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    Fratelli Fresh/Fratelli Famous give you a tick list where you select base and toppings, then watch them make it, including cooking as the oven is open at eye level. I hadn’t thought of this as “supervisory” but just getting exactly what I want. I subscribe to the principle of keeping a pizza simple so would probably just go for sauce, mozzarella, oregano and probably dried mushrooms and half black olives.

    As ive shared on Mundane II, their pizzas are really, really good and thin.

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      So is it just me that doesn't want to watch people cooking my dinner?

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        (though I guess it would provide there opportunity to shout "peel the fucking prawns you daft bastard" before I get served half-prepared food)

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          Originally posted by TonTon View Post
          So is it just me that doesn't want to watch people cooking my dinner?
          Very much no.

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            It very much depends on the restaurant, but there are some where I've sat at the bar/counter and had a fascinating time watching the food being cooked and prepped. This is particularly true at sushi places

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              Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

              Right. That was depicted on one of Anthony Bourdain's episodes in Italy and he had to repeatedly point out that the people arguing were not actors and he didn't put them up to arguing about whatever fine point of gastronomy they were arguing about.
              Jamie Oliver did much the same in a cool old VW bus. One village would swear you had to use fresh Roma tomatoes. The very next village would say those people all fucked sheep, and you had to use canned tomatoes. The following village swore that those people all married their sisters, and jar tomatoes were the only way to go. These villages were all separated by about a mile and a half.

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                And God forbid anyone should add even a single bay leaf to the recipe because the entire inhabitants of the village would descend upon them and beat the heretic to death.

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                  Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                  So is it just me that doesn't want to watch people cooking my dinner?
                  I don't really enjoy being watched.

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                    When I was little, there was a pizza place here called Pappy’s where we would watch the guys make the pizza by spinning the dough in the air. That was one of the highlights of my life.

                    Sadly, Pappy’s went out of business.

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                      Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                      So is it just me that doesn't want to watch people cooking my dinner?
                      Maybe not just you (and ursus) but there are enough people who enjoy that out there for some restaurants to deliberately have their kitchens open plan to the dinning area. Particularly true of British pizza restaurants thinking about it, but also the case with a number of Turkish joints I've visited.

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                        So-called "Chef's Table" arrangements have been very popular in high end US restaurants for a few years now. They can easily sell out at USD 500 a head or more.

                        I've never paid for such an experience on my own, but they can be interesting, particularly if the chefs are able to engage.

                        Eating at a counter with a view of the kitchen can also be an interesting way to spend an evening dining alone (but is anathema to me with others).

                        That is of course a different world to standing in a queue to have "your" tortilla passed from one casual employee with a scoop to another.
                        Last edited by ursus arctos; 24-08-2019, 21:15.

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                          Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                          (though I guess it would provide there opportunity to shout "peel the fucking prawns you daft bastard" before I get served half-prepared food)
                          Or "de-vein the fucking prawns you daft bastard". I'd rather find a piece of shell than a string of shit. But maybe that's just me.

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                            There is that too

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                              Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                              Pizza express in Ireland is called Milano There's one in temple bar, and there used to be one on Dawson st. Pizza Express just makes it sound English and no-one here wants to eat english pizza. Any more than anyone wants to eat Irish sounding thai food.
                              I believe the reason they are called that in Ireland is because the Pizza Express name had already been registered there.

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                                Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                                If there were a pizza spectrum starting at Papa Johns and ending at something you'd actually get in Naples, I'd suggest that the Chipotle-esque chains are probably on the mid-point, and PE a little (but not a lot) closer to the Naples end.
                                I have no idea what Chipotle are like but Pizza Express are getting on for the lower-end pizzas that I tried in Calabria last week. I know that Naples is the home of pizza but I think that most Southern Italian pizza places are in the same ballpark.

                                From experience of eating and cooking, you get too many toppings on even the best curst cooked in even the best oven and it is going to be soggy. I would say that, aside from the Margerita bases (which I appreciate isn't absolutely essential in itself), you want three toppings max and not completely covering the pizza.

                                Originally posted by Sits View Post
                                I subscribe to the principle of keeping a pizza simple so would probably just go for sauce, mozzarella, oregano and probably dried mushrooms and half black olives.
                                Aside from the fact that i have never tried it with dried mushrooms, that's pretty much my standard choice. They kept on offering me porcini on holiday and i sort of wish i had tried it now. What they did a lot was add capers which i quite like now as a result - I only liked them in tapenade and chopped up finely in a ragu sauce or lasagne previously - and may keep this up. i also quite like anchovies on a pizza so, on occasion (i.e. when i am not sharing one with my wife) i will add those as well. However, that is the only non-vegetarian topping I will have. i tend to think pizzas are better vegetarian. Indeed, i have moved to the complete opposite of my first pizza love which was a deep pan Meat Supreme at Pizza Hut which, appallingly, they have now added chicken to, i have discovered.

