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

yes, it is a delicious twist! i dunno, if i ever was going to feel guilty about eating a meal in a restaurant i think i would want it to be somewhere besides pizza express.

i will admit to being a little hardcore about wanting my pizza "well done". i consider it the line that separates those who r being serious about their pizza with those who r not being. if it's kind of doughy in the center and the toppings sort of slide around and fall off the tip of the slice, u r being in the latter category.

xpost

Why are you slicing a thin-based pizza like that anyway? You don't need to cut them into slices, they're meant to be eaten whole off the plate, surely?

Pizza-eating methodology may be the key here. My favourite pizza place does them with very soft, very thin bases and they are delicious, but do suffer from that whole slidey topping thing. I think I actually like them with soft thin bases because frankly the dough is the least important thing about any pizza for me.

Prezzo's do a pretty good mid-market chain pizza. And other stuff too.

Thin base pizza (i.e. pizza) will never be crispy in the middle unless it's burnt.

Well if we're picking apart the responses to each others' posts, Tracer, perhaps I meant it's nice to still be able to fit in side dishes of whatever sort. Either way, Lol at you telling me how Italians eat and being all rockist about it :)

the pizza in your friend's restaurant in ny was absolutely amazing tracer

Pizza Express were actually early pioneers of genetic enegineering in an effort to breed long, thin, spicy pigs to make pepperoni production less expensive and time consuming.

oh wait, this is the truth about Pizza Express thread. nm.

i think they're alright, as far as sit-down family pizza places go. comparison to California Pizza Kitchen was a low blow. they at least try to inject a little class.

I have always suspected that 99% of restaurants, chains or not, are selling you some sort of shite of dubious provenance.

The only real alternative (if like me, you're too lazy to dig your own spuds and too squeamish to slaughter your own cattle)is to go to a supermarket and cook the dubiously-sourced shite yourself.

I desire pizza now.

so much I could post here right now but........can't, it's a bit....political.....

pizza express really isn't *that* bad, folks

zero degrees kicks the living shite out of it (and every other pizza place ever); only matt dc will have the foggiest what i'm on about, though.

this thread makes me want to never visit london again

I think I actually like them with soft thin bases because frankly the dough is the least important thing about any pizza for me.

Then you have never had good pizza.

Seriously I can barely read this shit

Also, nothing especially bad happens to dough if you freeze it, unless you leave it frozen for months and months. If you freeze it, thaw it, and refreeze it, that can be a problem, I believe.

well given that pizza hut is pretty much the worst food ever (except kfc), pizza express doesn't do badly, given its massively widespread chain status.

oh fuck me, pizza hut is absolutely honking. (it's the same chain as KFC, isn't it?) it's not even food. just ... wrongness, vaguely pizza-like in shape.

i've only eaten at pizza express once, and i was whammed and don't remember much about it -- other than phil oakey being there, and me wandering up to talk to him. lovely bloke.

zero degrees kicks the living shite out of it (and every other pizza place ever); only matt dc will have the foggiest what i'm on about, though.

Haha Louis, that was the exact place I was referring to upthread. My housemate is addicted to their caramlised pear and gorgonzola pizzas but I've always shied off them. I actually saw someone who really looked like you in there a few weeks ago but figured you were probably out of town.

i think everyone is losing sight of the fact that no matter how lousy it is it's still pizza and thereby better than like 90% of everything in the world.

Haha Louis, that was the exact place I was referring to upthread. My housemate is addicted to their caramlised pear and gorgonzola pizzas but I've always shied off them. I actually saw someone who really looked like you in there a few weeks ago but figured you were probably out of town.

Trio of Crostini followed by Roasted Garlic Chicken (sometimes Grilled Garlic Prawns) with a pint of house-brewed ale every goddamn time. Bliss. I actually think their RGC approaches affordable culinary perfection.

Uh who goes to the UK to eat pizza? Try some braised rabbit or suckling pig or blood cake ffs

I think kevin is losing sight of the fact that really bad anything is still really bad.

xpost: we have some damn good curry places. and heston blumenthal! we have heston blumenthal! look at him go.

their caramlised pear and gorgonzola pizzas

Hello

(hey LJ, come play poker, you seem the type who'd play)

P.S. I was in there a few weeks ago, watching Charlton lose to Stoke on their downstairs TV screen. Might have been then?

