The last time I had domino’s pizza was on a cheapass birthday party in 2016. 2016 was a weird year, A lot of things happened, and I tried a lot of new foods. Dominos was always one of those joints which sure enough, was always there but never warranted my attention because it was either too expensive or uncalled for. Triple or quadruple digits for subpar pizza(s) dinner was never my thing. Even in India, dominos cost upwards of Rs.500 for a decent pizza. My prior experience with dominos was limited to be honest. I had it on a Holi party in 2014, then some random slices in 2015, and this party in 2016. I was really inclined to agree with Jim Gaffigan in his 2004 special where he said Dominos still hasn’t gotten the difference between the crust and the cardboard yet. To me, Dominos was culinary tragedy. A corporation that corrupted the very concept of casual pizza dining. The pizzas always felt like being made with an element of haste, that culminated in a flavor of disappointment and regret. The prices weren’t very encouraging either. It felt like being shown the middle finger and having ‘jackass’ stamped on your forehead whenever you approached the counter. The venue lacks the hospitality associated with having a good time. The idea of paying first to get modular boxed containers in a chain that markets ‘wholesome dining’ is stupid. It feels like they’re out to get your money and fucking you over all the time. My perceptions of the chain and their pizza were very negative, to say the least.
I am a pizza hut guy. I liked their pizzas, their crust, and their flavor. But again, I found out this is subject to the location of the franchise. One franchise has great pizza and great service, while the other one less than half a mile away is a rip-off. But when I fell ‘sick’ after having the former’s pizza in a post-exam celebration, I felt betrayed. This was after a betrayal in 2017 by a pizza hut which gave me such crappy pizza, I refused to even believe it. Beware, the pizza hut on FC road in Pune is garbage. They serve crappy pizza and are arrogant about it. In an emotional fit of post-treachery, I promised to distance myself from pizza hut. Our relationship was over. In retrospect, the pizza even looked like crap. I should’ve seen the signs. This was coming anyway. It was bound to happen.
Two relationships later, I was looking for a provider again. The time coincided with dominos advertising campaign of a makeover- “*Real cheese…. *”. I dismissed it as a corporate plan for better PR. Eh Whatever, might as well give them a chance. They’re all crooks anyway.
It was the middle of August. My third day in the new academic year. Averse to settling into the mess-food routine, I was looking for a decent bite. Out of desperation, I unwittingly walked into a Dominos. I was hungry, it was raining, and it was close by. They had just opened, and I was one of their first customers for lunch. The menu was wrinkled and the plastic it was encased in blurred up from years of use. The floor felt a little sticky on the soles of my leather shoes, maybe from the mopping that happened two minutes before I entered. Shruti the cashier greeted me with the typical rehearsed response. I mumbled my way through the menu till I found the cheapest pizza mania that was advertised on their door.
Being a longtime capsicum lover, I got the capsicum pizza mania for a seductive price of INR 72 and another ‘corn’ pizza mania since I was hungry. The lady at the counter went on offering other upgrade options.
“Thin crust?”
No
“Extra cheese?”
No
“Coke?”
No.
“any sides? Dessert?
No.
I was so curt with my Nos, the lady even let slip a smile out of mockery. I saw that, Shruti. You’d better wipe that mug if you want your picture in the ‘customer delight agent of the month’ frame. I am distrustful of these businesses, so I gave her a fake name and fake phone number too. The lady withheld my receipt and said she’ll deliver it with my order. I assumed my seat in a red plush chair by the wall, adorned with stock photos of people smiling with pizza. Have you ever tied to eat a pizza while smiling? That too with a bunch of seemingly attractive people? It shows how out of touch marketing is. Dominos needs someone to look up their choice of furniture. The table was at chest level while I was sitting down. Despite being wiped, it felt sticky too. VH1 played on the TV ahead of me while the sound was from an entirely different source, blaring enough to make me uncomfortable.
