We ordered two pizzas, a veg and non-veg each, from their most expensive categories and were utterly disappointed with what we were served.
Yesterday was one of those lazy Sundays when you don’t want to move your bottom around much and just succumb to the simple pleasures of life like watching TV, snoozing, ordering food from outside and just lazing around the house. Since afternoon, my friends and I had been salivating over the thought of some scrumptious, cheesy pizza and like good girls, we decided that for lunch we would finish off the left over food and for dinner we would order a pizza.
You can imagine our immense self-control and dedication towards eating a pizza that we consoled ourselves with a modest meal of dal and rice in the afternoon. Since, then, we were waiting to get lost in an enticing, delicious oblivion. We even skipped a bit of some maggi in-between lunch and dinner to curb the hunger pangs and were resolute towards devouring some cheesy goodness.
Finally, the time arrived. There were three of us, out of which one was too reluctant to order anything from Domino’s so he suggested we should try Smokin’ Joe’s instead. He also put in a favourable word for the place and we agreed to order from the Chembur, Mumbai outlet. Looking at the menu I was slightly disappointed because there was nothing particularly to my liking in the veg category. I neither like paneer nor those veggies cooked in strange sauces on my pizza. I genuinely feel that paneer doesn’t belong to noodles, pastas, pizzas and similar foods, and I can only bring myself to eat veggies in Chinese-sounding sauces when I am eating that cuisine. Unfortunately, most of the options on the menu had such toppings and the others were too spicy. They had those two red chillies against them.
So after much discussion, we thought of trying out something new, hoping it would turn out nice, and ordered Black Pepper Veggies from V4 (veg) and Smokin’ Joe’s Special from NV3 (non-veg). The latter seemed more reliable as it had chicken sausage, chicken salami, herbed chicken, onion, garlic, oregano and basil. There was so much in it that even if one topping is a put off, there are others (known tastes) to balance the flavour. And we called for a Coke bottle.
When the pizzas arrived and we opened the boxes, I had a frown on my face looking at the veg one, while the non-veg option looked palatable. They took the name literally and everything on the Black Pepper Veggies pizza was black. I am not kidding. I couldn’t decipher what the toppings were. It was all black, including the cheese and I couldn’t tell one vegetable from the other. They all looked like some chopped pieces of shit. Even after its hindering appearance, I mustered enough courage to bit into a slice and the taste was even more disappointing than the look. They went just too overboard with the black pepper sauce which gave an overpowering and unpleasant ketchupy flavour. We really pulled ourselves hard to finish that damn pizza.
While the Smokin’ Joe’s special looked eatable, it was all bland. We were wondering how could someone possibly go wrong with it. Inspite so many flavourful toppings, there was absolutely no flavour in the taste. It was plain tasteless. The crust was quite chewy as well. So you can imagine our plight.
Both the pizzas that we ordered were from their most expensive categories and we had to shell out close to 900 buck for two medium-sized pizzas and one 600ml Coke bottle. After experiencing the unsavoury food from Smokin’ Joe’s we were thoroughly disappointed and have vowed to never order anything from the place.
