Pizzeria da Mario: Pizza Mario

The other week I went up to Oxford to visit my two little brothers. They're both at University there and when I tell people that they always ask if I mean Oxford Brookes. I don't, I mean actual Oxford-Oxford, as in the closest-any-of-us-stupid-muggles-will-get-to-Hogwarts-Oxford, and whoever I'm telling is a little surprised by this. They may deny it but I can read their eyebrows like two, hairy little books. I don't blame them for their scepticism, because it seems like a bit of a stretch that the same sperm - egg DNA combo can produce such wildly different levels of academic success; but such is the miracle of genetics, and it serves as a reminder that God is both very real and has a sick, sadistic sense of humour. Also don't we share something like 96% of DNA with potatoes or whatever? I can kind of believe this though because there are days when I sit around for so long I get this weird urge to peel off all my skin, chop myself up into strips and hug fried fish.

Anyway, this little place is on Cowley Road which is about as rough as central Oxford gets. I feel pretty confident I could mince up and down the Cowley Road at 2am on a Saturday night in acid-washed denim hot pants, several sealed and boxed iPhone 5s hanging round my neck on easy-to-snap chains, telling track-suited, overly gelled teenage boys I think they're sexy and slapping their cans of Skol out of their hands and not get 'crimed against' once, but then maybe the savage, everyday-is-a-battle-for-survival lifestyle I lead on the Mad Max 2-esque streets of Stoke Newington has given me an overly rosy view of the Cotswolds.

This was a good pizza even and, although it had artichokes on, we didn't have any problems. (It also usually comes with olives, but obviously I demanded they take those shrivelled little hell nuggets off because I had a whole colostomy bag of AIDS-blood soaked razor blades I'd sooner eat before I'd let  Lucifer's testicles get anywhere near my gorgeous, gorgeous face).

8 out of 10

Pizza Express Capricciosa

I once got angry with Pizza Express for messing up my order. (Here I am in a rage that will burn your eyebrows off, read if you dare or need a quick alternative to plucking).

Guess what. It happened again. You'd think I would have totally hulked out and beat the waiter's face into a Sloppy Giuseppe, but I didn't. This was because, this time, it was my fault. In my head I definitely said "no olives" but turns out the waiter wasn't psychic so lo and behold: I got olives.

How great would psychic waiters be? They'd walk up to your table, everyone would be all quiet and thinking about what food they wanted and the waiter would just scribble it down, and at the end you wouldn't have to do the 'bill please wave', or ask for another drink or anything that involves the now glaring impracticalities of talking. They'd just know. From now on I'm tipping at 5% until they get psychic waiters.

When it said there was going to be egg on this guy I had an image of a fat, fried egg in the middle, which would have been great, not lame-o, boiled egg slices. A psychic waiter would have known this and sorted it out. Just saying.

7 out of 10