Andrea Themistokleous 10, 70007977, Lemesos
Mon-Sat lunch & dinner, Sun lunch
Food: [rating:3] 3/5
Service: [rating:3.5] 3.5/5
Ambiance: [rating:3.5] 3.5/5
After the “burger mania” and the “hot-dog mania” it was only a matter of time before the “pizza-mania” came round. The truth is I wouldn’t call two casual, easy-going pizza restaurants opening at the same time within in a square 
kilometre a “mania”, but, since I am a mega pizza fan, I hope it is at least the beginning of such a craze.
I am, in fact, surprises that, given our recent love for value-for-money restaurants, we haven’t seen more pizza places –and Italian places in general. It is anyway much easier to make than good tapas or even good international-fusion food. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why we positively embraced Tomato, Pizza & Pasta. It is in a key location off Saripolou square, with part of it being on a pedestrian street. It is stylish with an 80s kind of décor and a vintage touch, and most importantly (to my knowledge) it is not copying or mimicking 
another place. It is small and cute with both low and high tables. The only bad thing about the ambiance is that it could be considered as more of a take-away place, although I didn’t get that feeling when I went for lunch.
The menu has three sections: a pizza list, a pasta list and a salad list. The fact that nothing extraordinary was on the menu was to me a good thing as they didn’t try to be over-creative and destroy the concept. The pizza list had a vegetarian option and a few with a combination of bacon, ham, mushrooms and peperroni. All pizzas have mozzarella, gouda and edam cheese as well as tomato sauce and they only come in one size (enough for one person). While the pasta list had the classics: Napolitana, Bolognese, Carbonara (the Cypriot way), Arrabiata and finally pasta with chicken and Basil. Our chicken and basil linguini were very well cooked and as a dish was quite tasty without being too 
heavy, although it did have cream. Our Farmhouse pizza with bacon, ham and mushrooms with a very thin crust was tasty. Despite that the ingredients were simple the combination of flavours was very good with a generous amount of cheese.
Finally our Cesar salad was a good addition with a home-made dressing that was kind of lemony in a good way. At 4.50euros I thought it was great value for money.
The cherry on the cake was the bill. With an 8€ pizza, a 5€ pasta dish, a 4.50€ salad, a coke and 20% discount for students (clearly not me), we paid 14.50€ for two. A great value for money meal, in my opinion. 3 dishes for two people were more than enough. Our lunch was, I thought, the definition of good food with simple, cheap ingredients that were used very wisely. This is proof that all you need for good food is a good cook!
