if you want to know the truth about pizza express, i'll tell you everything

let me rephrase: why do YOU do this, i.e. pay for the uniformity, though you know the ingredients are bad?

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 11:18 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

cos going to restaurants where they source fresh ingredients from the market that morning = $$$; it's kind of why high-end places are high-end.

a lot of places, including independent places, get their ingredients from big distributors.

there are obviously independent places that are better than pizza express; otoh you can't compare "independent places" with a chain, because there's huge variation in the first category. and that's why people go with the second.

i've been annoyed by children in all sorts of places.

so it's just a money issue. if you could, you'd eat somewhere else.

lol @ "just a money issue"

I refuse to give the children 'colours', as cunting parents outloud suggest that 'the man will bring them now'.
Irish parents are still having 4+ children all within a few months of each other. My friend Eve, viewing houses with her mum, said that 5 bedroom houses are becoming standard.
We often consider offering 'any desserts, coffees, contraception?'.

Drop on by, I'll give you free coffee.

Really going to work is just a money issue, if you could you'd stay at home all day

you said you'd "pay for the uniformity" but now you're saying you're only paying for pizza express because it's cheaper than the bespoke competition. hence "just a money issue" rather than something more, as you had earlier implied. lol!

dom plz stop projecting

I go to work for the aforementioned free coffee.
Halfway through your free pizza you realise the hunger was a better feeling.

you said you'd "pay for the uniformity" but now you're saying you're only paying for pizza express because it's cheaper than the bespoke competition. hence "just a money issue" rather than something more, as you had earlier implied. lol!

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 11:33 AM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

no contradiction there. within your money-reach, you can afford either p-express or some other independent place (ie NOT a posh restaurant with sourced fresh ingredients, etc -- also no booking blah blah class ssystem blah). so you go for the chain over the unknown, which in all likelihood, unless you know otherwise, doesn't have a markedly superior ingredient hook-up.

Tracer - I think you need some more condescension. Pizza Express isn't particularly cheap, doesn't use grade A fresh ingredients and is run on extremely rigid lines of uniformity. BUT in the absence of known cheaper/better pizzerias, and when you need to find a place on any high street with which a group of people will all be happy, when you know the quality, hygiene etc is going to be of an acceptable level, and at a price most people are okay - it ticks all the necessary boxes.

Also I really like the food there.

Mark's pretty much got it. Of course I prefer to go to places where the food is freshly sourced and prepared, but sometimes it is nice just to not have to cook/wash up and on occasions like that then all I want is food that I know that I, and others in my company, will enjoy. Pizza Express/Chiquitos/Nandos etc all do that pretty well. I'm not pretending they are anything special or fancy, but they aren't McDonalds either.

(the first time I was ever in Pizza Express was one in, I think, Fulham, with Mark C and a whole bunch of other people. It was a pretty good night)

Little Chef is the expert at everything frozen and cooked in a microwave - bags of microwaveable frozen ready-cooked tagliatelle etc. Though you're pretty much getting what you need there, no-one is ever going to go looking for freshly prepared home cooking in a service station in this country.

I ate the curry. Fucking good it was.

You can't beat a Sloppy Giuseppe, a Peroni and a slice of cheesecake.

if you know what i mean

I'd love to have the time and motivation to search out authentic little sicilian places every time I fancy a pizza, but meanwhile back in reality Pizza Express is fine, as far as I'm concerned. I go in them a lot as they fit various needs :

1) Can't be arsed to cook tonight, but we're not really going *out*, and don't want to spend loads,so let's pop in there.
2) Out shopping or whatever and need more than a sandwich, but want to be quickish.
3) The kids like it.

The diavolo is a very fine pizza indeed, and I have to have one once in a while.

great place to take GF for her birthday, just so she knows her place.

past and pizza = not that hard to make, i can't understand having pasta when you're out. the difference between pasta and pizza available in uk & italian restaurants = not that vast imo.

pizza express pizza is f'in horrible, yuk! tiny, doughy, tasteless, overpriced. i'd take a chance on an unknown independent every time, maybe sometimes i will lose (in a pub in essex i ordered lasagne and when it came it was 90% full of SWEETCORN wtf, who puts sweetcorn in lasagne? i had to pick it all out and then there was nearly nothing left) but at least i don't walk in there KNOWING i'm going to be fleeced.

hilarious

https://twitter.com/PizzaExpress/status/506542316627443712

some pretty excellent jazz acts have played the soho square branch over the years.

THE CHICKENS ARE FROM BRAZIL