An Autograph of TSC Signature

WITH A GROWING and lively food scene in Riyadh, it's best for establishments to make their brands stand out in any way possible. Meet TSC Signature, the full dine-in restaurant of the popular "The Sandwich Company" shops, ergo the "TSC", which has been bubbling with great reviews lately. I was lucky enough to get a treat from one of my friends to come and eat here and I've already seen people talking about it on Foursquare that I simply ought to try it. 

First off, I will apologize for not taking any photos of the interiors of the place because it's a shame that I didn't because the place was pristine! The whole set-up of the restaurant spoke to me...It wasn't a huge space but it appeared that every inch was utilized efficiently and decorated attractively. Upon entering, you will be welcomed by a lush, white seating for waiting guests and inside, you will find dining booths that are aligned along the glass windows that served as a frame for a beautiful garden landscape situated just outside. Open seating was also available.

It would appear that TSC Signature was a fancy, expensive place to eat in, but in fact, it was really quite affordable for a casual dining restaurant. We gazed over the menu and found ourselves less worried. :P They primarily offered burgers, pizzas and pastas (Italian-inspired mostly) and it was a good thing that we hadn't had anything to eat hours before so we were ready to gorge in. 

First up, on the appetizers...our friend J is a big French Fries Addict. I mean, she can definitely survive on planet Earth if fries were the only thing left to eat. So when we saw the Fries Lovers item on the menu, I knew she would definitely order it. 

For the French Fry Lover

The selection is made of regular fries, curly fries, sweet potato fries and potato wedges. I liked the sweet potato fries the best and it's good for sharing. Good thing even though J is a French Fries Addict, she doesn't mind sharing. :P (Love yah moight!) 

Our generous benefactor of the night was G, who ordered an appetizer platter that came in an interesting kind of serving plate that was black and felt like it was made of wood. We would later find out that the rest of the main dishes were served on that same plate. 

Chicken Platter

Unfortunately, I found the chicken on this platter dry and a bit hard. Especially the skewered ones. So it was only the jalapeno cheese that we ended up enjoying. I'm not too sold on this one. 

Meanwhile, I am a big fan of rocket leaves / arugula / gerger and a year ago in our trip to Maldives, I fell in love with figs. So when I saw that they had a Fig (+Arugula) Salad, my heart skipped a beat and it was my first, definite choice. 

Fig Salad

It was tasty and the flavors went well together, but I guess it was too much for just one person to eat all by himself. Too bad my companions weren't a big fan of veggies so there was a lot of arugula left to ignore. In times like these, it's safe to say that one order of this salad is good for sharing. I did eat all the figs tho....it's a rare find! (At least for me). 

We also wanted to try one of their soups so we had the Seafood Chowder. It looked very classy and was also very sumptuous. It was the right kind of creamy with enough varied seafoods like scallops, fish, shrimp and even a big piece of mussel. This dish deserved a thumbs up!

Very, very delicious chowder.

You would think those appetizers alone should have had us filled already...and we were. But in true Filipino foodtrippin' style, we still orders some main course (and dessert!). We couldn't let the treat of our good friend, G go to waste... :P I'm just teasing. Of course we had to try their signature items! 

Pesto Burger

From their long list of seemingly delicious burgers (I was torn between the one with avocado and the one with portobello mushrooms and this one!) I ended up ordering their Pesto Burger with mozzarella and parmesan cheese topped with sun-dried tomatoes and, you guessed it, a handful of arugula. The waiter helped me decide among my choices and it was a real winner! I think this burger was only 35-38SR and it was definitely, definitely great value for my money (well, my friend's money..haha). Every bite was lip-smacking...the richness of the cheese and the subtle sharpness of the pesto went perfectly with the meat. The sun-dried tomato gave it the right amount of tang and the arugula gave it a crunchy texture -- Howaw! It was a party in my mouth! (Do I still need to give a two thumbs up for this, or did my manner of describing it told you I loved it already?)

Blackberry Burger

We had high hopes for this burger. It was novel. It sounded quirky. But as intriguing as the name was, it felt a bit lacking if stacked against the flavor standards already set by the pesto burger. The sauce just didn't have that much of a "punch" to add to the burger. I mean, what could this sauce do for me that ketchup wouldn't do? That was the honest thought in my mind. Other than giving it a fruity aftertaste, my verdict on this Blackberry Burger is just Oh-kay. Nice try. :)

Their version of Chicken Carbonara

G ordered pasta to detour from our burger choices and it was another delicious choice. Creamy and tasty with fresh mushrooms (you could tell). Plus it was hefty and good for sharing. Will recommend. :) 

Other popular items on their menu was their Signature Burger and their Tenderloin Steak (which I believe Sundrenched has already tried). 

