Last night I took my other half out for a meal in Reading. We decided on Italian food and ended up in a nice looking place near the Oracle called Prezzo.

 For Starters I had "Mussels Marinara" (which was okay) and S had... well I can't remember the name but it was essentially a lifeless looking, thin slab of mozzarella which had been breadcrumbed and flash fried. A few of the typical spiky green leaves and a ramekin of sauce accompanied this. While it would not have been my choice S. obviously fancied it. However the "sauce" was raw passata or tomato juice. It was so tangy it overwhelmed everything else on the plate. The staff asked if everything was OK and we pointed out that the raw tomato juice was horrible as politely as possible but nothing ever came of it.

Having put that down to experience we set about our mains. Pizza tres gusto (thin pizza -  tomato, mozerella, chicken, bacon and pepperoni) and S. had chicken Ravioli. So how many things can go wrong with a pizza?

1. I ate one third of this vast wasteland of mozzarella without running into any topping.
2. The one third with no topping was tasteless. It had no hint of flavour.
3. The 3 toppings intersected in no more than three mouthfuls. An intervention was required to manually redistribute them all.
   
4. There was a doughy uncooked mouthful dripping with that uncooked tomato sauce from the starter.
5. ALL the flavour was in the chicken, which was overpoweringly salty.
   

 The ravioli was going down nicely until S. started complaining about some of them being very salty. In the end she determined that one half of the plate was blighted in this manner. Either there were two batches on this plate or someone had slipped with the salt mill.

Sure they were all small misdemeanors but all together they made for a pretty dreadful dining experience.

Perhaps they would have made a better fist of the deserts, we didn't stay to find out.

You are right, I shouldn't be offloading about this in my blog but hey, I just couldn't be bothered to make a scene last night. I feel the need to put something positive in here so I will recommend somewhere excellent nearby.

k.