(Poker? I only (sorta) know hold-em, and I'm not especially good. Plus, I don't like gambling generally :(...erm, I'll think about it.)

it's still pizza

not in pizza hut it's not.

I used to go to Pizza Express sometimes but I haven't been for years -- if I want not-bad chain pizza I go to La Porchetta and get a litre of wine for £10 while I'm at it.

pear and gorgonzola toppings wtf

maybe that's why brits don't have salad on the side - it's already on top of their pizza!

i wasnt necessarily saying california pizza kitchen and pizza express are exactly the same, just giving US peeps a point of reference since we dont have P.E. here.

Tracer, u mad. Favorite pizza ever was from Time Cafe: red sauce, gorgonzola, red onions, Canadian bacon, sliced apples, and a drizzle of honey. A more perfect union.

Tracer I can't eat salad - I'm allergic to lettuces.

Man I've just had dinner and Laurel's pizza is making me salivate.

Louis I've had that garlic chicken pizza and its the exception that proves the rule as far as Zero Degrees' awesomeness is concerned. I managed to get about a quarter of the way through it before I was all "too... much... garlic... must... stop... now". Ugh.

The Pinefox and I have watched many a Spurs game in there as well, its kind of my local.

Pear and gorgonzola done right. No pizzas involved.

The one time I went to La Porchetta I thought it was kind of overrated, but at least it was cheap and huge. Although their house wine is beyond vile.

Yeah, it's vile, but it's great vile.

Ah jeez, well, maybe I have a strong liking for garlic, or maybe you were just unlucky that they gave you a particularly strong one. I have tried a few others (usually when the rest of my family can't finish theirs), and they are superb, but the RGC is a cut above IMO. I'd be up for diversifying, though. Do you recommend any of the newer ones?

It's a great place to watch football. I really like the atmosphere, above all.

red sauce, gorgonzola, red onions, Canadian bacon, sliced apples, and a drizzle of honey

that sounds fckn awesome.

I don't really understand why people go seeing as every high street or town centre you care to name has at least four Italian restaurants that aren't Pizza Express/Ask/Strada.

i get this, cos i'm guilty of this: you end up somewhere, you don't know what's good, and say fuck it, with p-express you know what you're getting and it's never too bad. i think this is one of the good things about modernity tbh.

mind you i don't know if every town centre *does* have that many 'real' italian places.

but i can recommend papa del's on archway road as an actual proper they-make-the-dough type place in n london.

I wonder where o-ess thought the chicken would have come from? The only other answer if you want to pay the prices that they charge is Thailand.

All the PE (and afiliates)dough is made in a factory in Oxon btw.

Stradas and a few other smaller chains are made in Hampshire.

Order from a menu today and chances are the food on your plate has come from one source: 3663. This behemoth supplies a quarter of all Britain's catering needs

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2528251.ece

T/S: 3663 vs. Cearns & Brown vs. Sodex Ho vs. Brake Bros

Actually, there's a good chance that (at least) one of the above owns (at least) one of the others.

AnItalian workmate of my friend's has commented that Zero Degrees is the only place he's found in England that does pizzas properly. So there you go.
Pizza Express does tend to be of different quality whenever I go in there (which is not that often) but when it's good, it's OK.

Awesome! I feel fucking vindicated. Especially given that there are only THREE outlets in the entire country (Blackheath, Bristol and Reading).

"T/S: 3663 vs. Cearns & Brown vs. Sodex Ho vs. Brake Bros

Actually, there's a good chance that (at least) one of the above owns (at least) one of the others."

nope, not the case

the four horsemen of the apocalypse

poisoning schoolkids since thatcher

Haha, if you knew how many restaurants got their dry goods off 3663...

not just dry....

a lot of their stuff is pure distribution though - they have customers who go out and find the products they want to use then their manufacturers/importers/whatever have to send in their wares to the 3663 dc that handles that particular account.

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