To round off the evening, along with a free serving of tea (they have this promo on Foursquare when you check-in, you get free tea/coffee) was their version of a Chocolate Fondant. Nothing too special on my book (as you know I am a Chocolate Fondant aficionado) but it was enough to end the night on a sweet note. 

Service was really good by the way, thanks to an almost all-Filipino staff, if I am not mistaken. Top scores for ambience and decor. Total wallet damage for all that we had? Less than 300SR. There were three of us so I would say that's not bad. If you ask me if I'll be going back there, my answer would be a definitive, YES. And I can sign in on that. ;)

You can find TSC Signature along Abdullah Al Hamdan St. (adjacent to Tahlia St.). It is across Ketchup and Munch Bakery (if you know that area). If not, check out their location on Foursquare and make sure to check out their Facebook and Instagram page. 

Happy food trip!

xoxo,

Eyecandy

Facebook: http://facebook.com/TSC-signature

Twitter: @tsc_signature

Instagram: @tsc_signature

Tel: 011-293-9693

A Pleasant Piatto

Piatto, a restaurant formerly known as Duo, is making waves across the Riyadh cityscape with its reinvented concept of particularly fresh Italian dining. A brighter and better ambiance welcomes you as they zone in on the trademark traits of Italy with fountains, a vespa display and an outdoor dining setting that will somehow make you forget that you are in fact, in Saudi Arabia.

Buongiorno! Welcome to Piatto!

Since its revamp more than a year ago, Piatto has experienced not mild, not fair, but a great amount of success with their customers. This is proven not just in the numbers tabulated by their annual gross sales, but by the continuous flocking of guests to their restaurant even though it is around 30 minutes away from the city center. Customers are also willing to wait to be seated even during evening time just to be able to dine there. (Yes, I've seen it happen before when I went there for my birthday dinner with the family and upon leaving, I saw the waiting room packed!) So what is it with Piatto? :) Read on to find out.

Here's a rundown of what our palates enjoyed that day. Be warned though, may cause excessive salivating (as our pictures always do):

Bruschetta Trio, 48SR

To begin with, expect a close-to-authentic Italian cuisine when headed to Piatto. It's a bit on the other end of the spectrum than that of the Asian palette so, don't be surprised if you don't encounter the usual sweet or spicy flair of Asian food. Featured above is one of their hefty starters and a good choice if you want to taste a lil' bit of everything. The three are topped with Pomodoro (tomato+basil+olive oil aka "tomato" in Italian), Warm Goat Cheese+Chive and Wild Mushroom with Eggplant. I particularly enjoyed the Wild Mushroom and Eggplant Bruschetta because it had the most flavor of them all.

Warm Artichoke Spinach Dip, 44SR

In fairness to this one, they did serve it "warm" as the name implies. I liked how the spinach didn't overpower the rest of the flavors and this one actually lets you distinguish the artichoke for what it is. Sometimes, this particular dish is often mistaken to be made of purely made of cheese because other restaurants capitalize on that aspect of the recipe rather than the artichoke itself. (Oooh, am I starting to speak like a judge on Food Network's Chopped? Hahaha, jk) It was a well-balanced recipe and this, I will definitely order again. 

Greens+Tomatoes with Cesar Salad Dressing

A Fusion of Organic, All Natural Food

Fresh. Natural. Earth-friendly. Does pizza come to mind upon reading these words? No? Well, it better be now that Pizza Fusion has reached the sandy dunes of Riyadh!

If you've been reading The Pink Tarha, you'll know that I'm all for any thing organic but I mostly use organic stuff for bath and beauty rituals. I'm not into organic food, believing that they're bland, flavorless, and pretty much boring. Pizza Fusion taught me that hey, organic food is good! Pizza Fusion impressed The Pink Tarha so much that Sampaguita Pride braved the noon heat just to eat their pizza, then she and Eyecandy waited out more than the salah minutes under the sun, and E and I, while passing a popular pizza brand branch exclaimed "Goodbye D!" ... at the same time! (Wave length much?) You can't hear our exclamations but better believe that this is it! :P

First, what is organic food? Basically, it's the basics. These are fruits, vegetables, poultry and meat that were produced and raised without pesticides and other chemical fertilizers. They're not genetically modified (wow, that is one scary adjective when used on food!). Organic food is better because it does not contain harmful ingredients and bringing these products about does not harm the environment. They also contain more nutrients - delicious benefits, yum! Pizza Fusion offers just that: freshest veggies, tastiest 100% certified organic tomato sauce, juiciest meats, and crispiest hand-stretched all-natural dough.

