A popular restaurant near The Gateway of India, Pizza Express is quite a hit with Mumbai’s SoBo crowd. From the hoity-toities catching a quick bite (read salad) during lunch hour, to the families that celebrate birthday parties over pizza, the eatery has its own distinct clientele. To keep its patrons happy, they’ve recently revamped their menu and we went a tasting!
One glance at the new menu and I could see that Pizza Express has generously sprinkled their existing offering with new appetisers, pizzas, pastas and desserts! They’ve also got variations of some of their signature dishes, and that’s exactly what we decided to start off with.
If you’ve been to Pizza Express before and have tried their dough balls, you’ll know why we didn’t want to miss their new Dough Balls with Doppio. A group appetiser, this one comes with three dips – Garlic Butter, Pesto and Pesto Rosso. Other than the Pesto Rosso which I didn’t really care for, the other dips were lip-smackingly delicious. But if you have to decide on just one appetiser, it would have to be the Ramiro Al Forno (red peppers stuffed with goat cheese, mushroom, garlic and parsley). Ah! We have you drooling already, don’t we? Well, not for no reason. The succulent stuffed peppers and flavourful filling is an absolute must-try.
Moving on to the pizzas, we gave the much-tomtomed about Calebrese a miss and ordered for Etna instead, topped with Italian sausage, jalapeno peppers, speck ham and emilgrana. If you like your pizzas spicy, then this one’s for you. Frankly, I much prefered the Padana with its goat cheese, mozzarella, spinach and caramelised onion topping that went perfectly with my fresh and fruity choice of wine – the Italian Trebbiano.
Pizza Express has also introduced two new pastas and a vegetarian lasagna (I can never wrap my head around a veg lasagna) to their new menu.
The Tagliatelle Pollo Bolognese is what we decided to give a go at on the recommendation of our amiable server. (BTW, Pizza Express has some of the most friendly staff I’ve ever come across.) Anyhoo, the pasta was a little disappointing, but to their credit, would suit the quintessential Indian palate perfectly. Kudos for adapting!
Caffe Reale – Cinnamon Spiced Figs at Pizza Express
Finally, it was dessert time. And while we wanted to try the newly included Dolcetti (mini puddings served with your choice of coffee), we couldn’t pass up on the cheesecake. So we called for Caffe Reale – Cinnamon Spiced Figs and a wedge of Pizza Express’ signature Cheesecake. The figs in the former weren’t juicy enough but the overall combination of syrup and ice cream was wonderful. That said, we’d still recommend the sinfully good cheesecake over this one. Served with a scoop of ice cream or mascarpone cheese, this cheesecake certainly hits the spot!
So what do we think of the new menu at Pizza Express? We have to say we like how they’ve broadened their menu to suit the Indian palate while retaining their original charm.
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