It’s a new month, which means it’s time yet again for a Japanese pizza chain to unleash a new and, possibly, edible pizza upon an unsuspecting Japanese public. As luck would have it, the release coincided with a UJ writer get-together, so we decided to see for ourselves: Is Pizza Hut Japan’s new Shoyu Ramen Pizza a must-eat – or another awful gimmick?
Gimmick pizzas from Domino’s and Pizza Hut Japan are nothing new. The Hut has previously unleashed such monstrosities on us as its coriander pizza and, recently, a “jirai kei” pizza made with squid ink.
Domino’s Japan has, arguably, been the worst offender with its pizza that bore 600 grams of pickles. As someone who’s never been fond of pickles, the very concept fills my heart with dread and my throat with bile.
Which brings us to Pizza Hut Japan’s latest attempt to grab a share of social media attention. Their new offering, the Shoyu (soy sauce) Ramen Pizza, sports a rich and fatty tonkotsu ramen sauce base on a crispy dough. It comes decked out with noodles (hey, it’s ramen) and several large slabs of char siu (roasted pork fillet).
The verdict: It’s ramen on pizza
So the question is: does ramen actually belong on pizza?
As luck would have it, this week, several members of the Unseen Japan crew got together at UJ Editor-in-Chief Noah Oskow’s place in Tokyo for a screening of Beat Takeshi’s Boiling Point. So myself, Noah, reporter and Tokyo Vice author Jake Adelstein, and reporter Eric Margolis decided to give it a go.
When Jake arrived at Noah’s, I told him about the pizza. His face went white.
“Please tell me that’s not all you ordered,” he begged.
(Fortunately, for both him and the rest of us, it was not.)
The medium-size pizza does, indeed, look like someone, somehow, managed to pour a bowl of ramen directly on top of a pizza dough disk. I can’t say it looks unappetizing. At the same time, it doesn’t look particularly inviting.
It probably won’t shock you to learn that the verdict about this thing is mixed. I’m not usually a fan of carbs piled on top of carbs. And that’s basically what this is: a slew of additional curbs on bread with a few thin slices of meat. While the char siu tasted better than expected, I missed the cheesy meatiness I’ve come to expect and love from pizza.
Jake was far less impressed, though he did come to the conclusion that it was edible in the absence of any other food.
Of all of us, Eric was the most enthusiastic about this marketing monstrosity. “It’s pretty good, actually.”
Fortunately, we also had other, less controversial pizzas from the Hut to balance out the evening. Their bulgogi pizza was actually delicious, as was their “karapeno” (spicy jalapeno) pizza with jalapenos and sausage.
In the end, the ramen pizza is exactly what it says it is: it’s ramen on pizza – with everything good (?) and bad that that entails.
Want to take your chances and come to your own conclusions? It’s selling for a limited time from February 3rd until March 9th from 579 Pizza Hut stores across Japan.
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