Pizza Fusion deserves Eyecandy's unbelievable, sometimes obscene (LOL) amazing vocabulary in describing food but she's currently on vacation so you might have to pardon my use of less stellar (er, more prim and proper) words. So... let's start!

Flatbread and dips (marinara and olive tapenade), free

Looks boring? It tastes better! This flatbread is warm, light, and crispy and it goes well with the dips made from fresh tomatoes and olives. We love how simple yet tasty this is. Kulang na lang cheese, pwede na s'yang maging pizza! When we first ate this, we chowed 'em down like crazy. By the time the other dishes came out, we were semi-full.

Mini Meatball Sliders, SR20

Homemade mini meatballs topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella, served on toasty bread. Another winning combination that made us full! The meatballs are tender and savory and the bread is crunchy. Appetizers pa lang, busog na kami!

Chicken Carbonara, SR34

Grilled chicken, cream, parmesan cheese, and fettuccini pasta.   

This pasta is love! It's creamy and scrumptious. The white sauce weaves in and out the al dente pasta making every forkful simply divine! Pizza Fusion uses free-range chicken for their dishes and pizza. What is free range? I have no time to explain but in short, the chickens were raised having fun outdoors. Lol. They were not, uh, abused and imprisoned in fenced areas. So, we're prolly eating "happy" chickens. :P Read more about "free range poultry" here.
 

Large pizza, double flavors

We ordered their 746x24cm pizza good for 2-3 persons and chose 2 flavors: the four cheese&sundried tomato and the BBQ chicken. We further personalized the latter by adding bacon and pineapple. 

Four cheese and sundried tomatoes

We did not enjoy the four cheese as much as we enjoyed the BBQ chicken. The former was a little bit too salty for our taste. The latter is the clear winner because of the various flavors playing in our mouth. And true enough, the onions, herbs, and pineapple in our pizza were fresh and delicious! The bacon had a lot of flavor. Their meats are hormone-free! Okay, we did not totally got that at first (thought the cows were menopausal) but research tells us that the cows were raised without steroids added growth hormones and antibiotics so they're like all natural.

By the way, their pizzas are not round!

Family Pizza

On a separate occasion, we ordered the Philly Steak and we were surprised on how big the steak shreds were! It's topped with roasted bell peppers, roasted onions, parsley, tomato sauce, mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, and gorgonzola. Obviously, they are not kuripot with the ingredients! It's full to the edge! We enjoyed the full-flavored meat! 

Try their Big Kahuna pizza also. It's filled with bacon and pineapple. Salty, sweet, and sour... you won't know what hit you (in a good way)! 

Personal pizza, from SR18-25

Pizza Fusion has cocktails to wash down all the food wolfed down. We tried two of their own concoctions and their iced tea (a staple in all restos). They were delicious and refreshing. Perfect for the summer heat of Riyadh!

Banana Berry Shake

Apple Fusion Sangria

Iced tea with crushed ice and froth

But it's this drink that totally got me speechless:

All natural soda

Have you tried Coke Cherry? This is not like it. Coke Cherry tasted like cough syrup (at least for me). Boylan's Black Cherry Natural Soda is something I really, really appreciated. When I sipped this, it tasted like the usual cola with a wallop of cherry flavor bursting in my mouth. It didn't taste like cough syrup or anything "artificial." It tasted like maraschino cherries dripping with syrup. But this time, the sweetener used is cane sugar. I love it! And the bottle looks so retro and vintage that Eyecandy started collecting them. I wish I have a stack of Boylan's natural sodas at home but they're expensive at SR8 a piece. Available flavors include cane cola, creme vanilla, root beer, and ginger ale.

