Where to Get a Pizza in Saratov?
Obviously — in a pizzeria. There are a lot of them here, from cheap to high class with everything in between. All of them have pizza delivery services, if you prefer it this way. Three pizza chains — Tashir, Donna and Mia — represent the cheap ones. Here you can usually find a list of 15 to 20 different kinds of pizzas, but only three or four will be available. Personally, I prefer pizzas with seafood, but these are the hardest to catch in any pizzeria belonging to the chains mentioned above. That’s okay — I can eat nearly any pizza from their menu.
They cut their pizzas into six pieces each and sell pieces separately. If it’s got cold by the time you’ve bought it, they will have it heated up for you in the oven. Apart from pizzas, they serve salads, soups, some other traditional Italian dishes and sometimes even cakes. There’s a variety of drinks available here too — from beer to fizzy drinks and from juices to tea and milk cocktails. Answering to a modern trend, they all are coupled with sushi bars. Even those pizzerias that used to have no sushi bar have added them by now.
Pizzas here are covered on top with a mixture of melted cheese and mayonnaise — believe it or not, but I find this mixture delicious. Some of my friends think it disgusting and will never visit any of the three chains mentioned above — but tastes differ.
Pizzerias like Lavazza Pizza belong to the more expensive, restaurant-like type. Here you choose from the menu, and the pizza you’ve ordered is cooked for you while you are waiting. You receive the whole pizza — nobody will think of cutting it and selling to six different people — but you can choose its diameter from several available options. Our family has been to Lavazza once — and the common verdict was, Tashir is better! I know of a few people who will disagree.
We have also eaten pizzas in a summer restaurant in the City Park and in a newly opened expensive restaurant Il Patio. In the latter pizzas cost about ten times the price you’ll find in Tashir, but sometimes we allow ourselves this kind of luxury. Here you’ll find beautiful interior, courteous waiters, separate rooms for smokers and non-smokers and pizzas cooked “properly” using traditional Italian recipes, along with a lot of other dishes on the menu, since it’s a full-scale restaurant. But to me it was a disappointment: perhaps, I just wasn’t born for this elitist stuff, so I didn’t like their pizza at all — and it was a seafood pizza!
To each their own, I guess. I’m still a frequent visitor at Tashir, Donna and Mia — and I’m going to remain their frequent guest, unless they do something really disappointing to me.
At the corner of Vavilova and Rahova streets Il Patio and Mia look at each other from the two sides of Vavilova street. “To each their own” is how I read their message.
Last modified: 05.11.2009