Monte Cristo - Pizzeria Ristorante.
125 Henry St. Church, Accrington BB5 4EP
(01254)238400
I like food, I hate cooking, so, when I was invited out for a meal at the
Monte Cristo PIZZERIA RISTORANTE by my son Roy & his Lady friend Nastya I jumped at the chance. However I soon found that there was an ulterior motive & this is it.
"While we are here Dad what if we did a review of this place for the accy web site?". I was at the time just taking my first bite into our starter which we decided to share (an excellent FOCACCIA PICANTE (this is a garlic pizza bread topped with spicy salami, tomato & chilli, Roy interrupts at this point of my writing to remind me that it was with EXTRA chilli!) it did however make an excellent starter though it would have been better shared by two rather than three, (thus leading me to the conclusion I was the gooseberry).
Well, if we are going to do a review of this place it would be best to start at the moment we first arrived, as it happens we were booked in for six o'clock on the 30th of October only 2 days after their long awaited opening. We were given a friendly welcome by All the members of staff that we saw & were shown to a table of our choice (no doubt a privilege that would not be available during busier times), immediately we were put at our ease by the pleasant enquiries of the waiter wishing to know if we will take advantage of the bar during the time we are choosing our meals.
We immediately took up this offer & after three rounds during which time although being attentive we were never hurried & we had finally decided on the starter, which has been mentioned above. In the background a variety of music was being played & it changed from light classical to instrumental versions of recent pop songs (pleasant enough if one likes eating in a lift).
I suppose the décor of the place aught to be mentioned at this point & I have to say that although there was nothing that inspired any original thought the atmosphere gave a pleasant, light & friendly feeling. ("Nice picture on the wall", says Roy, "but it will be better when they fill the eyes in."
.
The Main Course.
To be fair to the restaurant & also because if you put us in a bag & shook us up from now to doomsday we wouldnt agree on anything we decided to have a different meal each. I wasnt paying so therefore I had BISTECCA DOLCELATE (official description Sirloin Steak with blue cheese in a cream sauce), my description "what a bloody good meal!".
Roy had, PIZZA CALZONE (folded pizza with cheese, tomato, ham, salami & mushroom). It was difficult to get a comment from him at the time as nature takes over when he is eating & for safety's sake we pretended he was with some-one else.
Nastya took advantage of the situation by ordering something that she couldnt have at home due to the fact that Roy cant stand fish & had HALIBUT STEAK (Served on a bed of spinach with garlic & white wine sauce). Which served with vegetables as against French Fries (sorry, I mean chips). Not a scrap left on her plate.
FINAL COURSES
Nastya & myself, we were full satisfied, content. But old piggy had chocolate fudge-cake with ice cream, then because it had alcohol, I joined Roy in a Gaelic Coffee to finish the Evening.
During the course of our meal the place became quite busy, but it could be witnessed that every-one was treated to the same quality of attention as when we first walked in.
IN CONCLUSION
As I have already stated I do
not like Cooking but I do like eating I would not have any problem with the thought of going back to this Restaurant & working my way through the Menu.
P.S. as this is a review & not an advert I have not mentioned the prices of the meals we had, I found them to be reasonable (I didn't pay the bill Roy did!).