If organic tastes this good then can we request every restaurant to turn organic? Pizza Fusion's motto is saving the earth, one pizza at a time. We don't know about saving the world but this pizza place sure did save us from commercial pizza brands that we're tired of. Try it! I think they're still offering their 25% off on all dine-in and take-out orders. Their delivery service will start next month. :)

Pizza Fusion
Thalateen St., Olaya
Riyadh, KSA
01-4633329
Also in Jeddah:
Al-Rawda (02-2616933)
King Road (02-6050698)
Palestine St. (01-2614033)

§undrenched

When in Roma, Eat!

We're back to bringing you photos of food! Did you miss these? We're sure you've stumbled upon dining places and hole-in-the-wall snack bars during the Eid vacation. We did too but we still have a backlog on restaurants we have gone to before Ramadan.

If you ask us where the best Italian restaurant in Riyadh is, we cannot give you a solid answer because we haven't been to many. As a matter of fact, we only have been to one (as far as Sundrenched remembers). But that one restaurant made a really huge impact in our taste buds.

The entrance to authentic Italian cuisine

Pizza Roma is a quaint restaurant across the corner of Localizer Mall and Tahalia Street. If you're just cruising in Tahalia, you'll miss it. You need to turn left on the street running perpendicular to Localizer. Okay, that's not a good way to put it. It's on the ground floor of a SMILE Dental Clinic (the SMILE sign is hard to miss) and near Roma Cafe and Ketchup. Hope that helps further.

Anyway, the place serves pizzas and pastas that are so simple yet so delicious. The authentic taste of the dishes hit the right spots. It's comfort food in an upscale ambiance.

The elegant setting

Free appetizers

2 Flavored Pizza: Pizza Salmone E Gamberi (mozzarella with shrimp and smoked salmon) and Pizza Quattro Formaggi (pizza with four kinds of cheeses)

A dish of 3 pastas: Ravioli di Ricotta (stuffed ravioli with ricotta cheese and tomato sauce), Fettuccine Mare E Monti (fettuccine with shrimp and mushroom cream sauce), and Penne Alla Arrabbiata (penne with garlic and spicy tomato sauce).

Banana split

We are not gonna try to encapsulate the overall taste of everything you see here with lengthy sentences. All we can say is they're delicious and we enjoyed all of them. Even if the presentation and plating are boring, the food delivers! We finished everything, down to the last creamy drop of pasta sauce!

The dining spaces in Pizza Roma are small and the tables are cramped but they have a beautiful bathroom. Lol. Actually, they have a beautiful, elegant ambiance.

If you're craving for Italian cuisine, visit Roma... Pizza Roma!

44 Pizzas and a Lasagna

Nope, we did not eat 44 pizzas to make up for the recent lack of food posts. The post on Zyng Asian Grill Resto made up for it, yes? :)

We are fond of pizzas. We've tasted pizzas from every pizza-churning shop in our area - Domino's, Pizza Inn, Little Caesars, Pizza Company, Papa John's, etc. - except for one. Four T Four. What 44? Yeah, with a name like that... who would have thought it's a pizza parlor?

Because we're such curious eaters, we decided to try their pizza. Four T Four is located in Thalateen Street just across Citymax. Like most pizza chains, they offer the combo of two pizzas plus drinks and an extra item.

Gluttony entices next:

2 medium-sized pizzas (thin crust) + Pepsi + small tub of coleslaw = SR55

Seafood pizza.

Hawaiian pizza.

Lasagna with garlic bread, SR 27 (large)

Hmn, we were not that impressed. My picky eater of a brother was complaining on how salty and rather sour this pizza tastes. That's his impression on the first bite... down to the last... up until he's stealing spoonful of pasta from my lasagna. Still salty and rather sour. I agree but despite the sour pizza sauce used, I enjoyed the saltiness of the special gooey cheese mix they used on their pizzas and lasagna. They're generous on the cheese! That for me is love already.

They offer eight pizza flavors: vegetarian, margarita, seafood, meat lovers, pizza deluxe, pepperoni, chicken, and hawaiian. The small size goes for SR22, medium SR32, and large is 48. They also have sandwiches (beef steak, cheese mix, deluxe, and grilled chicken) for SR22 served with fries and a drink. A bunch of side orders (garlic bread, salad bar, potato wedges, and fries) is available for the super hungry. They only have a bachelor section but you can always order to go or for delivery.

If you want to stay away from the usual pizza brands, try Four T Four for a different kind of tastebud tickling. Er, I have no idea why it's called Four T Four though. Any guesses? :)

Four T Four
Thalateen Street, Suleimania
Tel. Nos.: 217-8844 / 464-2776