limited time only

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Limited Time Only – Pizza Hut’s Four’N Twenty Stuffed Crust Pizza

June 11, 2015 in Limited Time Only | 3 comments

I’ve finally worked it out: bad food bloggers are fedora wearers.

The dish they idolise, two-hatted or casual feed, is the woman on the pedestal.

If they don’t get what they want, boom. Down she falls in a torrent of angry online reviews, slamming the dish, the restaurant, the ambiance, everything, all via misplaced expectations. The guilt trips, the shaming. The food blogger is a “nice guy” until they are friend zoned by a soufflé lacking “depth of flavour”.

But this… this. What is this? Who is the key demographic here? Meninists, online reviewers, ironic stoners? How could someone, anybody, review this seriously, without their fingertips being matted in doritos cheese crumbs? Welcome, Pizza Hut Four’N Twenty Stuffed Crust Pizza.

This starburst of horror, “Australia’s favourite lovechild” (gross), between Pizza Hut and Four’N Twenty pies, already exists as a parody of itself. I order it online in its Hawaiian incarnation, the ultimate insult. When it arrives my home is perfumed with stale meat yet I dive in with the contempt of a million home-owning “you don’t know how easy you have it” boomers. The pies are easily extracted from each slimy slice’s obnoxious gaping mouth, the pastry even soggier than the pizza’s. The bare minimum of meat is nestled inside its dank home like a nasty surprise and after a while the cavity begins to resemble something like a terrifying oversized belly button.

There’s very little to add to this devastating pile of western, first-world developed rubbish. Is this what we’ve come to, really? This is dinner? This is what we’re cramming into our already filthy bodies, for the lolz or otherwise? It even comes with two tomato sauce sachets – how ungenerous, how bloody ‘strayan. brb, cancelling the Italy leg of my Europe trip this year as true perfecto authentico lies a mere mouse click and $17.95 away. We’re even inspiring America, my lord, we are inspiring America.

I don’t want to imagine the flurry of emotional abuse that came about when conceiving this deliberate mess of a “lovechild”. “Who am I? What am I?”, I imagine the pizza remnants singing from my K-Mart garbage bin beneath the kitchen sink, “why does this keep happening? Please, put me out of my misery once and for all”. Well done Pizza Hut, I am finally disgusted. Congratulations on your attempted high-vis couture you monsters. You are no longer RSL Chic, next level irony, or even worthy of cry-eating. You’ve jumped the shark except this shark represents every played out meme of Tony Abbott in speed dealer sunnies, only this time it’s not even funny.

M’lady.

Pizza Hut's Four 'N Twenty Stuffed Crust Pizza

Tags: limited time only, pizza hut

Limited Time Only – Pizza Hut’s Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie

April 6, 2015 in Limited Time Only | 3 comments

Announced online on March 25th I wondered why? Why debut the Pizza Hut Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie now? Are we celebrating the changing of the season a month late to parallel the earth-in-crisis weather experienced in Sydney? Is this a feeble attempt at a sweet autumnal dish? Could this be a chocolate/Easter tie-in? As a keen fan of variety it’s unfortunate most of these posts have been centered around Pizza Hut, but they’re the only fast-food joint brave enough to churn out limited time only specials frequently.

Online the Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie is nestled between soft drinks and large oven baked chips in the extras column. Coincidentally their hero shot of this monstrosity is delicately bestowed upon the holy wooden board (torn baking paper and all, so now), beside a glass of both lemonade and coke. Three arrive at my door (that’s 18,876kj for $28.40) and the scent of cooking chocolate fills my home. It measures 19cm wide, significantly smaller than the usual Pizza Hut pizza with more calories than most savoury offerings in their range, minus the iota of nutritional value of scant vegetables at least a supreme pizza would provide.

The flavour? Sugar. The texture? Gritty sugar. I’ve never consumed anything so sugary. The pieces are soft, around 1cm thick, and crumble the moment you attempt to lift them from their aluminium home. I’m well familiar with the supple bite of a soft Mrs Field’s cookie or the unfathomable chewy stretch of some Momofuku alchemy, but this a whole new genre of biscuit I’m coining sugar mush. Not even dedicated years of cryeating nor all of my miserable unhealthy food conquests combined will even compare to the enormous malnourishing zero-return in this “cookie”. All the calories, none of the perks. No flavour, just sugar. I can still feel the granules clinging to my teeth after a liberal bowl of olives to cleanse myself afterwards. I read a comment stating it’s “great with ice cream” – I hurl ice cubes at the thing in immature retaliation, some leaves from nearby shrubbery don’t go astray either.

Pizza Hut’s Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie is akin to the sloppy romance of chocolate covered strawberries or sparkling wine in the bedroom. It reminds me of men who are exclusively into women in g-bangers, and exclusively talk to their mates about women in g-bangers, womanising loudly. It is a loathsome, offensive brute disguised in a pious white box. Can somebody please post one of these to I Quit Sugar HQ and watch world World War III erupt? Hurl one at paleo Pete Evans and maybe his face will melt off like the Wicked Witch of the West. Some men just want to watch the world burn. I tug my hypothetical collar awkwardly just thinking of the children who will be subjected to this disgusting thing. I try a piece that had been refrigerated for a few hours and I reel back and swear louder than usual – still bad, just hard.

