The FoodHulk generally doesn’t do free meal reviews but this is an exception not so much a review but an appreciation of a pretty decent meal organized by the good folks at Zomato and hosted by Jamies Pizzeria… Jamies was one place I had planned on checking out for a while but somehow every time I made a plan it didn’t quite work out  so finally thanks to an invitation and a non-busy schedule I made it…

Thanks to Zomato we had a curated fixed menu which was curated by the guys at Jamies to give us an idea of what they had as a part of the menu at their India outlets… I have been to my fair share of Jamies Italians in the past and well for England they are slightly above average run of the mill Italian joints, but that is a reflection of the quality of Italian food available in cities like London whereas for New Delhi where the quality of Italian at most places is what I can only call abysmal… So here is what most restaurants in India assume Italian food to be take an Italian starch i.e. pizza base, pasta, rice and proceed to murder the original recipe and create something that is the love child of Silvio Berlusconi and Rakhi Sawant… Everything is like tadka marke…

So when the invite to go try out Jamies Pizzeria came into my inbox I was filled with the same dread that one of the places I used to enjoy a regular run of the mill Italian meal in London was going to be so horribly disfigured that it would leave me scarred for life…

So in the words of the three wise men from Top Gear (rather when Top Gear was still a man’s show) I told myself “how bad could it be”

So we started our special menu with Oyster Fritti’s with a ‘secret’ chilli sauce and in my opinion they were too oily and slightly over done… I don’t know why the cooks/ chefs in india have a habit of deep frying everything till it loses its taste and in this case the oyster fritti we overdone and someone forgot to drain the oil.

The Lamb meatballs on the other hand were really good, prepared to perfection with none of that masala nonsense going on with the sauce which tasted nice and tangy.. What was really good with the dish was that it felt fresh I can’t describe how I know if a dish is made with fresh ingredients on one off the shelf in a bottle but somehow I just know and in this case I can vouch for the dish being made with fresh ingredients…

The Honey Chilli Chiken wings just felt really out of place in an italian menu but I guess you need some of that to keep the desi’s happy or else they won’t know what to eat… for the not so aware the meatballs above can be classified as Italian Kofte… The wings were okay but too spicy for me…

The chicken Caesar salad was a real winner… again I will use the word fresh liberally here because 98/100 salads in India would never be fresh the greens will probably come out of bag after being having stored in a refrigerator for a few days all soggy and devoid of it crispness… this one the other hand was the exact opposite… I am not one to enjoy a salad but this one I did…

On to the pizza’s

I ended up trying only 2 of the pizza’s one was Jamies Supergreen, this was a challenege because me and the color green don’t really get along… the pizza was a bit of letdown not because of the crust of the sauce but because of the toppings… There was too much of the green stuff for me liking and who adds that vile vegetable / what looks like oversized fungal growth called broccoli to a pizza yeikes !!! Honestly it was something new I tried today i.e. broccoli on pizza and frankly it’s a terrible idea…

The second pizza was devoid of the said greenness and was a bit of a classic with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes and this one was an absolute winner… just the way I like it… the saucy was tangy the quantity of cheese perfect… don’t you just love it when it all comes together so well…

On to the non-pizza entrée’s

We tried the chicken Lasagna next and quite frankly as good as it looked it was a bit of a letdown…. Firstly the pieces of chicken were too chunky and the whole lasagna fell apart the moment you cut your first bit out… so basically what I ate was a sheet of pasta followed by chunks of chicken sauce as it all just fell apart.

The last thing I ate was the chicken puttanesca which was essentially seasoned grilled breast of with really nice and tangy tomato sauce again done to perfection.

 

The deserts were also pretty good loved the tiramisu that seemed to be soaked in Kahlua… and the classic brownies and ice cream left nothing to complain about

 

All in all had a pretty decent meal… and would definitely go there again as a non-invitee guest to give them a true rating… I hope the food is as good as the one I had that day…

Good Going Mr. Oliver and his India team…