Lift’s go to guy for restaurant reviews, Tang Khyhay, puts on his eating hat and head to Kampuchea Krom Boulevard, where Phnom Penh’s newest pizza parlour opened last week. It took some time to be served, but our expert eater walked away pleased

Which restaurants do you think of when you think of pizza? The Pizza Company and Pizza World are perhaps the top two you would choose to go when you are hungry, but there are many others in Phnom Penh. Indeed, there are some new pizza houses on the scene, ready to attract curious customers.

Located at Number 457 Kampuchea Krom Boulevard, Napoli Pizza welcomes its customers with large parking lot. It is the name and the design of the shop that caught my attention and I decided to get a taste of this newcomer. My friends and I happened to go on the grand opening evening. There was a large crowd of young people ready to try what delights Napoli had to offer.

With red and white furniture and decoration and a red rose on every table, the style is similar to The Pizza Company. Waiters and waitresses in black and white uniforms were busy walking back and forth serving the hungry pizza lovers. The restaurant was buzzing with people chitchatting which overlapped with the soft music playing in the background. Luckily, we found a spare table next to the window where we could enjoy a view of outside while eating.

Scanning the double-page menu, we wanted to taste a variety of what was on offer, so we decided to order two medium-size pizzas and a jug of coke. My friends quickly selected the Seafood Pizza and I ordered the Canadian Pizza. It took us around 40 minutes to get the Seafood Pizza and the Canadian never came. One of the waitresses told us that they could not make us any more pizzas because there were too many orders at that time. They had a hard time baking.

The six-slice pizza looked good and tasty. Shrimps, green pepper, crab stick, onion were well-mixed with sticky cheese on a pan crust. The smells of pizza hit our nose and excited our eager stomachs. We hurriedly ate all the pieces. It was a bit bland, but adding chili sauce increased its flavour. However, we all agreed that the crust of pizza was thick. It should have been thinner, especially the outer crust.

We hope to have diverse types of pizza crust, such as the sausage cheese bites and the crispy one. Unfortunately, Napoli Pizza does not available for those choices. And we feel that waiting for more than half an hour for a pizza is certainly too long and everything was just a bit messed up. We got three wrong bills and there were still more customers waiting while we left. However, we forgave them as it was their opening night and the staff were new.    

With simple pizza crust, acceptable taste and slightly lower price than other restaurant, this newly-opened restaurant can be a great place to meet your friends. We found the sofas were comfortable. We do hope the staff will be better-trained and the serving time will be shorter than we experienced.