“1. Do not microwave. You and the cookie deserve better” declares a Pizza Hut’s social media on March 30th. Do you yourself a favour: Do not consume, if in the presence of said cookie place into the nearest garbage receptacle immediately. There’s something to be said about cryeating, but if this cookie arrives in your company abort immediately for the good of both your physical and mental wellbeing, for the love of God, lest you wish to be transcended to hell and back in a few mere bites.

Tags: limited time only, pizza hut, ultimate hershey's chocolate chip cookie

Limited Time Only: Pizza Hut Mitey Stuffed Crust

January 26, 2015 in Limited Time Only | 5 comments

Australia Day is to fast food outlets as Valentine’s Day is to Hallmark, let’s ca$h in on this! From Australiana cultural cliché on steroids, or its irony-shrouded gentrified cousin what I’ve coined RSL Chic™ (gourmet meat trays, pop-up drive in movies, the resurgence of Shane Warne, etc) bursts forth Pizza Hut’s Mitey Stuffed Crust, a pizza with a crust stuffed with cheese and our finest export, Vegemite. Immaculate art direction sees slices of this pizza branded with miniature Australian flags before backdrops of green and gold splattered all over the Pizza Hut Australia Facebook page, and surely an art graduate who’s soul has been ravaged by the advertising world has envisioned these slices lumped together to form a greasy rendition of the Opera House sails. Here are some backpackers cringing at the taste of this thing soundtracked to didgeridoo playing, two Australian guys claiming it’s “nice” as an edgy coda with even more green and gold. “Made for Australia”? Cool cultural identity, let’s run with that.

Today all the on-point cafés of Australia are instagramming their bespoke Australia Day goods; lamington cronuts, pavlova cocktails and kangaroo pies are rolled out just for the occasion. Pizza Hut have instead developed a pizza aimed at either kind families with young children wanting to try something different, or a pizza absolutely perfect for casual racists. “Prosciutto? Not on my pizza!”

Target demographic aside, it’s honestly not that bad. I opt for a straight up cheese pizza and while it arrives as a greasy puddle of mess the crust is the best part; the cheese so generous in the stuffed crust it can literally be extracted like a thick snotty strand (pictured), however the Australia Day version of a Valentine’s Day card it is not. “I could easily improve this”, I think to myself, eyes glazed over, as I smash a lamington over the top of what remains of the pizza (most of it) with the heel of my hand. It’s drizzled liberally with beer and that garlic bread to make up the minimum delivery fee makes a torn appearance as well. The dish is then finished with lashings of gaudy green, gold and navy tinsel. Grouse. A marked improvement, and I laugh and laugh and laugh to myself for a few minutes until I realise I need to clean up this enormous mess off my floor.

This pizza represents my shirtless, inconsiderate Sunday-Seshing neighbours.
This pizza represents those Triple J Hottest 100 announcers praising “their boy Chef Faker” for “taking it home”.
This pizza represents all the ironic “Bowling Shane” comments on Warnie’s instagram account.
This pizza represents all those $24.99 on pick up with bonus Viennetta offers of the times of yore.
This pizza represents Ken Done’s small fortune.
This pizza represents the illusive Green and Gold Gaytime I can never seem to find.

Dear Pizza Hut: try harder next time.

Tags: australia day, limited time only, mitey stuffed crust, pizza hut, vegemite

Limited Time Only: Pizza Hut Doritos Crunchy Crust

January 13, 2015 in Limited Time Only | 3 comments

I promise it’s only coincidental my recent disgust with both my physical health and appearance has emerged on the first day of this year. I’m yet to splurge on a January Gym Membership but the copious amounts of whole foods in my fridge speak louder than perverse faux-spirational social media posts ever could. Despite this, a heart full of aspirations and a head bursting with shredded brussels sprout recipes had not hindered my curiosity surrounding Pizza Hut’s Doritos Crunchy Crust pizza.

A caveat: pizza is my least favourite fast food. Long story short, it made me vom as a kid and has left me subconsciously scarred and discriminatory against tomato sauce.

Anyway, despite my 2015 hopes and dreams for A Better Me™ I was delighted by the thought of enjoying a true slice of modern Americana, a campaign backed food and brand mash-up in my own home. Slowly but surely I felt the fedora descending on my head as my cursor hovered over a BBQ Meatlovers Doritos Crunchy Crust Pizza as well as a serve of Double Choc Cookie Shots to make up the additional few dollars of minimum delivery. “This had better be the best $25 I’ve ever spent”, I proudly declare to Facebook, relishing in the self-aware irony of a #foodie ordering a fad #pizza online and attempting to rid myself grubby feels. Likes began rolling in as I research what I’d just ordered: “As you bite into the crust you’ll be blown away by the crunch – it’s not only seriously loud, but delicious.” 20 minutes later, much like that fateful night when I was seven years old, the delivery guy raps at my door. This time there were no voms, just expectations of mind-blowing aural aesthetics.

