Big Bamboo Pizza + Beer Monday Night Promotion

Mondays are becoming the night in Shanghai to get over the workday blues with dining promotions although the work-week is barely 8 hours old. At Big Bamboo, the Monday night special is pizza and a pint of beer for 58RMB from 18:00-02:00. At 20:00, the bar is filled primarily with middle-aged men taking advantage of the deal and already in need of an after-work pint. The servers are quick to seat you and receive your order. The pint of beer is standard Budweiser or Carlsberg on draft. Looking at the regular menu, all the pizzas are listed at the same price, so selecting one pizza over another will not mean that you are getting more value from the pizza through this deal. Thus, there is no feeling of satisfaction from beating the system by ordering a more expensive pizza. Feeling a bit hungry, we ordered the Chicken Pesto (chicken breast, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli, feta cheese with tomato pesto sauce and mozzarella cheese) and Mediterranean (spinach, black olives, peppers, onions, tomatoes, feta cheese).

The pizzas promptly arrive and were larger than the server described them (about 12-inches). The crust was extremely thin and crispy, even able to hold the weight of the chicken without folding. The Mediterranean pizza was not impressive. The nobs of feta were generous, but the black olives were sparse. The remainder of the vegetable toppings looked and tasted more like an attempt at pico de gallo. The chicken pesto was slightly better as the chicken was cooked through, seasoned and not dry. There was not as much feta as the Mediterranean though. The pesto tasted non-existent with no hint of extra-virgin olive oil, basil, and pine nuts. The only green splash of color came from the broccoli. The mozzarella cheese on both was just enough to cover the pizza, but almost disappearing in the pizza. Overall, the crust is the best part of the entire pizza. At least a pint was served with this deal.

Big Bamboo. 132 Nanyang Lu (by Xikang Lu), Jing'An District, Shanghai 200040, People's Republic of China. 海市静安区南阳路132号. www.BigBamboo.cn