REMEMBER the old days when you would phone for a home delivery?
It was a tedious saga – the interminable wait for someone to answer the phone, the garbled response when they did (it always sounded like you were calling Djibouti via a Russian satellite), the nervous wait to see if the driver would arrive, scrounging about for cash and wondering how much to tip.
Then finally it would arrive stone cold, an hour late – delivered by some guy who looked like an extra from Chopper.
The choice was very limited back then too – basically pizza, curry or Chinese. It’s a whole new world these days with a myriad of cuisine available from the swipe of a phone with no human interaction.
I’ll let social anthropologists debate whether that is ultimately good or bad for humankind, but it’s certainly convenient and means more sophisticated dishes can be delivered to your door.
The caveat – seafood is nigh on impossible to home-deliver as it can be perfect when it leaves the kitchen, but it continues to cook via the heat of the insulated container and is like rubber when it reaches your door.
But on Thursday night, Ciao Italia Express surprised me.
Their seafood risotto ($27.50) had a mouth-watering bevy of seafood that was bang on the money.
The tail-on prawns were juicy and packed with flavour, the mussels were tasty and super fresh, the calamari tender and the fish moist.
It was a good serve too – often restaurants can be miserly with seafood as it’s expensive to buy (especially when doing a home-delivery).
The risotto had the perfect gloopy consistency and tasted delicious when combined with the prawns and squid.
The only slight disappointment was the tomato sauce – I would have liked it a bit thicker and a tad creamier – but it was listed as tomato sugo, so I can’t really complain.
Across the table my wife “Special K” was devouring another Italian classic – Scaloppine ai Funghi ($29.50).
Delivered in a huge tinfoil container, there was a monster serve of pork fillet medallions covered in mushrooms, white wine and cream.
“The sauce is killer – an indulgent number that is the perfect creamy foil to those strong mushrooms,” my wife noted.
“The medallions are delicious and have been perfectly cooked, with the pork nice and tender.
“It’s a great dish and perfect for autumn as the colder nights come in.”
We couldn’t go Italian without getting a pizza, so the kids tucked into a classic Margherita (large $13).
It was super thin and super crispy with a sprinkling of fresh basil.
They hadn’t skimped on the mozzarella and it was a cheesy affair that had my kids gulping down water.
I had a sneaky taste and it was nice, but a tad oily from the plentiful mozzarella.
The menu had a good range of options and was divided into meat, chicken, seafood, pizza, sides and desserts.
There was also a huge range of pasta and you could choose what kind you wanted and what sauce, including the intriguing “vodka
“ (bacon, vodka, fresh tomato, spring onions, tomato sugo, cream).
Our two mains were spot on and I’ll definitely try some of their more sophisticated dishes in the future.
However, call me nostalgic, but I did miss my old-school chats with the unhinged delivery guy, and the mushroom cloud of diesel his decrepit Toyota Corolla left in the street.
Ciao Italia Myaree
17a/1-7 Marshall Rd
Myaree
ciaoitaliaexpress.com.au
by STEPHEN POLLOCK