Pizza. The word just immediately conjures up images of gooey cheese and tomato sauce sizzling on a triangular piece of bread. Pizza is probably the most loved item that is considered junk food, but the great thing about pizza is it can be as rich or healthy or spicy or as bland as you like. The three we tried were all with chicken topping but quite different! All of these were during lunch, we left out places that open only for dinner, and also left out the regular fast-food pizza joints.


 

Urban Kitchen (Hyde Park Corner, Colombo)


Topping – Chicken, Capsicum, Onion, BBQ sauce, Chedder Cheese

Price – 675 +++

Value for Money – Above Average

Taste - *****

Overall – We got a small Barbeque pizza.While it took a while to come, and considering that they all took a while to come, it was definitely worth the wait. The base was lovely and thin but firm, with hot steaming cheese, a nice spicy sauce and tender chicken. The crust was crisp, slightly burnt to perfection. The capsicum gave the dish a nice bit of heat with a drop of Tabasco sauce taking it to another level. Overall, though we polished the whole thing off, it felt light but still extremely satisfying.   




 

Bayleaf (79 R G Senanayake Mawatha, Colombo)


Topping - Mozzarella, Tomatoes, Bacon, smoked Chicken & Mushrooms

Price – 850 (though we got a 20% discount which made it 761)

Value for Money – High

Taste – **** 1/2

Overall – We got a regular sized Pizza Romagna. There was an abundance of cheese, always a good thing, and the chicken and bacon sort of slid into the same taste as the cheese. The bread itself was thin and floppy with a nice crispy crust, so it was very messy for us to eat (no complaints, that sort of thing is part of the experience!) There are two packets of chilli flakes provided if you find it too bland I suppose, we didn’t but we tried it anyway and it was a nice kick. Overall, quite yum! Also the size was quite decent.


 

Santoré Bistro Italiano (45 Marcus Fernando Mavatha, Colombo 7)

Topping – Cheese, Tomato, Curried Chicken

Price – 1,650

Value for Money – Average

Taste – ***

Overall – They only have one size, and we got what seemed to be their only chicken pizza. To be honest, we were expecting a lot and we just didn’t like the topping. It might’ve been our personal tastes though, so don’t discount all the other pizzas available here. Still, curry chicken and cheese just didn’t sit well with us. It was also a bit bland, and though the crust was probably the best of the three, we just didn’t particularly enjoy this topping.



Text by Marissa van Eyck and Sindhu Ratnarajan