After last Tuesday’s disastrous attempt (see yesterday’s blog post) at ordering online from either Pizza Hut or Domino’s, we decided to give Pizza Hut another go today, with me ordering it earlier in the day for collection in the evening (my local Pizza Hut doesn’t do deliveries).
Blimey, it was certainly a lot easier today than it was last week. I went to the vouchercodes.co.uk website, searched for Pizza Hut, chose my offer (buy one get one free) and clicked on the link which took me straight through to the Pizza Hut website where it allowed me to choose any base, any pizza and customise my toppings (I chose the Heavenly Veg Speciality Pizza [only available on the regular Italian base [yes, the same one it wouldn’t allow me to choose last week]] and swapped the caramelised onions and rocket for mushrooms and spinach, and also took advantage of their free jalapeño offer). I ordered the King of the Coast Speciality Pizza for The Meat Eater and swapped the cream sauce base for a tomato one.
I wasn’t impressed with the range of sides on the Pizza Hut menu. They had the usual garlic bread (with or without cheese), jacket wedges and chicken wings but no jalapeño bites (my favourite) or mozzarella sticks (my second favourite). Shame. I ordered the jacket wedges which come with a choice of dip. One thing I do like about the Pizza Hut menu though is that they tell you the calorie count against each item (garlic bread with mozzarella = 685 cals. Eek.).
Ordering was simple. It all went through easily and the cost of the cheapest pizza was automatically taken off the total.
At 7pm, just as we were about to leave to pick up the pizzas, Pizza Hut rang to say that they didn’t have any spinach and what would we like as a replacement (I chose onions). When we got there, the restaurant was empty except for a few members of staff sitting at a table. A waitress came over to us immediately, went out the back and brought out our pizzas.
Unlike my Domino’s pizza, this one wasn’t generously covered with toppings (although whole black olives instead of those horrible rubbery slices some pizza places serve was a bonus) and was a bit cold, dry and congealed looking, but tasted ok. The Meat Eater said his pizza was lovely and much nicer than the Domino’s one we’d had at the weekend. The jacket wedges were much the same as the jacket wedges we buy from Tesco (which isn’t a bad thing). The sour cream and chive dips were cold and thick; much nicer than the warm dips Domino’s and Papa John’s serve.
Overall then, between Domino’s and Pizza Hut, I declare Domino’s the winner by far on quality, freshness and taste. The Meat Eater, on the other hand, much preferred Pizza Hut.
Money-wise, Pizza Hut wins. We got two 11” pizzas and a side order of jacket wedges for £12.70, whereas our order of two large pizzas and a side order of garlic mozzarella wedges from Domino’s cost £22.74. Bear in mind though, that the Domino’s pizza was ordered at the weekend when most pizza chains don’t offer their best deals.
But, like I said yesterday, until Domino’s start doing cheesy jalapeño bites, I won’t be abandoning Papa John’s.
Update (in case you didn’t see it on yesterday’s blog post): I sent Domino’s (via Twitter to @dominos_uk) the link to yesterday’s blog post and they replied to let me know that their techies will soon be changing the #TwoforTuesday banner to click straight through to that part of website.
So if you were having any problems (as I was) ordering through their website, it should be sorted soon. Now all I need is for them to start making cheesy jalapeño bites. Are you listening, Domino’s?