Winter Vs. Food
Every 6 months or so the nice people at Pizza Express invite us to down and try some new things on the menu. It’s the new year, everyone’s cold, slightly SAD and possibly still hungover, so they’re going for indulgent (treat ‘yoself).
’Dry January’ is confronted by the addition of a few cocktails and ‘clean eating’ is set upon by the Italian take on Mac & Cheese, plus a Brazilian inspired meat pizza (more on that later…)
As before, some new things and some stuff that has been brought back by popular demand (as Pizza Express seem to survey their customers quite a lot before deciding on menu updates…)
NB: as always, Pizza Express have added more new dishes than you could realistically try in one sitting (unless you are an elephant that enjoys pizza and that can read menus – and in that case WE SALUTE YOU MR ELEPHANT HOW DID YOU EVEN GET IN THROUGH THE DOOR)
…so what you see here is obviously not everything that’s new.
For this review we end up to the Pizza Express in Salisbury House, Moorgate (fancy). Here you may find a few more screaming children than normal for the City Of London and a floor manager with excellent hair.
Stuff we try this time includes…
Risotto Fresco
Like any passable to good risotto there is the prerequisite level of creamy thickness, however – the addition of peppered salmon turns this into what is essentially ‘dense salmon rice with a little spice’. I like salmon and rice and and chilli and dense creamy things, so this works for me. The small measure of chilli oil that they add to it really cuts through the scrumptious unctuous :3
Barbacoa Romana
A reasonable portion/distribution/combination of beef and other delicious ingredients that, in retrospect, is drowned out by the smokiness of the chipotle salsa. I think I see what they were going for with the pulled beef and BBQ-type sauce, but I found that the smokey flavours negated the point of the mozzarella, passata etc.
I think they should have just gone all the way with this one, upping the beef content and removing most everything else (…there’s enough sauce as it is). As it stands, not excessive enough to for American food, nor subtle enough for fancy Italian pizza…
Polenta Chips
Well, I like polenta as much as the next guy (…I assume that the next guy likes polenta) but I had never considered you could make chips out of it. And, as a guy who doesn’t really care much for potato chips, these are far superior – they’re thick, savoury enough to savour, salty and satisfying. Sure, there an excellent vehicle for sauce but I liked the taste of them so much that there really is no need for the dip.
In this writer’s humble opinion everyone should be serving polenta fries (along with sweet potato fries). Wow.
Sloe Prosecco
Take a sparking, off dry Prosecco and add additional alcohol and sugar in the form of sloe gin. You get what is, predictably, a very simple and quite potent combination that is sweeter and a bit more ballsy than a conventional fluted glass full of prosecco. The sloe gin in itself doesn’t add any ‘heat’, but to does take some of the dryness out of the prosecco. A bit much for me.
More Info
https://www.pizzaexpress.com/our-food/restaurant-menu