Bubble tea colossus Chatime is venturing into the lucrative pizza business with this new outlet in Bangsar South's Nexus complex; it's the springboard for an imminent Tino's Pizza chain that serves what it considers to be Neapolitan-style pizza.
Baked at high temperatures of 500 °C for slightly more than a minute, Tino's pizzas showcase hand-tossed soft dough for a thick & filling bread-like base (not a crunchy thin crust). Tasty toppings like beef bacon, spinach & a sunny-side up (RM21.90 for this medium-sized, six-slice Fiorentina) help to make these recipes sufficiently satisfying.
We also like the Duck Caponata (RM25.90 for medium, RM38.90 for large), well-covered with roast duck, broccoli, capsicum & melted cheese. Everything tastes flavoursome & fairly fresh (for fast food), probably a notch above the large pizza corporations.
Lamb Abruzzo, with lamb, garlic, chilli flakes & mozzarella cheese (RM24.90 for medium). The pizzas are ready really fast, scarcely within 10 minutes of our order. But a customer's enjoyment of this might hinge on his/her tolerance for heavy crusts.
Oval-shaped pizzas are also available; we like the sweet-savoury four-cheese one made gooey with blue, parmesan, mozzarella & cheddar, drizzled with honey for the icing on this cake. RM19.90 (four slices).
Distinctive-looking 'Crustar' dessert pizzas are a speciality here too; this Matcha Mochi (RM16.90) comes with green tea powder, white rice cakes, red bean, crushed peanuts & mint leaves. Another possibility would be the Fruity Honey Pearl, which features apple, peach, kiwi fruit, cranberries & tapioca pearls.
Peanut butter alert! Among the sides, the top temptation is indisputably these fries, blanketed with peanut butter, beef bacon & chilli powder (RM9.90). The flavours blend well together in one addictive ensemble.
Other options: Pumpkin soup with dough slices (RM8.90), minestrone, fried jalapeno strips with passion fruit yoghurt dips, chicken wings with a 'Sicilian sauce' & more.
Beverages comprise a longer-than-expected list of lattes (vanilla, hazelnut, mocha, caramel), smoothies, fruit teas, soft drinks & of course, milk tea.
Tino's Pizza Express
Ground Floor, Nexus, Bangsar South, Kuala Lumpur. Next outlet possibly in Mid Valley
Open 10am-10pm, but last orders might be around 9:30pm. Tel: 03-2242-0580 for pick-up pre-orders
Stay up to date: The Eat Drink KL newsletter is sent by email to subscribers every Monday; it's the Klang Valley's foremost weekly round-up of new restaurant openings (even before they're featured on this blog), F&B promotions & other tasty tidbits.
Subscribe to Eat Drink KL Weekly for free via this following link:
Note to subscribers on Gmail: The newsletter will be in the Promotions folder of your inbox.
Sausages to sambal. Muffins to marshmallows. Peanut butter to mango chutney. Cornflake ice cream to honey aloe yogurt. Lavender-laced lemonades to lychee-&-guava juices.
Eat Drink KL: Small Businesses, Huge Flavours is the first eBook to help customers navigate the diversity of independent F&B entrepreneurs who bake & boil in their own kitchens, offering some of Malaysia's finest, most fascinating food products.
This is a catalogue of insights into what inspires our contemporary culinary craftspeople, from Elsie & her sister Jennifer's experiments with tong yuen at home to Eugene & Emrys' escapades with hand-crafted sodas in Tokyo.
This resource will be continuously updated with new listings, so bookmark the following permanent link & check back regularly to find out what's fresh: www.eatdrinkkl.publ.com/businesses
Also, take a look at the latest edition of Eat Drink KL: 100 Favourites, completely redesigned with a revamped look, featuring 100 recommended restaurants for April-June 2014, including more than 30 new entries for this quarter. This eBook is available to read or download at this link: http://eatdrinkkl.publ.com/Eat-Drink-KL-100-Favourites-Apr-Jun-2014 (Link expires June 30, 2014; see blog entries after that date for new link).
