What you’d get if street food, biscuits and pizza had a child together.
In the cut-throat world of pizza delivery services, current king of the chains Domino’s has been battling it out with Pizza Hut for years, as each one tries to outdo the other with unusual offers to attract customers.
In Taiwan, Pizza Hut is closing in on the competition with a new creation called the “No. 1 Salted Chicken Pizza in Taiwan“. While the name seems simple, everything about this pizza is not, as it contains some seemingly disparate star ingredients — Taiwanese fried chicken (aka popcorn chicken), Oreo biscuits, and fried squid rings.
Our Japanese-language reporter Yui Imai is based in Taiwan, so she wasted no time in placing an order for one of these weird pizzas as soon as they were released on 10 May. The pizza is available in one size only, and is priced at NT$399 (US$13.40).
Opening the lid on this flower-shaped pizza revealed a ring of dark Oreos sitting inside a cheese-filled crust. And if that wasn’t enough of a mind-bender, the Oreos themselves were also adorned with shavings of melted Parmesan cheese.
The pizza definitely made an impact at first glance, and upon closer inspection there were even more fascinating finds waiting to be discovered in the topping.
▼ Salted chicken, popcorn chicken, fried calamari, onions, and cheese…so much cheese.
In Taiwan, popcorn chicken is a classic street food known locally as “Taiwanese fried chicken“. Street vendors usually fry the chicken in oil, along with your choice of vegetables, and season and serve them on the spot, so you can enjoy them fresh with their classic partner, a cold glass of beer.
For this new creation, though, the Taiwanese fried chicken has an unexpected partner, in the form of Oreo biscuits inlaid in a signature cheesy crust, which Pizza Hut is calling the “Dark Crispy Cocoa Cheese Crust“.
▼ Each slice, which is designed to look like a petal, comes with its very own Oreo biscuit.
Having never eaten Oreos and fried food together, Yui was a little nervous about trying this, but after taking a bite from the narrow end, she was quickly won over by the familiar combination of pizza dough, cheese, and juicy chicken. The next bite delivered the flavours of fried chicken and calamari to her taste buds, making her feel as if she had bitten into a different pizza, and then it came time to taste the Oreo and cheese section.
One of the biggest surprises here was the texture — the Oreos had actually been baked with the pizza, so they’d lost a lot of their crunch, giving them a much softer mouth-feel which matched the texture of the crust beautifully.
The other surprise was the flavour, with the creaminess of the cheese and the creaminess of the Oreo filling coming together in a sweet harmony. Combined with the dough, it tasted incredibly delicious, and strangely, it was almost like a sweet chocolate bun!
It was a clever idea to start each slice with a savoury mix of ingredients and end it with dessert, and with nine more Oreo-ended slices in front of her, Yui was now hooked and would have to restrain herself from devouring them all.
We take our hats off to the creative team at Pizza Hut in Taiwan, who clearly know no limits to the bounds of creativity when it comes to weird flavour combinations. Hopefully the team in Japan, and other parts of the world, sit up and take notice, because after trying the ice-cream and maple syrup pizza that appeared in Japan last year, we’re down for Oreo pizza!
Images © SoraNews24
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