A good excuse to eat out on a Monday night

There's an online offer at the moment at handbag.com where you can get 2 main meals for the price of 1 at Zizzi. I was due to meet up with my friend Lisa in London after work and thought it'd be the perfect excuse to suggest going for a bite to eat, rather than a quick drink like we usually do.

I'd never been to the Zizzi in Victoria before (proved by the fact that I tried to open a locked side door to get into the place, rather than the main double doors) but it's one of my favourite restaurants so I was looking forward to a nice meal.

I kept getting distracted by one of the 'specials' whilst we were looking at our menus, because it was a steak, which I'd never come across at Zizzi before. (And because I do love the ol' beefsteak) It didn't seem fair to choose something too much more expensive than Lisa's choice though since we were splitting the bill and forced myself to look at other options! I was a bit put off anyway, as it came with a mushroom sauce, which seemed a bit odd to me. Apologies to Lisa as she is a mushroom fanatic. I like mushrooms as much as the next person, but I didn't like the sound of that sauce on my steak!

I was intrigued to try a rigatoni dish, just to see what this type of pasta was like, as I've never heard of it before. The waitress described it as long and thin but they were actually rather large and thick - look at how gigantic they are!

Rigatoni Con Pollo e Funghi

It was quite messy to eat because there was so much sauce and I didn't feel very lady-like, hurriedly stopping every now and again to stop it dripping onto my chin. The chicken was yummy though, not dry at all. I realised afterwards that I'd been given a spoon to eat my mains with, which probably would have saved me alot of tomato drippage but never mind.

Of course, a Zizzi meal is never complete without a Mela Croccante - as a rule, I try to avoid ordering the same thing in restaurants as I like to try out different dishes - but Zizzi is an exception!

When I went to Prezzo's once (who also offer this dessert), I decided not to go with my 'safe' option and got a cheesecake:

It was lovely but it didn't give me that deliciously satisfying feeling that the apple crumble does - I regretted not ordering it!

In this case, I was a little disappointed with the Mela Croccante as it turned out to be extremely dry, to the point where I was unable to finish it (and I do not like to waste my food!). I didn't ask for the cream or ice-cream but it's what I usually do when I order this and it's always been fine on its own. So I was quite gutted that I didn't experience that warm feeling in my stomach afterwards of a good crumble.

Well, I've had my ups and downs with Zizzi but nothing so bad yet that will stop me from going there!