Another Indian Food Option (St. Pete)
DH and I heard about a place that has Italian and Indian food - we thought huh?? Went today for lunch and turns out the Sri Lankan owner did culinary school in Italy, hence the two cuisines under one roof - called Little Pepperoni in St. Petersburg - 5600 66th St. North - www.littlepepperoni.com. He said he serves about 75% Italian to 25% Indian at the location (16 Indian entrees), and has had the place for 2 years. DH is a Brit who has been to India, and is always seeking decent curries locally (many places are okay - some better - some worse). This place pleasantly surprised us! We started with chicken samosas that had a tender crust and savory filling. We split a lamb biriyani and again was impressed with the flavors of the components. A chicken tandoori leg was on top of the biriyani and was so good - we know we have to get a full order of that next time. A salad accompanied it, and we were supposed to get naan, but we all forgot! The decor is quite plain and it has a drive-thru, but aside from the strange combo of cuisines, the place is a winner!
PS..We can't vouch for his Italian dishes, but he does have a Bombay curried chicken-topped pizza!
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We went back to Little Pepperoni today, and the food was really spot-on again. Had the chicken tandoori and an order of vegetable biriyani. While we were there, a photographer was shooting several staged dishes, inquired, and turns out it is Creative Loafing doing a story that may appear as early as this coming Thursday, July 14th, The story was already written, so the review is imminent. With any luck, this little unknown gem will soon be slammed!
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re: triff
I tried it recently for takeout. I thought the food in general was quite decent and a very good value. The pizza reminded me a little of Papa John's. It was tasty and all, and for $5.00 for a large cheese or cheese and pepperoni, you can't go wrong. Way better than Little Ceasar's. I liked their breaded chicken wings a lot. They were very large and perfectly cooked. I actually used some of my own sauces to cover them with - they were the perfect canvas for any good wing sauce.
As for their Indian food, I thought it was good, and it was great to go to one restaurant and have the kids be happy with Pizza and I could get Indian food.
I ordered the Chicken Vindaloo, soup of the day which was a Curried Indian Chicken & Potato, and the chicken samosa. The entree was $9.99 and came with a small salad (which was very fresh), rice and naan. The naan was decent, it wasn't just a pita type like Tunduree in Tampa uses. It is actually baked, but not freshly baked for each order like a good Indian restaurant does. Perhaps they are baked daily or every couple of days. I still enjoyed it. It actually reminded me a little of Malaysian roti canai - not really fluffy, more flat with buttery layers.
The Chicken Vindaloo was pretty spicy, but a little over-oniony for my tastes. The potato in it did not have the moutfeel of freshly cooked potatoes, but rather, had very little texture when you bit into them. That leads me to believe that the dishes are prepared ahead of time and reheated. The samosa was unique-never have had a chicken samosa before. They actually were more like empanadas, and pretty good. The soup was one of the best things, very creamy texture and very nicely, mildly spiced.
I recently had a full Indian meal at Taste of Punjab as well, and the food at Punjab is much more carefully put together - and a good bit more expensive.
I do look forward to trying Little Pepperoni again. It is hard to judge a place after one meal, but I got a good sense of it. Maybe next time, I'll try the biryani and tandoori chicken.
I do want to state that for $30.00, I brought home a lot of good food, and the family enjoyed it a lot.
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Good find! I never heard of this place. Yet, I've probably driven by it dozens of times. I just thought it was a pizza place. Here is the link http://www.littlepepperoni.com/
I looked at all of the menu items and the prices do look very low compared to most local Indian restaurants.
Will try to get there soon.
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