サイゼリヤ (Saizeriya)

Saizeriya!
It's an Italian cuisine family restaurant. And it's extremely cheap, even compared to other family restaurants. You can find Saizeriya restaurants all over Japan.
I heard that Saizeriya started as a way to make delicious Italian dishes affordable for everyone. I certainly appreciate it!

Let's start with the appetizer we ordered - the mussels. To be honest, I'm not huge on shellfish. I don't think I've even eaten mussels before, so I'm not the best judge here. It's fine, but I wouldn't personally order it. It is slightly chewy. I had trouble getting one off of the shell. I liked the veggie salsa it came with!

I ordered one of the pastas for the first time. It's a bit hard to see from here, but it's a decent amount - bigger than I expected. It's al dente. The cheese is good. As you can see, it isn't a mountain of cheese like the menu suggests, but still enough. While I liked the pasta, it's very simple. The sauce is very plain and there's nothing besides the cheese. If you really want to eat some pasta, you'd probably enjoy it. Personally, since you can buy okay to-go pasta from the convenience store, this one isn't worth it. There are better things to order off the menu. I haven't tried the other pasta dishes though.

When I think of Saizeriya, I think of doria. I think it's one of their more popular items. The rice is just soft enough. The sauce on top is creamy and hearty. Like the pasta, there's not much going on with it though. You can buy additional toppings, but there aren't more ingredients for the rice. You can buy doria sauce at the grocery store and make it at home. However, unlike the pasta, that takes more effort. It's pretty cheap anyways, so it's worth getting. For a small amount of yen, you can get bread to eat it with.

Hamburg is Saizeriya's other big dish. If you don't know, "hamburg" refers to a dish like this, not a hamburger. It's somewhere between a burger patty and a Salisbury steak. There are different sides you can get with it. We didn't get it this time, but the sausage is pretty good, although a tad bit spicy.
The hamburg steak is good! It's juicy and tasty. I think it might be the food with the most flavour. I find it better than your average fast food burger! I'm not a big fan of the egg. It's too plain and thin, and cooked slightly too much for my taste. I like my yolks more runny. The potatoes are crispy. While I liked them, they are on the plain side. They go good with the sauce though. The shrimp is really good. The breading is crispy but the inside is soft. I don't usually like shrimp, but I liked these. You can get them as an appetizer, but the serving size is small. Overall a good option.

Now THIS is where it's at. The pizza is delicious. While not super gourmet, I think it has a lot more going on than the other dishes. The crust is thin and tasty, the cheese is great, and the sauce isn't too much or too little. It's great. But the best part is the anchovy sauce. Yes, that's right, the anchovies. It surprised me too! Anchovy on pizza was something that weirded me out as a kid. I don't think I had even eaten anchovies before I ate this pizza! I was hesitant to eat it the first time Yue ordered it. Now it's something I get every time. It's hearty but not "fishy." It is pretty oily though. I highly recommend it.

It's pretty good! Better than I expected. I ordered this instead of the pudding because, like the pasta, you can get a decent pudding for cheap at the store. The tiramisu is cool and refreshing. It isn't too sweet or strong. As you can see, it's a bit on the "wet" side. It doesn't have much structure. The cake base is very moist, or rather soaked. Although it's a bit on the small side, I really liked it. If you just want a sweet bite after dinner, it's satisfying.

It's a lot of alcohol for 1100 JPY, and it tastes about what you'd expect from a $10 wine. I liked it though. We had the white one before and this one is sweeter and less dry. It's enjoyable and goes down easy. It's not bad. If you can't stand cheap wines, you'd probably won't like it, but I think it's fine. It's really big, so unless you have a big group, expect to bring the bottle home.