Restaurant review: Zero Degrees

I've been meaning to go to Zero Degrees on Cardiff's Westgate Street for ages. It's actually on my list of places to visit with Neil (yes, we have an actual list) as I've always heard great things about it but have never got around to going there. Everyone raves about their beer selection, but I'm not the slightest bit interested in that. Guess what I am interested in?

Pizza!

Liz was in Cardiff for a few days over half term, so she invited me to Zero Degrees last Wednesday evening to join her for a meal with her friends. Obviously I jumped at the chance of eating out on a week night... I was getting a bit bored of pasta and pesto! 

Zero Degrees have LOADS of different pizzas on their menu, and they're definitely not your standard pizza options. With exotic choices ranging from Thai Green Chicken to Salmon and Mascarpone, with a whole load of vegetarian options thrown in, you'll be totally spoilt for choice whatever your tastes. They do also have a good selection of salad, seafood and pasta on their menu, but for me it's all about the pizza. After deliberating between a few options for about ten minutes, I eventually settled on the Sweet and Spicy Italian Sausage pizza. It was one of the cheapest pizzas on the menu at £9.75... that's only partly why I chose it.

The pizzas did take a while to arrive, but my jaw nearly fell off the bottom of my face when the first batch was brought to the table. A few people had ordered the Peking Duck pizza, and it actually came with little crispy tortilla strips on the top of it. I know I'm easily pleased when it comes to food, but I thought that was pretty impressive. I started getting food envy while I looked longingly at everyone else's pizzas, then mine arrived...

WHAT A PIZZA! There was about a kilo of meat (that might be an exaggeration, I didn't stop to weigh it), chunky red and green peppers, plenty of red onions, loads of cheese and a lovely tomato base. As if the mass of toppings wasn't enough, the dough was also absolutely perfect. I was impressed that they provided a sharp knife to cut your pizza with... I hate struggling with an ordinary knife in Pizza Express. I'm always terrified that my pizza will fly off my plate when I'm ferociously trying to cut it!

As you can see, I devoured every little bit of my pizza. It was absolutely amazing, and I could have eaten it all over again after I'd finished. Yes, I was very full, but I'd have forced another one in somehow. I loved the fact that it was fully loaded with toppings, rather than just having four greasy pieces of pepperoni and a few flimsy bits of pepper. Ten out of ten! I've already decided that I'll be trying the BBQ Chicken pizza next time. There will definitely be a next time. 

Food aside, I love the effort Zero Degrees have put in to their branding. Even their glasses are branded! I always love a bit of effective branding. 

Although the pizzas and drinks did take a while to arrive, I didn't think we were waiting for an unreasonable length of time. We were busy catching up, so we were happy not to be rushed in and out. We sat on a table upstairs with a nice view of Westgate Street... in spite of the pouring rain, it was still a nice view. 

Zero Degrees isn't particularly cheap, but I thought £9.75 was a pretty good price for my pizza. I drank tap water (cheapskate) so I'm not sure how expensive the drinks are, but our final bill wasn't extortionate at all.  

Have you been to Zero Degrees? Can you recommend any of their other pizzas for me to try?

Never underestimate the importance of proofreading...

I'm well aware that other people might not be as obsessed with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation as I am. However, everyone should realise that they need to have a basic grasp of the language when publishing anything which will be read by other people.

I do a lot of proofreading in my spare time and always have done. I often proofread documents for friends, and have also been considering doing some freelance proofreading. I also proofread menus, leaflets, posters and so on when I'm out and about... it's some kind of compulsion. I know it's not the most exciting skill I could possess, but I do think it's a pretty essential one.

The language you use is a massive part of your brand, whether that brand is your personal brand or your organisation's brand. In my opinion, your brand is tarnished if your work is littered with typos, punctuation errors and glaring grammatical mistakes. I will actually think twice about using a company if their website or signage is full of errors. Similarly, I'm put off blog posts which haven't been proofed properly. It only takes ten minutes to read through that blog post, web page or the new sign for the front of your store, so why are there so many errors out there? I understand that some people don't pay much attention to detail, but it always shocks me when massive companies quite clearly haven't appointed a proofreader, or when people have obviously just scanned over that brand new sign or new web page then paid for it without making sure that it's absolutely right.


My top five peeves:

1. People who add an apostrophe when they're referring to the plural form of various nouns. Examples: CD's, menu's, potato's. Sometimes you just don't need an apostrophe! Why would you need one in this example, when you've been taught that the apostrophe is only used to indicate possession or a missing letter? COME ON!

2. People who use 'loose' instead of 'lose'. Example: 'I need to loose weight.' Aaaaargh. It actually hurts my eyes.

3. The use of 'would of' instead of 'would have', or 'could of' instead of 'could have'. In which universe was this ever correct? This error is creeping into more and more blog posts... beware!

4. People who add an apostrophe at the end of 'its'. Example: 'The cat couldn't believe its' luck.' There is never ever an apostrophe at the end of 'its'! Either use 'its' without an apostrophe (which would be correct in the example above), or 'it's' instead of 'it is'. If everyone could obey this rule, my blood pressure would probably come down to a normal level.

5. People who can't use a semi colon correctly. The poor semi colon is very much abused and is often used instead of a comma, rather than reserving it for pauses which need more strength than a comma but don't quite merit a full stop. If in doubt, just don't use it!


Any other avid proofreaders out there? Please bear in mind that I've proofed this blog post VERY carefully to avoid any embarrassment!