Food Review - Pizza Metro Pizza, Bandra (W)

Copper pots and pans hanging on the wall, a pizza oven in the corner and murals on the wall depicting a typical Italian lifestyle; the new Pizza joint in town has perfect setting for a date, family lunch or an evening out with friends. The UK based eatery opened its Mumbai outlet quietly in November and is serving hand made, wood fired pizzas. They also claim to be the only pizzeria serving meter long pizzas which can be ordered with four different toppings.

We went their post work for an early dinner and a bunch of teenage guys were already hogging on their meter long pizza. Since the visit was for review we decided to try more than just pizzas (we regretted that later). We started with Carpaccio di manzo - beef carpaccio with rocket & Parmesan shaves and Palle di ruso - crispy fried rice balls stuffed with melting mozzarella  salami and basil. We liked the carpaccio which had very fine slivers of beef but it couldn't match up to the one we had at Salt Water Cafe in terms of dressing. The palle di ruso was crispy from outside but the rice was very sticky when we cut through it. The pork salami got lost in the sticky rice and melted cheese making the dish a little bland.

Moving on to the real food we decided to order a pasta and a pizza and on the owner's recommendation we went with Scialatielli pesciosa - scialatielli with king prawns, mussels, clams, squid, garlic, cherry tomatoes and parsley, in short a delight for seafood lovers. The pasta tasted good and full of seafood but the broken pieces of shells put us off. It's better to stick to a safer vegetarian, pork or beef pasta. Pizza is definitely their stronger point and it might not be the wafery thin crust one but it's handmade and fresh. We ordered a meat heavy CiCCioBoMbA - mozzarella, tomato, ham, salami, black olives, mushrooms, meat balls and sausages. While we found the toppings a little less for the price of the pizza the moist crust made us quite happy.

We were almost leaving when the waiter presented a dessert platter and we just couldn't stop ourselves from picking the massive glass of tiramisu. I am not a fan of this specific dessert but trust me it can easily be counted among one of the best in Mumbai and there can be no better proof than that we wiped it clean.

Pizza Metro Pizza is expensive but is a good respite from the regular pizza chains. It also has to face a lot of competition from the already established Ray's Pizzeria in Bandra which is excellent and also not so expensive. However, if you like food challenges the meter long pizza at Pizza Metro Pizza is tailor made for you.

Must try - Pizza, tiramisu