And now PIzza Hut

I don't really think of Almaty as a difficult place to live on the whole, but then from time to time we all get very excited about a new service, or shop that has come to town and it makes me recognise the paucity of things here, that in the west we take utterly for granted. 

My recent Marrone Rosso post gave you an insight into the dearth of decent coffee shops. And it is the same for pizza and any kind of food by delivery.  When you order an Indian from the Indian they often don't have a driver to deliver, or he forgets to bring half your food. Most places you have to pick up yourself, I guess because the roads are so treacherous in the winter that there is no tradition of motorbike delivery boys like you get in loads of other places. 

Maybe I am missing a wealth of knowledge about take away and home delivery food? If this is the case, I would truly welcome some advice and comments on places in Almaty that do home delivery from people who are living here? Anyone? Anyone? Feel free to comment! My domestic talents do not always stretch to the creation of utterly wholesome offerings for my family (let's just say we eat a lot of eggs and/or breakfast cereal these days!). And sometimes it is really nice to order in... 

A friend recently bemoaned the lack of consistency even in fast food recently when she said,

"Well, you think when you first come here that it is all hunky dory, because everything looks alright, and really developed. In fact, we just laughed that this place was considered a hardship post by my husband's company. But then after a while you realize it is not quite what it seems. I mean, take McBurger for example. It is a burger shop. It only sells burgers and chips. But you can only buy what you want about one in four times that you visit - what is the story there?" she wailed, after a summer in Almaty on her own with her kids. 

She is not the only one to complain, and when Pizza Hut opened on the corner of Furmanova and Abai streets in June, there was a collective whoop of delight from many expats. And after the ceremonial opening yesterday of the new astroturf football pitch at the kids school, a few of us took our offspring for a slap up pizza lunch in "the Hut". 

Exciting. The waiter got our long and complicated order completely right first time! Wow, very unusual. He then served us our food in the order that we had requested (even rarer, the starters came before the main courses) and everything arrived that we had asked for. This is practically unheard of here. I was very impressed. The picture is of our smiling waiter. They don't yet deliver, or have a take away menu, but this will apparently happen in the future.