So there I was needing a bite to eat, I had had no lunch and it was looking like that working late that night I wouldn’t have a chance to get anything decent to eat and would have to grab a takeaway…. didn’t fancy that.
Luckily I had in my pocket some spare Tesco Clubcard Reward vouchers that were about to expire, so I thought lets use these, have a really nice meal, but where?
Well (from the title of this blog posting) you guessed I went to Pizza Express. Using the vouchers does restrict you to specific places, I had considered Café Rouge, but traffic was bad and to be honest did I want to be disappointed again? So the only place left from which to choose was Pizza Express. I have been to Pizza Express quite a few times before and have enjoyed my meals there. I also quite like their range available in the supermarket.
I did consider not going, as the place was empty (well it was late afternoon) and I wasn’t really wanting to be the focus of all the staff as the sole eater in the establishment, however time was against me and I was hungry!
As I was hungry I decided to have a starter and though there was a fair bit of choice, I went in the end for the Calamari Al Forno, breaded calamari with house dressing.
So no rings here then! More chunks of squid that were breaded and cooked. I did like the presentation and it was a nice portion, not too small and not too big. Alas the calamari was a little chewy, partly I guess as it was either overcooked (unlikely) or double cooked (more likely). The house dressing was a wet mayonaise with probably too much vinegar, but there was lemon for those that like me who prefer that. I did eat them all up and did enjoy it, it’s just I know that calamari can be so much better than this, however this is much better than a lot of calamari I have had at other places.
After my started I went with a Romana Pizza Pollo Pancetta.
This pizza has a stretched very thin base, similar to those (allegedly) you can find in northern Italy. The base was covered in red pepper (peperonata) sauce and topped with chicken, yellow peppers and what was suppose to be crispy pancetta.
Not this was really nice, what I did like was that it had flavour, wasn’t salty (as some pizza places to do with their pizza) and looked great. The chicken looked to be real chicken that was ripped and placed on the pizza, rather than processed pre-sliced chicken you can find on some pizzas. The yellow peppers were nice and crunchy. However one slight problem, the crispy pancetta looked like it had been replaced with proscuttio! It was neither pancetta or crispy. I didn’t complain as it was still nice, but it would have been nice to be told that this is what they had done.
I was quite full at this point, however the waiter pointed out that they had a selection of small desserts served with a coffee. Now that sounded just right. So I went with the Caffé Merenghina and my choice of an Americano.
The dish comprised os a small individual lemon pastry tart topped with a, in my case, slightly droopy meringue. The tart was great, not too sweet and not too tart and just the right size. The coffee was also decent.
The bill (I already had a coffee) came to just £21 which wasn’t bad at all in my book for a really nice meal. I will be going again.