                                It very much depends on the restaurant, but there are some where I've sat at the bar/counter and had a fascinating time watching the food being cooked and prepped. This is particularly true at sushi places
                                Yes, i have mentioned this before but my first Japanese food experience was at a high-end place in St James where you sat around your own teppenyaki and had your own cook. He cooked king prawns (including flattening the heads into sort of crisps), chateaubriand and a whole load of other stuff before finishing off with an egg fried rice which seemed a bit odd.
                                Last edited by Bored Of Education; 24-08-2019, 22:54.

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                                  Mushrooms are gross

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                                    You keep thinking that. Just leaves more of the rest of us.

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                                      Janik speaks for Central Europe

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                                        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                        Mushrooms are gross
                                        Amen

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                                          Let's get a few things sorted out here.

                                          Pizza Hut - You don't go to Pizza Hut for anything other than their £7.50 lunch buffet, which remains, pound for pound, the best value for money dinner you can have. Unlimited pizza and salad for under a tenner is ridiculous value, and the low price offsets all the other concerns. It's fuel not food, sure enough, but it's lots for next to nowt.

                                          Taco Bell - Taco Bell is awful in every way, except it's like fucking crack, you can't get enough. Absolutely smashes all the other fast food outlets in the Arndale Food Court when it comes down to it. Crunchy yet stodgy spicy whatevers for a fiver. The guilt you feel after eating that processed shite is unbelievable, the worst of all the fast food guilts (it used to be KFC, where a Zinger Tower meal would have me curled up in a ball crying in the bottom of the shower), yet you can't help buy go back. Plus tacos are fucking brilliant regardless.

                                          Pizza Express - We went through a phase of downloading the Pizza Express app, registering it to different email addresses and what have you, and getting ridiculously cheap or sometimes free, pizzas once a week. Despite the stuffy naysaying of the pizza illuminati, Pizza Express is better than trenddy pizza joints like Franco Manca and Rudy's, where their sourdough pizza is nice, and well made, and probably dead authentic, but also about the size of a 5p coin and completely unsuitable for filling yourself up. Whereas at PE (Good PEs include Pizza Express and Public Enemy. Bad PEs include Physical Education teachers), an Pollo Forza or Pollo ad Astra on Romana base will sort you out for the afternoon AND tastes great.

                                          Wahaca - I'm an OG Wahaca champion, singing their praises since day 1, before the Observer even got onto them. They used to do a chicken tortilla soup, which is one of my favourite soups, but they fucked it off because they are bastard idiots. Last time I went to Wahaca, on the South Bank in that shipping container bit, it was fucking appalling. The food seemed rushed, less fresh, and I have serious reservations over the price. These small plates places, you think you are getting a deal as the price per plate is reasonable. But you need about five or six plates to fill yourself up. So before you know it you're £30 in the hole, when you could have got a burger or pizza from up the road for a tenner. So what's the point? This issue also affects places like the otherwise excellent Dishoom.

                                          NOW THE IMPORTANT PART. EIM's Best Chain Food Places To Eat 2019.

                                          Pieminister - Pie and mash for fuck all. You can get a dead good pie, mash, gravy, crispy shallots (essential) and a side of macaroni cheese for under a tenner. It's hot, tasty, comforting, and reasonably priced.We always end up going there hungover on a Sunday when we don't know what we want, and are too scared and confused to make a decision, and we never, ever regret it. Ace selection of pies, including veggie and vegan ones, no frills service, and you get served it in one of those blue-trimmed enamel bowls, so you feel like an SAS soldier on manoeuvres.

                                          Bundobust - Veggie Indian "Streetfood" and craft beer. Ridiculously tasty, and such a good concept. They've only got restaurants in Leeds and Manchester so far, but they're expanding and they're brilliant. The food is glorious, highlights being the vada pav, a spicy mashed potato burger, and the Bundo Chaat, which the missus reckons is her favourite thing to eat in all of Manchester. The atmosphere is casual, there's usually a good crowd in, the beers are interesting, and it just really works. And while I still prefer the Thomas Street rice and three places for cheap indian snap, this is the best hipster alternative. Really, really good.

                                          Dishoom - Obvious choice, but doesn't mean it's wrong. The Manchester Dishoom is in the old Mason's hall, and it's spectacular, like sitting in an old colonial building in India, which is problematic in some ways, but lose yourself for a minute. The food is good, not great, but the buildings are so glorious it doesn't really matter. As said it suffers from the Small Plate Price Paradox, cheap yet expensive, but it's a great place to go for a treat, and the breakfasts are incredible.

                                          The thing is, right, there's so many good independent places to eat in Manchester, that you don't really need to go to chains that often (though clearly that's not the impression I'm giving here, I realise). I might do a best indie places to eat thread later, but I'm really hungry now, so need some scran.
                                          Last edited by EIM; 25-08-2019, 11:11.

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                                            How is that Rayner bloke employed when EIM exists?

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                                              No wonder he's not around enough. He's got a missus now.

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                                                And spends his life eating out, it would seem.

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                                                  I like a deal. There's always one to be had.

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                                                    Do you have Cote in Manchester?

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