With Academy Awards season upon us again, I have a recommendation for your Oscar party, sure to increase the number of folks in your social network, and that, my friends, is Bombay Pizza Company downtown.

I've wanted to try the Indian-Italian fusion-y joint since its inception but just recently made it for lunch. My two dining companions and I were overwhelmed by the menu. Should we get a pizza covered in saag paneer, one with spicy potato gravy or something else? It would take true grit to decide.

We ended up choosing the Slumdog and the Gateway of India pizzas to split, and we chose well. The Slumdog was a real winner. Topped with chicken, Canadian bacon, chorizo, jalapenos, pepperoni, ground beef, red onion and their house sauce, the pizza also had a unique sesame crust that, shockingly, might have been my favorite thing in the pan. Bombay's crust is infused with sesame, and you can taste every seed. Call the crust a fighter if you want, because it will punch you with sesame flavor, no matter how many jalapenos are crammed onto the slice.

The Gateway of India was also delicious -- I think I even liked it a little better. This time the sesame crust was covered in a rich cilantro-mint chutney sauce. Giant chunks of tandoori chicken were worthy of a king's speech, and the artichoke hearts were plentiful. The menu said the pie featured "real crab meat," but while I detected some crab flavor, I never really found any.

I appreciate Pink's Pizza, and Star Pizza has been a favorite since I moved to Houston four years ago. I will continue to patronize those places. But when I want something a little different, I'll head to Bombay. And I'm actually interested to sample a more traditional pizza there to see how that stacks up against the other places.

I know we need a Black Swan reference at the end here. I just couldn't think of a way to do it without saying that Bombay's pizza is almost as good as that Natalie Portman-Mila Kunis make-out scene. Yeah, that good.

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