Navigating the delicate topography of this pizza… it tastes exactly like a usual BBQ meatlovers pizza. Where are the brain crushing acoustics? Where are all the Doritos I was promised? The grandeur of immaculate lashings of cheesy crisps has been replaced by a minuscule amount of burnt crackers barely crowding the rim of my pizza. What the hell, Pizza Hut? The outer diameter tastes like a 50c cheese melt from the school canteen, but burnt. Nostalgic, but inappropriate. The dual textured delight of molten mozzarella and crunchy Doritos covered in cheddar fell flat – if that Apple / young-startup keynote inspired advert is anything to go by then this is the iPhone 6 Plus of pizzas. A severe letdown. Oh, and those Double Choc Cookie Shots? They look like just the turd emoji, and tasted, without sounding too much like a disgruntled Urbanspoon user attempting to describe a lacklustre coffee again, burnt.

As I remove what remains in the pizza box to a more appropriate receptacle, the slices reveal my greasy, pizza horoscope – a bloated figure trapped within a rounded frame. Story of my 2014? Maybe, but hopefully not a premonition of 2015.

In the cruel light of day the next morning I send a message to my brother offering the rest of the pizza sitting in the fridge – “I have two slices left if you want them, or else they’re going in the bin”. Hours later he arrives, hot, starving, craving leftovers. “This crust is amazing”, sighs the student-who-lives-out-of-home, “so much better than the last hotdog and cheeseburger crusts, they were disgusting“.

Maybe it wasn’t that bad after all? Have I lost touch with my junk food appreciation roots? Are my cries of joy surrounding fried things, oily things and sugar-laden things all just a farce?! Maybe the part of myself that exists as a sad girl Tumblr-esque snackcore scenester claiming a stake in the bachelor frog game is but a facade hiding the disgusting reality I’m not as scandalously gross as I often make out to be, in my yuppie home, on my yuppie iMac, surrounded by my yuppie things. Has the Dyson lifestyle ruined me?

That being said, when my brother arrived expecting two pizza slices there was only one left – I claimed it was “for science”, “for research!”, but deep down I knew I wanted to get that soggy burnt cheese in and around my mouth to savour the flavour, once again perpetually stuck, like so many of us are, oscillating between self-loathing and the person we want to be.

Tags: doritos crunchy crust, limited time only, pizza, pizza hut

Limited Time Only: KFC Zinger Pie

December 15, 2014 in Limited Time Only | 8 comments

Three-ish years strong and I’ve never posted a review on this ###blog, until now. A car trip in a city where everything closes early resulted an accidental visit to a nearby KFC to be enchanted by their latest offering: the KFC Zinger Pie.

In true highway fashion Five Dock KFC neighbours a McDonald’s and a petrol station, and it’s not surprising KFC is nowhere near as full as its oppressive burger-wielding counterpart. I saunter across the thick shake stained asphalt of a near empty car park and it’s the kind of place where the occasional seagull struts around despite being nowhere near the water – a la Granville station. I’m second in line behind a couple of bros placing a large order but thankfully I’m told there is one last KFC Zinger Pie left tonight – a potential prelude to ill feels, but regardless, ready for two curious yet ultimately trollish mouths. I make myself comfortable beside a bucket and mop outside as kind adolescent boys and a bluetooth clad drive-through manager stack chairs inside.

The pie is presented in a paper bag, obnoxiously declaring it’s “perfect for the HCG (Home Cricket Ground)”. The red tin base is indicitve of the Zinger flavour as opposed to the tamer Kentucky potato and gravy combo, because I guess red is the universal colour for HOT (or STOP).

To say its innards resembled vomit would be too easy, and we can do better than that. You’d be pleasantly surprised if this were a cup-a-soup; chunky chicken pieces shrouded by blandness, an acceptable phenomenon at 3pm at your godforsaken desk job, unremarkable pastry resembling what you’d expect from any other supermarket or convenience store pie. But it’s 10pm and I’m taking photos in a desolate carpark craving malnourishment. A more appropriate critique from a sober human would read more like this: a very vacant (and very abundant) gravy binds chicken bits with arrogant flecks of useless chilli. It’s so soupy, clever handwork is required to avoid being burned by gravity in more ways than one. What lingers is a sleazy aftertaste of that astringent, flavourless chilli, I’m not even sure how they did it – it’s the equivalent of a decaf coffee, you can definitely taste it but it’s not quite right, leaves you unfulfilled and questioning why? And why can I still taste this an hour later?

The whole point of these junk food reviews is to celebrate the nasty, greasy food we ashamedly thrust into our faces – and like many cliché bloggers I’m left saying I really wanted to enjoy this but sadly there’s not much to love about this pie (and I’m a fan of the Zinger enterprise), it’s basically the anaemic cousin of primary school meat pie offerings. I’m not sure whose appetite this is appeasing, besides maybe the lone gull in the car park, so I hope it enjoyed what I left behind.

Tags: kfc, limited time only, zinger pie