Prepare Yourselves for Food Envy: Pizza Express Review!

It seems like it's been a good while since I wrote my last post so I apologise to those of you who use this blog as a means of procrastination. I know there are quite a lot of you. I get stopped by drunken people I I've never met before in Timepiece and Arena who tell me my blog posts are their favourite distraction from revision or dissertation writing, which I love. It's kind of like being a really low grade celebrity. In a really low grade club. But then they ask me about the Beacon and I have to explain my break up story to someone I've never met before when I'm half a bottle of whisky worse off than I probably should be. I don't know what it is about the queue in the women's bathroom, but I always get into the most in-depth conversations with people.

Anyway, on a less irrelevant note, I got an email from someone at Pizza Express a few weeks ago, inviting me to go and sample their new lunch menu and write up a review on it. So, I made time in my crazy schedule, jam-packed as it is with dissertation-writing and napping, to stuff my face. I know, I know, my life's a chore.

I invited Hayleigh to come along with me. She was impressed with my promotion to official-one-day-pizza-sampler.

"They invited you to sample the menu? Wow! Your blog is practically a real job!" 

"I would totally do a full-time job that paid me in pizza" I told her. "...I just don't think my mother would accept rent in edible form."

So we headed over to the Swansea Pizza Express on Friday. Despite my sordid love-affair with pizza, I'd never been to Pizza Express so the review that follows is my honest opinion from the point of view of a brand new customer. 

Firstly, I want to admit that I went there with every intention of making healthy choices. What with my new diet, training for the 5k, and bikini season lurking on the horizon, I've actually been converted into a salad-eater of late. I'm never going to be particularly enthusiastic about carrot sticks, but I'm trying my best to make good choices. And really, there was no excuse for me not to be healthy because the lunch menu has all kinds of salads and soups. But I caved and had a pizza. And dough-balls. And a chocolate fudge cake. 

But first, let me start by saying that I really liked the place itself. It wasn't at all what I expected of a pizza restaurant. I'm not entirely sure what I did expect, but the picture I had in my head wasn't nearly as nice. Plus they had a bar stocked with Jack Daniels. I'm quick to notice the most important things first. Overall, great first impression.

Our waiter was friendly, (albeit probably a little confused by the obsessive way I was making notes) and the food came quickly. And now I will attempt to describe how delicious my pizza was. I had the Pollo ad Astra, which was just a little spicy and entirely yummy. It was the perfect size for lunchtime and the base was thin and crispy and...I just want another one right now. Like I said, I'm a pizza lover. It's my favourite food. So when I hold my hands up and say a pizza was particularly scrumptious, I have a lot of experience to back that up. I also had dough-balls on the side on Hayleigh's recommendation, which were nice. 

Hayleigh, on the other hand, actually was healthy and went for the Leggera Superfood Salad, which she said was lovely. Looking back, I should have tried some, partly for a more well-rounded review and partly because I had a little food envy. I actually looked like a meal rather than a plate of leaves, which, let's face it, is a big deal for a salad.  

"absolutely, bring on the cake"

When we had scraped our plates (literally) our waiter came over to clear everything away.

"Would you like to review the desert menu too?" He asked.

The answer to that question was and will always be, 'absolutely, bring on the cake'.

Cue me making my way through a generous slab of chocolate fudge cake with ice cream. It It was well worth however many million calories I had to go and burn off afterwards. Hayleigh had the cheese cake (again, why did I not steal it off her plate for the good of the review?) which looked delicious. She had nothing but good things to say about it. And, yet again, we both ate every mouthful. Walking back to the car I was so full I literally had cramp in my side.
was...perfect. I really think I can honestly say it was the best chocolate fudge cake I've ever had (and, trust me, there have been many servings of chocolate fudge cake in my life). It wasn't heavy or sickly like some of them can be.

So I give the new Pizza Express lunch time menu two very enthusiastic thumbs up. I was surprised at the prices considering how tasty the food is and how decent the portion sizes are. Hayleigh and I will definitely be making another trip. Maybe next time we'll dip into the Jack Daniels too.

Check out the menu for yourself!