Nairobi News

Did you know that the Italian restaurant on the second floor of Yaya is called Primi Piatti?

I usually just refer to it as the pizza place at the Food Loft. After my experience, I didn’t care much anyway.

Yaya Centre offers a decent range of eateries, from Java, Dormans and Alexandre on first floor, the Food Loft and Absolute Juice on second floor and Sierra on third.

This gives a discerning customer a chance to choose what they want to eat and not be too limited with their choice, from fast food to fine dining.

The Food Loft is divided into 3 restaurants – Dim Sum, for Chinese, Saffron, for Indian, and Primi Piatti, for Italian. It is meant to be a slightly upscale version of a food court, where the waiters do not necessarily attack you with their menus – a welcome change.

I have eaten at both Saffron and Dim Sum before, experiences which I recall as tasty, so in an attempt to widen my restaurant bank, I made a quick stop at Primi Piatti.

It is Italian, right, so when in Rome, order pizza, right?

I figured it would be hard to get that wrong. I was surprised to find that indeed, one can get it wrong.

My friend and I ordered a chicken pizza to share. We should have noticed from the onset that the possibility of a good meal was slim.

The menus at this place are falling apart and dirty; the print and design on them looks like a high school kid playing with Photoshop was hired to do them. In the service industry, presentation is everything – something that Primi Piatti does not understand.

When we order, though, we noticed that the toppings on the pizza were not particularly exciting – basically, just chicken, cheese, tomatoes and a bit of basil.

Nonetheless, we had faith in them – which we shouldn’t have. I wanted to have some freshly squeezed juice – which the pleasant waitress said that they had – but it had sugar in it.

I found this annoying – why would you put sugar in the freshly squeezed juice? Don’t people order freshly squeezed juice specifically because they are trying to avoid the sugar that comes from packaged juices?

I eventually had the mango juice, which was – of course – a tad too sweet.

The juice came quickly, which was gratifying, as did the food. The pizza portion was large, and our waitress was nice.

Not so the pizza.

There were countable pieces of chicken on the pizza – as if the running plan in the kitchen is to put one big chunk of chicken in the middle of each slice.

Thought the crust was thin nicely, it was not carrying much to be pleased about. And on top of that – it wasn’t very good, either.

We did look over at other tables, and their food (specifically, a salad) looked quite appealing. Maybe we ordered the wrong thing…but at an Italian restaurant, they should at least get the pizza right. No?

The pizza cost 800, and the juices were 200. They also offer wine and hot drinks, which hopefully, they do not add sugar to. I won’t be finding out because I won’t be going back.