational goals and learn valuable life skills while also caring for the whole person, including medical, dental, vision and mental health care. With so many pies to choose from at Z Pie, we had to order four to sample– apple, berry, chicken and mushroom and steak cabernet (like we’d pass on the cabernet).  They were all fabulous!  Flaky crust, really great and varied flavors and, if you are watching the carbs, you can always order some of Z Pie’s gorgeous summer salads.  Z Pie has great pies for a good price and a very noble cause. Speaking of noble, while at Z Pie, we were told of the next culinary adventure – Noble Pie Parlor, who regularly employs youth of the Eddy House.  What?  Another pie joint?  Okay, if you insist…

Noble Pie Parlor is our new other favorite pizza place, located in the historic El Cortez Hotel on Second Street.  Noble Pie Parlor is dedicated to delivering the highest quality, local, organic, non – GMO produce and meats for their excellent pizzas and other delicious foods.  Noble makes 8th generation Sicilian dough and 4th generation Brooklyn sauce recipes in house every day.  Noble’s produce is always crisp, fresh and sourced locally when it’s available.  In fact, if it comes from their kitchen to your table, chances are it was made from scratch, right down to the ranch dressing. We got a little over-zealous when ordering but weren’t disappointed at all.  For starters, we ordered chicken wings, which come in ½ pound, 1 pound and 2 pound quantities, served with a side of house made ranch.  We also ordered fries, which are ordered in 1 tater, 2 tater and 3 tater quantities, and are sprinkled with a little fresh parsley.  Even more awesome? The Pesto Chips, which are essentially thin pizza crust made into a cracker and topped with vegan pesto sauce and a little cheese.  Lastly, we ordered Garlic Knots, which is Noble’s pizza dough, formed into cute little “knots”, baked with garlic and served with house made red sauce for dipping.  All of our starters were so good, how can we possibly still order pizza?  Don’t worry, we have separate pizza stomachs!

Noble Pizza Parlor has such a cool pizza menu.  With names like Ain’t No Pig Thang, Fig Me? Fig You! and Hey Zeus, who can resist!?!  Noble also offers so many options that, even if you don’t find a specialty pizza you like, there is something for everyone.  Noble offers five different sauces, seven cheeses, six meats, seventeen fresh vegetables (including items like asparagus and caramelized onions) and the option of pine nuts and almonds.  The pies were perfect!  Nice crisp bottom crust, killer sauce, fresh toppings and an over-all great balance of flavors.  We also love the detail put into the edge crust of each pizza.  Gorgeous! We made sure to order three pies so we could have some to enjoy later.  The White Boy pizza may have been the best left over pizza we’ve ever eaten.  It may have even been better left over than fresh!  Is that possible??? What a great weekend!

HAP-PIE BIRTHDAY to Amelia!

Proving the food can be as rockin’ as the show,

CPM

Trish & Amelia