Orange Texas is growing.  Not by a huge margin;  It's not huge to start off with.   Lots of fast food places, but not too many high quality restaurants.  Sure there's down home cookin', and cajun style, and *a lot* of mexican.  No real deli's.  No real diners (or what I would consider a real diner, with everything under the sun and any of it made fresh 24/7).  If you want Italian, you have to drive to Beaumont, about 30 miles away - a 30 minute drive if you're lucky. But Orange is growing, and things that I used to take for granted are starting to show up here.  

Enter Joe's Italian Restaurant.    It's like someone took some scissors and cut this place out of Long Island and pasted it here in Orange.  I'm eating a floppy cheesy saucy pizza with a pinch of oregano and just a little bit of that melted cheese oil (you know what I'm talking about) and a foot long chicken parmagiana hero smothered in mozzarella and I want to go outside and shout to the world how awesome it is.  This place is relatively new and I'm sure plenty of people in Orange don't even know about it, but there are real italians in the kitchen who know what they're doing. 

It's not that I'm homesick for New York; just that *something* was missing besides snow and a big part of that is sitting right here on my plate.  It's sublime.  You orange texas people need to get in your duelly and go eat yourself some of this.  It demands your attention and respect.  There's no hurricane's outside right now so seriously:  Go now.