17 April,2011 07:59 AM IST | | Aviva Dharmaraj
The week's best: New eateries & bars
There's comfort to be found at this pizza delivery service in Bandra that might not deliver in 'under 30 minutes', but still cares enough to get your order right
Andy's Pizza
At: Bandra (W)
Call: 32250010/ 32260010
Cuisine: Pizzas
Verdict: Awesome
This is for anyone who has ever had to patiently spell out the name of their building ('N' for Nagpur, 'B' for Bombay), provide more than one landmark for where they live, and then guide a harrowed delivery person to their destination, only to have lukewarm pizza with a third of runny cheese congealed to one side of the cardboard box.
If you've slammed the phone down, raised your voice, lost your cool or sworn at the person attempting to take your order, who incidentally couldn't care less, because life's tough as it is, then we're afraid you lose out on karmic points. But you can still seek salvation at Andy's Pizzas.
These guys had won brownie points, even before they delivered our order, which goes to show that there's still a lot to be said for first impressions, especially for those in the delivery business. The person who took our order was helpful, patient and familiar with the menu. And no, he wasn't the owner.
At Andy's, you can choose from 7", 10" and 12" pizzas, which they offer as Thin Crisp, Deep Pan and Stuffed Crust options. We ordered the 7" Veggie Supreme (Rs 160, see above), which has thin strips of onion, black olives, sun-dried tomatoes and mushroom slices. But we didn't find the red peppers that accompanied the menu description.
We could talk about how the saltiness from the olives perfectly complemented the caramelised, almost fruity flavour of the sun-dried tomatoes, but it's pizza we're talking about, and the stars of the show remain the same: cheese, tomato sauce and the pizza base.
They use a quality mozzarella that is stringy to the point of embarrassing (or fun, depending on who you're sharing pizza with). The bread could be fresher, but the tomato sauce? Aaah. It's good. It's fresh. And they use lots of it.
They might have got the spelling of the 'Margaritta' (Rs 75 for a 7") wrong, but they've remembered that it does need to have fine slices of tomato as topping. We opted for the stuffed crust, for which they charge an additional Rs 30, and while it was good, it could have done with more cheese.
The Penne Pasta in a black pepper sauce (Rs 100 for veg; Rs 120 with chicken) was so unusual, we were tempted to ask for the recipe. Salty, with generous twists of pepper, it's a welcome change from the usual suspects, including the Arrabiata and Alfredo sauces.
Yes, there's a chance that things will change, Andy's will grow, they might open another outlet or bloat into a chain and expand to other cities. But thanks anyway.
