After reading about Dominos’ new pizza recipe in pretty much every food blog on the internet, I thought I would take advantage of my location, and actually try it out.  Currently, Ann Arbor, MI is the only Domino’s market serving the recipe.  The reason?  It all started here!  This is until December 27th, when it will be launched nation wide.

I’ve never been much of a fan of Domino’s pizza.  In fact, I’m not much of a fan of any pizza chains.  None of them have anything that comes close to any local pizza joint.  Domino’s seems to be among the worst, serving bland pizzas that lack flavored crust or variety.  Thankfully, Pizza Hut will always be around to claim the title of “Worst Pizza of all Time.”  Recently though, Domino’s has attempted to add new items to their menu such as the American Legends menu, baked subs, and pasta bowls, but their regular pizza remains as bland as ever.  I guess this is the reason they decided to revamp their recipe.

According to Domino’s, the recipe wasn’t just altered, it was completely re-done:

“2010 will be our 50th year in the business, and we are kicking it off with the most aggressive promotion in the history of our company,” said Domino’s Chairman and CEO David A. Brandon. “This is the biggest product introduction we’ve done since…well, pizza.”

The primary changes include:

Crust – A garlic seasoned crust with parsley baked to a golden brown.

Sauce – Sweeter, bolder tomato sauce with a medley of herbs and a red pepper kick.

Cheese – Shredded cheese made with 100% real mozzarella and flavored with just a hint of provolone.

I figured this was a pretty big deal in the test market, but decided to call and ask just to make sure I wasn’t wasting my hard earned money on an old Domino’s pizza.  The guy who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about, and had to ask a manager about “some new recipe”.  After receiving confirmation, he advised me that they were just using a brushed on garlic sauce for the crust, a new red sauce, and a different cheese blend.  So basically they just caught up to the concept of actually applying flavor to crust, added a couple new seasonings to their sauce, removed the “fake mozzarella”, and added a hint of provolone?  This wasn’t sounding good.

Upon my first glance, I couldn’t find much that was different.  It looked like the same Domino’s pizza I’ve been eating for the last 25 years.  The only difference I could see was that the cheese looked a little thicker.  Pretty sure that was from the pizza guy just using too much, though.

The crust looked exactly the same, except for a few green flakes and what looks like a combination of butter and Parmesan cheese.  I expected to see clear evidence of parsley and garlic, but I couldn’t even tell from appearance that this crust was any different than before.

The garlic and parsley flavor was actually pretty good, despite being nearly invisible.  The crust resembles garlic bread, and is little better than the old crust.  Of course, if you go to Hungry Howie’s this is a pretty standard thing.  Even DiGiorno’s has a garlic bread pizza.  Nice improvement, but not too impressive.

The “100% real mozzarella” cheese blend tastes exactly like the old cheese blend.  I did notice a little difference in texture, but that might have just been from the amount of cheese.  I couldn’t tell where this “hint of provolone” was.  Didn’t taste anything but mozzarella.  The whole time I was just trying to figure out what wasn’t 100% real about the mozzarella being used before.

The sauce was actually a pretty nice improvement.  I was a little worried about the advertised sweetness of the new sauce, because I hate sweet pizza sauce.  To my surprise, sauce tasted less sweet than before.  I’m not sure if it was because of the addition of the red pepper, but the sauce was nicely balanced between sweet and spicy.  This was the most impressive change of the new recipe, which is good because their old sauce wasn’t much to talk about.

Bottom line, Domino’s decided to switch up their pizza a little bit to get rid of the odd taste of cardboard and made a couple nice improvements.  It’s not much of a change, and I think it’s more of a marketing ploy to get people eating their pizzas for a couple weeks.  I wouldn’t reccomend running out to try it, but next time you try the pizza you might notice a couple changes.

Dominos on-line ordering system is great.  The pizza may not be so up to par, but being able to fully customize your pizza without having to actually speak to a human being is genius.

That being said, the guys over at The Sneeze decided to try out these customization options.  Can you really get your pizza any way you want it?  Well, they put that claim to the test.

The first test was heavy sauce, pepperoni on the left, and mushrooms on the right.  This went well, except they put it into the box so the topping were flipped.  Fail.

The next one is just ridiculous.  Look for yourself.

Do yourself a favor and check the rest of the post out.  Good stuff.

