It's one of those places we take for granted I think. We don't stop enough to look at the buildings, to appreciate the cobbled streets, and to walk away from the shops and instead look at what else there is to offer.
With the help of Google Maps we typed in Zizzi and walked from the main shopping centre to the restaurant. I felt a bit silly because although having visited Zizzi Norwich many times before, I didn't realise just how easy it was to walk there from the shopping centre!
Within 10 minutes we were stood outside, admiring the surrounding buildings and entrance to the Cathedral grounds.
I am a bit of a snobby one when it comes to keeping buildings looking pretty and taking care of them and there is no doubt that the surrounding businesses in this area take that seriously too.
It's so clean, tidy, and small details like window boxes make you forget that you are a short walk from a busy city centre.
Zizzi Norwich is full of beautiful characteristics. There is the most beautiful tiled floor (which you can see in one of the photos from our review of the Spring menu last year), a tree with fairy lights around it, beautiful wooden pastel chairs, a mix of wooden and steel tables.
I love being able to watch the chefs at work and to see that they are passionately cooking your food fresh as you wait (Check out Hayley's post from October last year, she took some fabulous photos of the chefs at work)
We ordered a glass of Prosecco each, to celebrate and clink to my mums birthday, and had a look at the menu. Usually when I visit restaurants I don't take too much notice at the new items, and I think Zizzi is the only place where I actually search out the new additions straight away.
I'd already decided that the Polpette Gigante, a giant beef & pork meatball in a rich chilli
pomodoro sauce, topped with melted smoky scamorza cheese, grated Grana
Padano, roast chilli & fresh oregano, was a must try.
I wanted my mum to try it too so we ordered that to share, along with a Zizzi Antipasti, Prosciutto, speck, coppa, finocchiona, bufala mozzarella, slow roasted tomatoes, olives & dough
sticks, which in my opinion should ordered by every table in the restaurant as a starter....it should be the law!
Well, as usual the antipasti didn't disappoint and the slow roasted tomatoes were definitely the highlight of the platter. They were so delicious and full of flavour, I don't think I have ever had tomatoes that tasted so amazing.
The meatball....oh the meatball. I have never ever EVER tasted a meatball so delicious, so full of flavour, or that I didn't want to ever come to the end of eating EVER. You know what they say about the Ikea meatballs tasting so good? Forget that, you need to try the Polpette Gigante...Ikea meatballs who?!
I have to admit, after having the first taste of the Polpette Gigante I was a bit disappointed to have to share it with my mum (sorry mum, I bet you felt the same though!).
I mentioned before that the thought of not having a tomato base would maybe put me off or make me not order a pizza because I would assume there was something missing. However, the sunblush tomatoes make up for the lack of tomatoes in the base. And I think that also, having that missing from the base, brings out the flavours in all the other toppings too.
The sauce looked beautiful, and had enough kick in the chicken to give the dish a lot of flavour. In fact, looking at the photo now makes me want to go back and try it!
As someone who loves toffee and caramel, she couldn't have been any more excited by the small bowl of toffee sauce to drizzle over the calzone.
We finished our meal with a few glasses of water (me, and the offer of an Alka Seltzer from the manager...which I thought was super sweet!) and my mum went for a cappuccino. Look at how amazing the glasses are. When it comes to coffee I think it is still important for a restaurant to serve these in a "wow" way, rather than a standard heres-a-mug-of-coffee. If you want to steal the glasses, you know they've done something right (we didn't steal the glass).
