Cirrick: Mixed Pidde

I know what you may be thinking, the 'Z' button on my keyboard is broken so I'm using the 'D' one instead and hoping you won't notice. What a silly idea, of course you'd notice, you're not an idiot,* and anyway, my 'Z' key works fine, look: zzzzzzZZzZzzzzzZzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzZZZZ.

'Pidde' is actually what Turkish people call pizzas. It sounds too much like 'piddle' for me, which isn't something I want to be thinking about when I'm getting down to some intense cheese ingestion. I think they should just stick with 'pizza' or if they're going to be picky about it, 'Turkish pizza'. Less of this 'pidde' nonsense please. Basically Turkey, if you could kindly readjust your entire dialect and culture to make your food sound more appetising to a pedantic, whiny English boy that would be just super.  

Cirrick is a Turkish restaurant in Hackney. When we asked the waiter for any recommendations he said we should get Chinese food. I didn't say at the time but I felt this was poor waiter-ing. Does he not realise that were we to take his advice and leave to get Chinese food instead then his restaurant would miss out on our valuable cash-money? This would lead to a dip in profits, which could result in cuts in staff and he might get fired? 

Maybe that's what he wants, maybe he hates his a job, but doesn't have the guts to quit, maybe the restaurant owner is a sweet old man, whom, even though the waiter hates his job and wants to join the circus, he doesn't have the heart to leave. If this is the case I'm sorry I judged you so harshly Chinese-promoting-Turkish-waiter. You have a good soul and I almost feel guilty that I did not storm out to buy noodles. Next time I come in I will tell the manager that you squeezed my thigh for eight seconds and would not stop even though I asked you twice. I'll shave and wear a Digimon t-shirt as well so I look younger, which will make you look creepier, and make it more likely that you'll get fired and put on the sex offenders register. It's cool, I don't think the circus gives a shit about rapists.

Despite a name that sounds like a phrase used during potty training, it turns out Piddes's are pretty good. I couldn't work out what cheese it was, it wasn't mozzarella, but it was tasty. Also the bread was good. Well done Turkey, (the country, not the bird, I don't want those guys stealing any of Turkey the country's credit, so back off Turkey the bird).

8 out of 10

* I have no proof for this, in fact it's quite possible you are an idiot, perhaps even likely, after all, you have chosen to spend precious minutes reading about some pizza I ate this one time. 

Ask: Napoletana

Hey, Aquaman, I know that oil spill is more or less sorted out now but don't go hanging your jellyshoes over your very-hard-to-light fireplace just yet, there's another nautical disaster at hand. Someone is taking all your subjects and dumping them on my pizzas. On the Ask menu it makes out you'll get a normal amount of fish, like a couple of anchovies and a prawn or two, nothing extravagant. That's a total lie. On my plate there were half the inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean. Due to the overhead perspective of the photograph there is a slight loss in depth perception so you may not be able to tell but those toppings were about 4ft high. My pizza was basically a cheesy mass grave for a tunacide. Although say what you will about mass graves, they're certainly cost effective.*

I've been getting quite into fish recently, I think it's because I'm trying to do less supermarket shopping and go to littler shops instead, so I've started visiting the fish men on Stoke Newington High Street. I've only been in a few times but in six months I expect a conversation like this to be the norm:

Me: Hey Paul, hey Terry. (these might not be their actual names but these seem like fish guy kind of names so quit whining and go with it.) 

Fish Guys (in unison): Joe, how you doin' guvnaa?

Me: You know, same old, same old. How was your weekend away Paul? Where was it you went? Bognor Regis?

Fish Guy Paul: Yeah it was nice you know, just me n' the misses. Mind you, she didn't want to do nothin' but sit on the beach all day. Bored me 'alf to deaf it did.

Me: Women eh? (I'd do that sort of half eyebrow shrug, tutting thing, which Paul would reciprocate).

Fish Guy Paul: Yeah, tell me about it.

END SCENE

Then I'd buy some scallops and leave. I think I've got the basis for a sitcom there, I might make Paul and Terry ex-mafia goons trying to go straight and call it Sleeping with the Fishes. I could play a clueless middle-class secondary character who occasionally gets tangled up in their hair-brained, fish-based, crime heists. Bet you wish you'd thought of that one, don't you Larry David? 

4 out of 10

*I stole this joke from the Onion, I have no remorse and it won't be the last time I do this.

Fire & Stone: Sydney

This was my second foray into Fire & Stone. This was my first, read it if you haven't, so I don't have to repeat myself or, if you've already read it, re-read it if you don't have anything better to do. Those are sort of trick choices, because the 'nothing better to do' option is kind of defunct in that, if you actually have nothing better to do than re-read me natter on about a stupid pizza then may I suggest suicide as something 'better to do'. Basically, re-read it only if you are somehow incapable of suicide, e.g. paralysed, Roman Catholic, wimp etc. If any of these labels apply to you then you are excused, and by all means re-read away.



Sydney is both a city in Australia and a pizza in Fire & Stone. The former may be more well known than the latter at the moment, but I have a feeling a shifting of the scales is on the cards. This was a damn tasty pizza. Possibly my favourite Australia related thing since the TV show Oz and that wasn't actually about Australia, it just sounded like it was. It was more about brutal prison violence and gang rape. What a lark. Still, sounds preferable to five minutes in a pub with an Australian. I'm joking, those guys are great, and definitely don't have an annoying attitude or accent, no way Jose, top blokes, the lot of them. Everybody needs good neighbours and all that.



There was meant to be an egg on this pizza, and I think there was but I couldn't find it anywhere. I think it was mixed in with the sauce somehow because I could kind of taste it. Unless of course my brain was tricking me into thinking there was egg so it wouldn't have to think up creative insults and threats for the waiters when it was bill time. This is possible, my brain is terribly lazy. If it can get out of doing any work at all it will. It delegated my A-level psychology exam to my lower intestine. I got a U. Seemed my lower intestine knew absolutely nothing about cognitive theory, sorry Mr Dixon,

8 out of 10