Smokin' Joe's, Prabhadevi, Mumbai

I am a shameless foodie. I am big-boned (a polite way of saying 'Fat and not able to do much about it') and I love food. I only diet between my meal times. And I can put on calories just by looking at delicious stuff. But who cares, I love good food and I love good pizzas :D My sister warned me, 'do not make your food blog a veritable who's who of pizza places' and she is not wrong! If I had my way,all that I would be posting about everyday would be pizzas from different places :D Actually,more than me, it is my office colleagues who looooooooove pizza and we have that a lot in office. So even though just about till a couple of years back,I was not at all a pizza fan *Gasp*, today I have it at least 4 times a week! And I am not a purist, for me taste is what matters, even if it is modified, even if it is contemporarized, if it is desified. Whatever! It works on my palette, it works!

Though my favorite pizza place right now is Pizza Express, I am totally fine with having pizzas from Domino's or Pizza Hut or anywhere else,really. Food should be like language, free flowing, modifying from time to time, picking up local flavors, taking up a new shape at every new turn. I am cool with gourmet stuff,sure, but cheesy gooey goodness is fine too, even if there is no (as a colleague of mine puts it) 'finesse of taste' (whatever that is supposed to mean :P)

One of my earliest favorites is Smokin' Joe's. I was introduced to this place in college by an ardent co-foodie. He had a pizza for lunch almost everyday (and STILL managed to look like Thor, without the hammer, ofcourse! *Perplexed*). So while still in college, I started ordering from Smokin' Joe's Prabhadevi outlet once or twice a month and even my mom & sister loved it. I think it is because they don't make the regular 'standard' pizzas. They incorporate some local flavors, and I personally love how they always give brilliant quantity of toppings! I hate it when I have a 10 inch pizza with literally 4 slices of tomatoes thinly spread on a big river of cheese. I love my veggies,even doused in cheese. I want to be enveloped in cheesy gooey magic but I also want to taste ample amount of bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, corn, olives. I can always do so with Smokin' Joe's pizzas. They are fresh, flavorful and quite easy on pocket too. More than the pizzas, my mom (she really does not like Italian cuisine) loved their 'pizza sandwiches' which is basically a baked bread with different combination of veggies,mayo,paneer in various sauces stuffed in like a salad. So think of it as a subway but a little less messier or maybe a pita pocket with loads of delicious stuff threatening to spill out :D In any case, absolutely lip-smacking and addictive. 

Then we got out of college, got busy and slowly, we stopped ordering pizzas. But today,we needed a quick, delicious snack and I realized, 'Hey,it has been years since we had a pizza from Smokin' Joe's'! So there we ordered from their Prabhadevi branch once more. I remember their Tandoori Paneer, Sweet n Spicy Veggies, Supreme Veggies pizzas, all of them yumm. Today,I chose Smokies 5 with 5 toppings of my choice- American Corn, Mushrooms, Spinach, Onions and Capsicum along with Paneer Tikka variant of pizza sandwich. 

As always, it was delivered within 40 minutes (estimated time being 45 minutes), absolutely fresh, pizza base being thin & crispy as per my liking, paneer tikka being as spicy as it should be (just the way my mom loves it) and the smokies 5 pizza itself was perfect without even using any seasoning on top! Spinach was boiled and then baked (I think) and you have to taste it to know that it might sound unappetizing but it tasted great :) Ample toppings as always, brilliant and tasty as always. Spent just about Rs. 700 for a very filling evening snack between 3 hungry people and none of us feel drowsy :D Rekindled my earliest memories and they are as delicious as always :) ♥♥♥♥