Food Review: Edinburgh 17/02/2010

When I was young we used to go to a place called Pizza Land for birthdays and other special occasions.  They had a pizza, which I would probably hate now, but I used to love then; Fish and Chip pizza.  It was probably the most stupid concept for a pizza since Heinz’s failed attempt at a Baked Bean Pizza.  Pizza Land got bought by Pizza Hut and it closed down.  Then a few years later Pizza Express opened in my hometown of Taunton.  Pizza Express had managed to make mass produced pizza good.  They had altered the way that big chains looked at pizza and paved the way for other upscale pizzerias like Zizzi’s.  Taunton’s Pizza Express is still doing really well, there are three in Cardiff and as far as I am aware there are three in Edinburgh.  One of which we found ourselves in when we were in Edinburgh.

The restaurant was so busy that we decided to get Take Out.  Fortunately we had someone with us who is in the Orange Mobile Network.  Orange has started doing Orange Wednesdays with Pizza Express; you get two pizzas for the price of one, plus two starters of either Garlic Bread or Dough Balls.

Now we ordered our pizza at 6.20pm, the woman said it would be 40 minutes and said come back at 7.10pm.  Anyone see the problem?  We came back at 6.50pm and our pizza was only mildly warm.  Who knows what it would have been like if we had come back at 7.10pm?

I’m normally impressed with Pizza Express Margherita Pizzas but as it had gone slightly cold, the cheese had gone rubbery and the tomato sauce had caused the base to go soggy.  It just felt like soggy bread.  The tomato sauce was good with a rich tomato flavour complemented with oregano and basil.

The garlic bread looked like it had been cooked for too long and the dough balls were pretty bland without the garlic butter.  It was pretty disappointing but the Orange deal made up for it; two pizzas, garlic bread and dough balls for £8.50, that’s a good deal.