Cambridge is a beautiful place to live. In some ways, I’m biased because I live here. But remember that I have a love of Manchester which will not be shaken, so when I tell you that I’ve had a day in Cambridge that makes me think that this might be the best place we could be raising our family after all, it’s a big thing. But don’t tell Lovely Bloke that.
Our fabulous Cambridge day started with a meander around the shops and moved on to Pizza Express, at the Pitt Club. The Pizza Express at Jesus Lane, home of the Pitt Club, has been overhauled and so we descended there to review it with empty tummies in readiness to try as much as we could from the menu.The main room has been entirely re painted and re styled. The huge, famous mirrors are still there – refreshed and updated.It felt very relaxed, cool and still, accessible.
If you’ve been there before, you’ll notice a change as soon as you enter – the piano has gone to make room for additional tables. When it’s busy, it’s very busy and the staff felt bad when people had to queue or be turned away.
From there, is my the room which is my personal favourite. Why? Because it reminds me of the library at the University of Manchester. And because if you are hosting people to Cambridge as tourists, it’s a lovely way to take them to somewhere for lunch or dinner in an environment that could possibly kind of pass for being Cambridge college esque. I’ve only eaten in a few of the colleges, but it’s a special experience and if you aren’t able to take someone to a college this is a good place to go.
The boys had a mix of the children’s menu and adult menu – starting out with the dough balls which were deemed to be perfect. They moved onto a stretched margherita pizza and a pasta bolognese. My Mum started out with garlic bread and then had a Pollo Pasta, which was chicken, garlic and a creamy sauce with pasta. She said that she couldn’t finish the main course – and she wanted to, so she was frustrated with herself! Lovely Bloke had a ceasar salad followed by a Romana Padana pizza – goats cheese, caramelised onion and spinach. It looked incredible and so when I found my own cannelloni to have a bit too much bechamel sauce, I swapped with him. But only once I’d had a really good dig around the cannelloni first. Ahem.
And then, oh happy days, we moved on to the puddings. Chocolate fudge brownie and chocolate ice cream left E grinning from ear to ear. W had chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce which made him equally happy. My Mum did manage to finish all of her vanilla cheesecake with fruit coulis and Lovely Bloke waxed lyrical – and for those of you who know him well you’ll appreciate how rare this is, he waxed lyrical about the wonderful pudding he had – a mini cake made from Lotus Biscuits and something soft – I’ll ask him for more details. He repeatedly told us about how it was the perfect size and finished his meal perfectly. And me? I had chocolate fondant. It was crisp on the outside, molten on the inside and so, so rich. I just couldn’t finish it – definitely a pudding to share, even for me and my love of chocolate….
In the interests of fair reviewing, we found that the coleslaw was out of stock and that the first two drinks we were interested in – a watermelon chill and something else similar, that I can’t remember the name of, were also out of stock. I also encountered someone running in with Sainsbury’s bags full of salad, so I think perhaps that they’d had a very busy Saturday and not had time to re stock. I don’t mind this, I liked that they were improvising and making it work for what would no doubt be a busy Sunday lunch service.
So, if you want a meal that works for different people with different tastes and of course, includes children, I’m happy to recommend the Pizza Express at the Pitt Club to you. It’s likely you’ll see us there, so do say hello and tell us where ‘peppers’ is in the wordsearch – because we couldn’t find it!
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