The order took about fifteen to twenty minutes to be delivered, I was famished by then. As promised, my receipt was stuck to the carton. Surprising. For a restaurant that had ‘self-service’ signs all over, they delivered my pizzas to my table. Nice. The cardboard on the boxes felt firm, not softened by moisture, and was freshly folded. The printing on the boxes was fine, I didn’t pay much attention to it to be frank with you. The bottle of ketchup that accompanied it was sticky too.
Let’s get to the pizza now. I dug into the corn pizza first since I keep the best for last. The crust was firm on the outside, yet soft enough on the inside. It felt of flour dust on picking up. The temperature was respectable. The leaned in for a bite. Now here is something I’ve noticed about chain pizzas. The cheese is always *different*. It was a little crisp on the top from the oven firing, but on the inside, it was gooey and liquid. Strange. Cheese never felt runny and thin on a pizza before. It wasn’t stringy and thick as it’s on regular pizzas either. Maybe this what the ‘real cheese’ they were talking about in the commercials. I’m not complaining though. It did a good job in addressing the dryness of the crust. The crust, even though I claim to be dry, held its moisture in a peculiar way. It differed from the typical bread-y texture. It tasted like mass production. You know the taste I’m talking about. It lacked the ‘touch’ and the part that makes it feel like a base. Instead, it reminded me of the swirling impellers in an industrial dough mixer. The crust never felt undercooked though. It had a crunch on the underside too. The corn was large, succulent, and sweet. It was well cooked, not dried or roasted by the oven surprisingly, and was still moist. Together with the cheese, it gave a sweetness to the bolus I was chewing on.
The sauce on the pizza wasn’t anything to be reckoned with. It did the basic job of making sauce present on a base and giving a red beneath the cheese. I could feel the swirls by the industrially defined ladles made by a line cook. It had its own acidity that wasn’t impressive. Eh it wasn’t good at all. The ketchup carried more flavor than the sauce. One thing I noticed was how salty everything was. I could feel my throat thirst as the cheese ran over my gums. Everything had an unhealthy amount of salt added to it, which put together made for a stupidly salty pizza. It’s not a salty kind of salty. It’s the kind of salt that rubs along your esophagus when you’re done gulping a greasy ball of cheese, starch and ketchup.
I felt Dominos has cheaped out on the condiments too. In spite of how copiously people litter their pizzas with oregano and chili flakes, they tasted like it’s been years the bottles have been refilled. The oregano tasted like it was out in the sun for days after being opened. It was totally devoid flavor. I bet an empty spice jar at a respectable pizza place would impart better flavor than these. The chili flakes were off point too. They just made the pizza spicy, without any chili. I finished the pizza wondering how on earth they could mess that up. The next pizza was a similar thing. Here’s what you lose when you make pizzas on an assembly line. Your product loses individuality, its identity and dignity. Think comparing two shining ambitious cousins with lackluster twins. I’m still yet to figure how these eateries manage to keep their veggies crisp and juicy so many hours after cutting. I guess they soak them in a calcium salt brine. The capsicum on the other pizza was good, no complaining here. It was watery and crisp every time I bit into it and matched the cheese well. It was just the salt and fat that was bothering me. The fat lined my insides and the salt sucked the water out of them. The runny cheese was a peculiar experience and felt nice pulsing through the crevices of my mouth.
The pizzas left me with a satisfaction of having eaten a lot but left me yearning for something else. They addressed my needs of pizza and calories but failed to take care of higher needs. I left the place with mixed feelings, partly due to all the salt I ate. I don’t know what to make of it. After all, what could one expect for INR 72? They even had AC. This isn’t what pizza is supposed to be. Forgive me for sounding like a purist, but the commercialization of pizza by chains with questionable margins has bastardized what good pizza is. Oh well, this is what the market wants, so we can’t entirely blame them either. But what I find disheartening is, this is what pizza will be for a large number of people and they might live their lives maybe not knowing what great pizza is.
Gourmet Food Reviews 