What a winning combination, right!  If you then add on top an all in one price, then you win BIG time!

All you can eat pizza and all you can drink prosecco all for the princely sum of AED 149 for ladies, or AED 199 for the gents.  Not only can you drink prosecco, there is a choice of red and white wine, or Peroni.  Water and soft drinks are not included.

Whilst I tend to fight the injustice of sexism whenever I see it, sometimes I am quite happy to let it slide when I get to save AED 50 (approx £10) just because I am a girl.  Especially when this girl eats like a boy!

Where can we get this amazing bargain, I hear you ask!  At a place called Via Veneto on Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashed Boulevard, Downtown.  It’s where the old Fume used to be (I miss their breakfasts), kind of in front of Manzil Hotel.

Every Thursday from 7pm to 10pm, they have this fabulous offer on.  Whilst the service is a little slow (don’t be shy asking for refills), it is very friendly and the food more than makes up for it.  I’m still not convinced about the dodgy switching about of different brands of prosecco.  I am not a fan of mix and match.

One other thing before I start raving about the pizza… the red wine is apparently dreadful. Probably not surprising as it’s “draft house wine”.  The general feeling was that of disgust and confusion.  Confusion because they couldn’t work out if it would have been less or more revolting if it hadn’t been watered down as much.  I don’t drink red so have to go with the girls’ opinion.

Now… the pizza!  As you can see on the menu, there are 6 pizzas on offer.  4 of the 6 were veggie pizzas which is a win for me as they are actually my favourites (unless I am at Pizza Express in England!).  We decided that as a group of 10 (with one veggie who chose to have her own), we would just order them all and share.  The kitchen were great with this and actually sent out the pizzas sliced into 10 so that we could all have a bite.  How awesome is that!

The general consensus was that all the pizzas were really very good but that the winner for the meat pizzas was Alveare, and for the non-meats it was the Bianca.  The dough was obviously freshly made, and although a little too plump for my idea of Italian pizza, it was very good and light to eat.

Let me tell you a bit more though…

The Parmigana – tomato sauce, buratta cheese and eggplants.  Really very tasty.  It the eggplant wasn’t overwhelming and also didn’t make the pizza go soggy.  I would have liked a little more of the buratta but overall, it was very tasty!  One of the girls declared it her clear winner!

The Bianca – fontina cheese, buffalo mozzarella, gorgonzola, roasted leek and sage.  This was the one that surprised me the most.  I am not the biggest fan of gorgonzola and I also am a bit confused by pizza with no tomato sauce.  But it was so good!  I loved the leeks on there.  I wouldn’t have put leeks on a pizza but will be in the future.  I couldn’t noticeably taste the sage though.  I don’t know if that was a good or a bad thing because I really liked it and wouldn’t have changed it at all!

The Specktacular – tomato sauce, fior di latte cheese, beef speck, caramelised onions and pecorino cheese.  Really very good indeed!  I love caramelised onions on most things so that’s going to be a win, but the biggest surprise is actually how good the beef speck was.  I was really dubious because I know speck as ham, but the flavour was great.  The pecorino sliced on top was also really a great idea as it gave a boost to the bland fior di latte cheese.

The Alveare – tomato sauce, fior di latte cheese, beef Nduja, parmigiano shavings and honey.  Winner!  This was voted the best by about 6 of the 10 of us.  It had a hint of heat which was balanced out by the sweet.  Also the bland cheese worked in it’s favour on this one because otherwise too much would have been going on. The additional shavings of parmigiano aren’t strictly necessary but I love a good parmigiano, so it worked well for it.  It gave it a sharp bit which I totally approve of.

The Funghi – tomato sauce, fior di latte cheese and prochini mushrooms.  Meh.  It was ok.  It was a mushroom pizza with bland cheese.  Never going to be my winner but it wasn’t anything special or memorable.

The Margarita – tomato sauce, fior di latte cheese and basil.  Also, it had slices of tomato.  I didn’t notice the basil.  This was voted the most disappointing by the whole table.  With just cause.  The Margarita is one of my all time favourites.  The saltiness of the mozzarella mixed with the comparative sweetness of the tomato sauce, and then the basil leaf to pull it all together is a beautiful combination  This missed the mark by a mile. I don’t know what fior de latte cheese is, but it doesn’t belong on a decent margarita pizza.

There were also two dessert pizzas…

The Flaming Tiramisu – marscapone, Nutella, espresso powder, and for an additional AED 19, a shot of Grand Marnier to Flambe the pizza.  They all looked and tasted a bit burnt.  Despite ordering it with the Grand Marnier shot to set fire to it, they forgot.  After a while and a little nagging, we got it and set fire to it.  Problem is that they used three shots of it on one pizza so it didn’t burn off properly.  It also is a little disappointing to see the little flame when you’ve seen things properly flambe’d in ‘proper’ restaurants.  But it did burn and make a pretty blue flame.

(Full disclosure – I did not try this because I have a nut allergy so this is what the girls said.  Also, even if I wasn’t allergic to hazelnuts I would not eat it as I do not approve of Nutella due to the amount of palm oil it uses.  I won’t go into it here but I love Orangutans and want them to be safe.)

The Cacio e Pepe – pizza made with ice cubes and pecorino cheese.  This is the one I was super curious about.  A pizza made with ice cubes and cheese.  Random.  It was literally just a pizza base with pecorino on.  Nothing exciting and a huge let down.  I feel something else would have been more appropriate.  This was just lame.

The something else, in case anyone is listening would be a s’mores style pizza.  Normal chocolate and marshmallows melted onto a pizza base.  Even you could put some chunks of cookie dough if you were feeling super adventurous.  Just a thought!!

Overall, this was a great night.  We always have fun as a group but when the food and the drinks are as good as this was, I am in my element.

Thank you to to the team and Via Veneto and we will absolutely be seeing you again soon!