I was able to secure  a new power cord for the laptop, which shouldn’t have been much of an issue since I work at the largest electronics chain in the country, so I am officially back.  I’m sure you missed me, and I apologize for any tears shed during my absence.  Sometimes time apart is the best thing.  It will only make our relationship grow stronger.

During my absence, I had the privilege of eating Domino’s new Chocolate Lava Crunch Cake. While I usually steer completely clear of deserts from pizza joints, these things are pretty legit.  If you’re a rich chocolate fan, I’m telling you.. You just might like these things.  In fact, I guarantee it.  I was a little hesitant to believe that chocolate “lava” pours out the center but it really does.  Crazy.

In honor of these delicious cakes and yours truly having computer access once again, I am giving $15 Dominos gift cards to the first two people who can tell me where the first Domino’s pizza was located.  No strings attached.

A little hint: My father actually used to work there.

Good luck!

PS. I will also send you a $100 gift card if you can personally replicate The Chocolate McGriddle Crunch Cake, and prove to me that you ate it.  A McDonalds sausage, egg, and cheese McGriddle sandwiched between two Dominos Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes.  Observe….

After a while of telling myself I would try Domino’s new pasta in a bread bowl menu item, I finally managed to pick one up the other day(ordered it on-line so I could save a dollar.  cha-ching!).   They offer chicken Carbonara, Italian Sausage Marinara, Chicken Alfredo, Pasta Primavera or Three Cheese Mac-n-Cheese.  While these are all normally delicious pastas, something about Domino’s versions scared me.  The thing that scared me most was receiving a pasta made with pizza sauce.  I ended up taking the “create your own” option, which works out because I am somewhat of a control freak.

I scrolled through the options and was actually somewhat impressed.  There seem to be a lot of options that aren’t just pizza items, but ingredients that you would actually find in a pasta.  They also give you the option of adding a “light” amount or a “normal” amount for all sauces and ingredients.  I ended up choosing a bowl with alfredo sauce, light spinach, normal “premium” chicken, and feta cheese to top it off.  After ordering from the wrong Domino’s, being told I ordered from the wrong Domino’s by the people at the wrong Domino’s, and a short drive, I was finally with my bread bowl.

What I got seemed to be about half the size of what Domino’s is advertising.  I knew that it wouldn’t look exactly the same as what I was shown, but this was a little ridiculous.  The bread bowl is thick and not shallow, leaving little room to fill with pasta.  I would say that you are looking at 80% bread bowl, 7% pasta, and 13% cheese.  Hopefully I did that math right.  If not, I’m a non-profit blogger.  Not a mathematician.  Moving on..  The bread wasn’t very tasty, and I actually ended up throwing about half of it away.  It tastes like Domino’s pizza dough which I am assuming is exactly what it is.

The amount of ingredients actually put into the bowl was very disappointing to me.  I said light spinach, but it was must have been a mystery to me that light meant 6 pieces of spinach.  The spinach you are looking at right now is all the spinach that I got.  There’s nothing mixed into the pasta.  The amount of cheese they add to these things is insane, and I never thought I would say those words in my life.  I love cheese, but there comes a point where there is TOO MUCH CHEESE.  Maybe I was stupid to add feta to something with alfredo sauce,  but I needed some kind of cheese in there and cheddar wasn’t going to cut it for me.

When inserting my fork, the first thing I noticed in this pasta was the lack of pasta.  I would estimate that I received 12 noodles.  This is slightly disheartening when you remember that these are being advertised as pasta bowls.  If this was named a “Slop of Cheesy Goodness in a Bread Bowl”, I would have to say that Domino’s is really giving you what is advertised.  I can’t confirm it, but I believe that I gained 4 pounds from this meal.

In summary, this bowl wasn’t awful.  It just wasn’t satisfying and I would probably never order it again.  It’s worth a try, and maybe one of the bowls will be better than mine.

Domino’s accidentally gave away 11,000 pizzas earlier this week.  11,000 pizzas.

How does that happen you ask?

Apparently, a savvy customer found out that an unannounced coupon code for online ordering in the form of the code word, “bailout” would grant the customer 1 free medium pizza. The code spread like wildfire, and one day and 11,000 pizzas later, the code was deactivated.

How did I not hear about this????