Tucked away at one end of Sea View, in the Cineplex building, is a little new restaurant called Manhattan Pizzeria. For those of us who feel ravenously hungry after a trip to the beach or if you’re one for little munchies after the movies, this is just the place. No need to drive and park at another eating place, this one is right there and right on.
Though there are pictures of Manhattan, New York, yellow cabs, sportsmen, et al on the walls, the restaurant steers clear of any pretentious vibes; the service is friendly and quick, without any annoying obsequiousness.
The menu is small and straightforward, so what-you-see is what-you-get —basically a collection of popular flavours from urban American cuisine. A few appetisers, a couple of soup options, some sandwiches, pasta, and pizza which has a signature light dough. The topping of my pepperoni pizza could have done with a little more pepperoni and less cheese but that is an individual thing. For fusspots, there is an option to do your own toppings and create your own pizza as well.
For a light meal, you can choose from the Tom Yum soup or Tomato Basil which comes with a delightful feta cheese topping and is served with garlic bread. The Quesadilla, served with spicy salsa and sour cream, are way too many on a plate for it to be labelled a starter and for a health conscious person, this particular starter could be a main dish quite easily.
It wasn’t the very filling fajita sandwich-cum-wrap or the many dessert options including cheesecake, carrot cake, brownie or chocolate cakes that I went back for. What took me back to the pizzeria was a rather (pun intended) tender issue — the simple yet sensational Cajun Chicken Tenders.
Served as a starter, the six pieces of chicken tenderloin strips gently marinated in Cajun spices, coated and breaded perfectly and served with honey mustard sauce, are totally satisfying as a main item.
How they get those chicken tenders to be so non-greasy, so crunchy on the outside and so juicy, yet tender and delicately spiced on the inside remains a mystery to me. It is usually so easy to overcook this delicate strip, turning it into just another piece of greasy, chewy, tasteless piece of chicken that you can plate up as a nugget, but Manhattan Pizzeria seems to have mastered the skill to make them melt in your mouth. Dipped in honey mustard sauce, each bite is to be savoured. The combination of sinful mayonnaise and guilt-free mustard perfectly sets off the Cajun factor in the chicken tenders.
The magic of Cajun lies in the freshness of the salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, sweet basil and thyme that you use and of course, in crucially correct amounts so that it neither burns, nor is bland, but just enhances the fried chicken flavour.
I don’t know of any other place where the salad bar would be fresh at 11:00 in the night but at the pizzeria, we heaped our bowl with crisp lettuce, crunchy cucumber and julienne of carrots, fresh veggies, chunks of pineapple, sweet corn (soft and juicy as opposed to the hard, raw and chewy varieties that I have suffered at many salad bars), tangy potato salad and an intriguing variety of pasta salads.
The restaurant is spread on two spacious floors, plus an open air roof terrace that provides a superb view of Sea and the best sea breeze Karachiites can boast of.