garden cinema and pizzas at the bull and swan, stamford.

Freshly made pizza? Check. A favourite film? Check? Twinkly lights and cosy surroundings? Double check. Now at The Bull and Swan in Stamford, you can enjoy their comfy garden cinema with a slice of inviting Italian goodness from their new Pizza Potting Shed. That's if the weather behaves. Though they put the film on no matter what, so if you have strong willpower, a strong appetite and a strong brolly, you can still come along.

pizzastorm, nottingham.

Your pizza, your way. That's the philosophy of recently opened PizzaStorm in Nottingham city centre. With the likes of mozzarella balls to meatballs and butternut squash to baby spinach, they're pretty proud of their create your own pizzas. Mix and match a drizzle of sauce with your favourite toppings, scattered on their in house sour dough bases. Or if you aren't in a decision making mood, they've put together some classic pizza options to get the pizza party started.

Vegan, vegetarian and meat options mean that they cater for a variety of dietary requirements too. The main thing is that you love pizza. Who doesn't, right? Their Vegetable Supreme is loaded with tomatoes, mushrooms, sweetcorn, peppers, courgetti and an option for vegan cheese, with dairy free flatbread on offer too. Whilst the Decadence is made up of white sauce, mozzarella, regatta, tomatoes, spinach, red onion, spicy beef and rocket. Delicious!

We went along to try their bottomless pizza offering Pizza Fest, which is on every Sunday for £9.50 a head. As a group of four with two vegans in tow, it was the perfect pizza test. But how did they fare?

pizza spinaci: back by popular demand.

Back by popular demand; the Pizza Spinaci from Dr. Oetker. And I think I just found out why. With a crisp base, flavoursome herbs, earthy spinach and generous slatherings of mozzarella and Edam cheese, I'm not sure convenience could get much tastier. Super easy to just pop in the freezer for those lazy days (and rather good value too), the spinach and cheese pizza from the Ristorante range is just the simpliest of no-hassle treats. That's right - #SpinaciIsBack!

pizza klub, berlin.

Found in the Schöneberg area of Berlin, by the Yorckstraße UBahn station, you'll find a little gem of a pizza place. With some specials named after rock stars of the ages, Pizza Klub serves up delicious pizzas with inspiring toppings and generous portions. Vegans will be pleased to know they can enjoy the menu too, with varieties of realistic vegan cheese oozing from mouthwatering stone baked bases.

pizza macarons.

Mamma mia! Continuing with the junk food macaron recipe theme, I thought I'd try my hand at mini pizza macarons. With a sweet jammy filling, a vivid red icing base and scatterings of sprinkles, these sugary treats couldn't be further than the savoury snack. 

peter pizzeria, leicester.

A long overdue post about a fab Leicester blogger meet up at the newly opened Peter Pizzeria. Having sampled the Neapolitan delights of the Loughborough Peter Pizzeria, it was a great chance to see what the Leicester restaurant had to offer as well as meet up with some local lifestyle and food bloggers. 

midlands foodie meet up at peter pizzeria, loughborough.

after the fun foodie meet up at kayal last month, we naturally decided to arrange another. getting to talk about food for a good few hours and not being embarrassed to take pictures of each other's meals - what foodie wouldn't like that? so since last time the loughborough foodies came over to leicester, this time i made my way to loughborough to try the newly opened peter pizzeria on ashby square. there were a couple of new faces too - local baker louise who created the "something divine" chocolate dessert on the peter pizzera menu and chocolatier dan of loughborough's chocolate alchemy. 

zero degrees, reading.

so this weekend i went to go and see lucy rose at reading minster church, which was, well, a beautiful setting for a beautiful voice. well worth the drive down! plus one of my favourite things to do when i'm off to a new place is to do some in depth restaurant research before i go. this time i decided zero degrees was the place for me. as well as being just round the corner from the gig venue, i was won over by the interesting menu of delectable pizzas, pasta and mussel pots with locally sourced ingredients in the quirky setting of a microbrewery. 

i have to say, the food didn't disappoint either. mains i was swayed by were the mussels thermidore (with brandy, wine, mustard, cheddar cheese, cream and parsley), salmon and mascarpone pizza or lime and tequila chicken tagliatelle. i know, right?

we ended up choosing a porcini mushroom pizza with extra parma ham and bangers and mash. the pizza already came with porcini mushrooms, red onions, white wine and garlic sauce and smoked cheese and you had a choice of two flavours of sausage special that day. i have to say - i was pretty disappointed that you were told to ask your waiter or waitress what the sausages of the day were and ours didn't know. it's the little things, you know? she told us there was a mexican one and another beginning with c that she couldn't remember the name of. i promptly replied "cumberland." it was cumberland. :) 

anyway i suppose that's besides the point in the end because the sausage was gorgeous and flavoursome and the mash was creamy and well seasoned. i also liked that the parma ham on my pizza came in a proper slice and that the white wine and garlic was like a pizza base. i'm not sure how else i imagined it to come though to be honest - though it was a nice change to the standard tomato.

when we came to pay (which sadly took a while to come and we needed to go to the gig quick smart!) the bill had two clear totals. one was the total of our food and the other a +10% optional service charge. what was a shame for the end of the meal was that when the waitress put the figure in the card machine, she assumed the larger number and handed it back over to enter the pin. the service charge is optional afterall, so why the assumption and why not the anonymous card tipping thing like usual? so overall i guess the service could be a little improved - but if i'm ever in the area again that probably won't stop me going back to try one of their mussel pots.