474. Carnival Market – May 9, 2020 – Pontiac, MI

Grocery stores are, blessedly, one of the places we can visit during the COVID-19 pandemic. And that means I got to visit Carnival Market in Pontiac recently!

As with many of the places I highlight on 100 Places in the D, I’d known about and been wanting to visit Carnival Market for years. The grocery store features all manner of Latin American foodstuffs, including house-made tortilla chips, salsas, and desserts. It even operates an in-store Mexican restaurant with a full menu.

I was fortunate enough to try Carnival Market’s restaurant fare last year when it was brought in for lunch at my then place of work. WOW, was it delicious! The tacos, chips, and salsas were AMAZING, and my desire to visit the store amped up. Somehow, another half a year passed before I did that . . ..

Not having visited Carnival Market became a blessing in the time of COVID, when it became one of the few public places I was able to explore. Entering the store was an absolute thrill for me – both as someone who loves to grocery shop and as one who has been starved for adventure.

Carnival Market’s interior was clean and stocked with neatly-stacked produce and other well-curated wares. One row was nothing but bagged and bulk spices; another section contained refrigerated cases showcasing multiple varieties of house-made salsas and pretty desserts. There were shelves of flour and corn tortillas, some of which were locally made; a meat counter; a bakery section; ample aisles of dry goods, dairy, frozen foods, beverages (including beer), and household cleaning supplies. It was a cornucopia of grocery goodness!

I picked up a variety of produce; a package of tostadas; bags of corn and flour tortillas; two kinds of house-made salsa (the Red Hot Salsa and the Super Hot Green Salsa); a bottle of hot sauce; and an individually-sized portion of tres leches cake.

It’s been so fun to enjoy these purchases! I’ve found Carnival Market’s salsas to be phenomenal, bursting with flavor. The chips are awesome, too: thick, well-fried and addictively crunchy. And the tres leches cake, wonderfully soaked as it was in sweetened condensed milk, captured my heart with its decadence.

I’m all about looking for the bright spots in this pandemic, and my visit to Carnival Market was definitely a bright spot. I’m excited to be in proximity of this well-curated grocery store and the joyful prospect of visiting it again.

1101 E. Walton Blvd.

Pontiac, MI 48340

www.carnival-market.com

473. King’s Pizza – May 8, 2020 – Clinton Township, MI

My visit to King’s Pizza was 25 years in the making.

I’d wanted to try the pizza from this Clinton Township-based carryout joint since I was a kid and we started receiving flyers in the mail for it. The pies in the pictures on the flyers always looked so delectably cheesy. My mother, despite my appeals, was not interested in giving King’s Pizza a whirl. My childhood dream was deferred.

In recent years, the dream was revived. Passing its storefront periodically on 15 Mile Road, I mused that King’s Pizza would be a perfect candidate for a 100 Places in the D visit, since it’s locally owned.

With COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the restaurant business and the world in general, I hadn’t tried any new-to-me places since my March 12 visit to Guiseppe’s Restaurant in Chesterfield. I did some pretty hardcore sheltering-in-place at the start of the stay-at-home mandate period, not driving anywhere for four weeks straight. Then when I did go out, it was to grocery stores, where I stocked up on wayyyy too much food. I wanted to support local restaurants that were open for carryout and delivery – but first, I had to eat up all my groceries!

My current goal is to try a new-to-me restaurant once a week on average. I want to support locally-owned restaurants and do my part to help keep them open. While one person getting carryout once a week from local chains is a tiny action in itself, hopefully if those of us who are able to do so chip in in this manner, we can make a difference in helping keep beloved restaurants open.

King’s Pizza made it easy for me to do my part. It offers delivery, but I wanted to (safely) pick up the pizza in person so it would count as a “visit” for the blog. So I opted for carryout and picked up my pizzas via a drive-through window that’s been set up for carryout orders. It was really easy and made contact minimal.

King’s offers both build-your-own and signature pizza options, plus a food menu filled with all other manner of goodies: chicken, ribs, fish and chips, cheesy breadsticks, pasta, salads, subs, and more. Who needs extra-large grocery orders when you have access to such a bountiful menu?

Pondering my order from King’s, that round cheese pizza featured so enticingly in many an advertising flyer was a no-brainer. I ordered a large one, plus a small round of one of its specialty pizzas that captured my attention, the Chicken Mediterranean.

When I arrived home with my two pizzas after driving through a freakish snow flurry (because snow-in-May is the kind of world we are living in right now???), I was soooo excited to try them. It was the MOMENT OF TRUTH!

I grabbed a slice of the cheese pizza, took a bite, and . . . it tasted like cheese pizza. LOL. I don’t know what I was expecting, but after 25 years of fantasizing about what a pizza tastes like, you’ve built up a lot of hype. It was good cheese pizza, though!

The Chicken Mediterranean was fantastic. It was bringing the flavor with its cheesy mozzarella, savory chicken, salty feta, zesty red onion and banana peppers, dash of oregano, and drizzle of olive oil.

After gorging on multiple pieces of both pies, I still had plenty of leftovers. And here’s the interesting thing I learned about that King’s cheese pizza: it was excellent reheated. Maybe it wasn’t warm enough when I had it on my first go-around (it did have to travel and endure me taking multiple photos of it before eating it), but having it piping-hot out of the oven with its gooey cheese and its excellent crust, all well-done on the outside yet delectably doughy on the inside . . . well, that satisfied my 1990s-era dream of an epic Italian pie just fine.

20571 15 Mile Rd.

Clinton Twp., MI 48035

(with an additional location in Roseville)

www.kingspizza.com