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Friday, March 21, 2008

Special Report: Chain Pizza Extravagana [Meeting #54]

Little Caesar's (pickup)
Domino's (delivery)
Pizza Hut (delivery)

Bad Chain Pizzas invaded CPC on 3/21/08.

Ok, so we finally went and got Little Caesar's, Pizza Hut, and Domino's at the home of Stu for this pizza club meeting. This will be a brief review of it because I'm doing what so many of my elementary school teachers reminded me to do regarding not saying anything if it's not nice.

I don't remember what pizzas we ordered and I never meant to after having a bite of each. They were all bad. I do think we had a meat lover's and a veggie pizza from pizza hut. Domino's was so horrible it wouldn't matter what was on it. At least on the Little Caesar's pizzas had bacon on it. That's pretty much all I care to discuss regarding the pizzas.

In the end, the pictures and our expressions will have to speak for themselves. If there is anything redeeming said about any of these by our members it's because we were gasping for air and perhaps making relative comparisons only. If one was better than the other, it's only because we got philosophical and determined no two things can be equal. Weep not for pizza club nor for Chicago. We have good pizza and we know where to get it. Instead, direct your pity towards Kansas and Alabama and even Arizona. Sure, there may be a Pizzeria Bianco lurking, but I bet you most of the pizza in these places is horrible. So, if the best choice for pizza in your town is Papa John's, I weep for you and, more importantly, I eat for you. Small town America can get on our backs and vicariously enjoy the pizza through our reviews as we continue our crusade for pizza excellence.

Fred may have liked the pizza - he ate more than anyone else. However, Fred is Dan's hound so he probably has a slightly less discriminating palate than everyone else present that night.

- El Presidente


Bacon pizza from Little Caesar's...


Domino's Sausage pizza...


Pepperoni from Domino's...


"Holy Crap, this is bad..."


The State of the Pizza Club Annual Report


Fred doesn't seem to mind the bad pizza...


Meat Lover's pizza from Pizza Hut...


Veggie Lover's pizza from Pizza Hut

8 comments:

Marla Collins' Husband said...

I was shocked at how bad these pizzas were. I am certainly not a pizza snob. Crust, cheese and tomato sauce can almost always satisfy me. Almost.

Before this meeting, I hadn't had Domino's in about a year and a half and hadn't had Little Caesar's or Pizza Hut for (guessing here) three and five years respectively.

The Domino's was bad and the Little Caesar's was virtually inedible. The meat lover's pizza from Pizza Hut was saved by the extraordinary amount of meat (even low-grade, processed meat with unhealthy levels of sodium is still meat).

I think what surprised me most about these pizzas was how utterly devoid of flavor the cheese and crust were.

Since I have to give each place a score, they are as follows: Pizza Hut - 1.5, Domino's 1, and Little Caesar's 0.5.

All that said, I'm very happy the CPC had this event as it gives me a low point against which I can balance future unappetizing offerings.

Andrew said...

I may be a little biased, but I thought that the Little Caesar's was the cream of the crop (as it were), even if we did get shorted on sauce for our crazy bread. And even processed bacon is still delicious, plus the sauce isn't totally terrible (at least if I do my best to not think about the different methods my co-workers and I used to mix their sauce up back when I worked there in High School...)

The Domino's pizzas were total crap, I don't even think the dough was cooked all the way, it was pretty raw on the inside (versus the Little Caesars which was more cardboard-like), but yeah... it was revolting.

The Pizza Hut was somewhere inbetween Caesar's and Domino's... it would've been interesting to have thrown Papa John's into the mix as well, I always liked their pizza in college and it'd be interesting to see if that still holds true today or if my tastes for pizza have grown more refined as a result of years as a Chicago Pizza Club member.

Anywho, as bad as the pizza was it was still a fun night. Little Caesar's; 3, Pizza Hut; 2, Domino's; 0.5

Unknown said...

This may lead to some derision but dammit when you read a CPC opinion you get cold, hard, polygraph-tested, sodium pentathol-induced truth.

The pizza hut hand-tossed meat lovers pizza i had delivered 3/21 was pretty darn good. I was not present at the SOTPC meeting but instead mired in the pizza void many know as Miami.

I live two blocks from the Pizza Hut so the delivery was basically straight out of the oven. Meat was salty and crust was extra buttery but it hit the spot. Even inspired a repeat order since.

6.9

smantis said...

First, somebody needs to send Ryan a good ole' fashion CHICAGO PIZZA, as that crap we ate sucked in Chicago, sucked in Miami, and I spoke to my parents in Athens, Greece who live about 4 blocks from a Pizza Hut, and they both repudiated it was cruel and unusual punishment for transplanted Chicagoans to have to eat that. It was not has bad as Domino's which even the dog would not go near after a few bites. Little Caesar's started off the night and I thought it was pretty bad but it was a gourmet pizza from Florence compared to the others.
From now all my rating will be adjusted to reflect the excrement I had to devour in order to recalibrate my system of judgment.
I don't like to give advice but here is something I can say with some certitude: DO NOT ORDER FROM THESE PLACES. Eat a ketchup sandwich or starve yourself instead, your stomach (and dog) will thank you in the morning. I have never told anyone not to eat pizza, but these guys had me on the toilet all day at work the next day.
I would give Little Caesars a 2.5, Pizza Hut a 1.5 and Domino's a generous 1.0.

Chand said...

According to wikipedia, the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius recommended dog as the tastiest of all meats. Maybe that's the secret behind Domino's success.

I thankfully had a cold. So, the Pizza Hut veggie lover's pizza wasn't horrible w/Tabasco sauce. The Little Caesar's bacon pizza was a bit weird. Domino's was so bad it was worse.

On a serious note: we could save 200,000 barrels of oil a day if we wring out our leftover crusts from "Big Pizza".

Think about it.

Pizza Hut: 2.0
Little Caesar's: 1.5
Domino's: 1.0

Amanda said...

Don't weep for Alabama, or at least not Birmingham. We've got Dave's: www.davesontheweb.com/pizza. I'll try to get there next time I'm in town for a special report.

kate-d. said...

It's taken me a while to post my ratings because I've had a hard time figuring out just how low to go with these numbers. This was some of the worst pizza I've ever had, but I'm only 29, and though I have traveled a fair amount, I know there is a lot of pizza out there in the world I have yet to try. So it's hard to gauge how much room to leave in between zero and Domino's.

I didn't like the Domino's or Little Caesar's at all. The Pizza Hut was very, very greasy, but still entirely edible in my opinion.

Pizza Hut 2.5
Little Caesar's 1.3
Domino's 0.8

Unknown said...

In my exeperience, pizza chains will never beat any homestyle based resturant. Best pizza comes from freshly made ingrediants not from a factory.