Pizza Hut’s improved crispier crust pizzas

In today’s world of foodie fads, dining out is becoming an increasingly complicated affair, as customers these days are getting more fussy and invested in picking meals for their Instagram qualities rather than its taste.

For instance, people are often spending more time taking and editing photos of their food for social media in a bid to rack up the ‘Likes’, rather than simply enjoying the meal, and spending time eating with their families and loved ones.

But Pizza Hut hopes to bring the simple joys and delights back into eating though, with their new range of improved pan pizzas that are a culmination of customer feedback – that is, through a survey gathering inputs from more than 100 participants as well as intensive brainstorming within the restaurant teams, of what an ideal pizza had meant.

Said Paddy Rangappa, the new General Manager for Pizza Hut Singapore, “Our brand is all about the pizzas so we have to constantly think of how to make the pizza experience better for our customers.”

With 60 outlets spread out across Singapore today, Pizza Hut, which first set up shop in Singapore in 1981 at Jalan Jelita, is today the largest pizza chain restaurant in Singapore and the pizza company prides themselves in providing customers with a wide array of fresh pizzas and pastas amidst a fun and casual atmosphere that is engaging, friendly and memorable.

Over the years, Pizza Hut has evolved their menu offerings and ambience to keep up with the latest times and trends in order to stay ahead of the competition.

For example, the popular pizza chain has embraced the casual dining concept where customers can simply chill out to spend a relaxing time with their family and friends, or to celebrate a special occasion such as the birthday of a loved one.

New Crust, Sauce and Toppings

And after repeated product refinements and testings in order to improve the taste of their pizzas, the result is an all-new variant of the company’s popular Pan Pizza with a crispier crust, improved signature sauce and toppings closer to the edge while at the same time, retaining familiar flavours such as Hawaiian, Super Supreme and BBQ Chicken.

Explained Paddy, “So the crust has improved. We have a new formulation to give the pizza a crustier feeling when you eat it, yet the crust is softer on the inside.”

He added, “We have also improved our base sauce recipe and the toppings are now closer to the edge, making the pizzas more tasty. But the flavours are the same ones that our customers have been familiar with all along.”

And with these new and improved pizzas, Pizza Hut hopes to bring back the simple pleasure of a slice of piping hot and delicious pizza in today’s complex world, by making it easier for everyone to get a pizza.

The new pizzas were quietly introduced two months ago, and the restaurant’s customers have embraced the changes for the better. Said Paddy, “We have been getting of positive feedback on our improved pizzas.”

As well, for pizza lovers who are not able to get enough of the company’s new range of pan pizzas, Pizza Hut has introduced 90-minute free flow pizza buffets at selected outlets each week for a limited time period – that is, from 25 June to 26 August this year.

I was recently invited to the Marina Square outlet for a tasting session of the new and improved pizzas, during one such pizza buffet.

Types Of Pizzas

And at the buffet, we tried six different variants of pizzas and these were as follows:

Hawaiian – An all time favourite, this consists of chicken ham combined with sweet and sour pineapple chunks.
Chicken Supreme – Chicken ham, spicy chicken chunks and roasted chicken topped with capsicums and mushrooms
Curry Chicken – Spicy chunky chicken, potatoes, onions and diced tomatoes mixed in a medley of rich spices
BBQ Chunky Chic – Spicy chicken chunks, onions and pineapples baked in smoky BBQ sauce
Meat Galore – Chicken ham, pepperonis, minced beef and Cabanossi sausages combined with tomato mozzarella melt
Super Supreme – Juicy ground beef, smoky Cabanossi sausages, beef pepperoni, chicken ham, capsicums, onions, olives and pineapple chunks

The concept of the pizza buffet was quite simple. Diners sit down, place their order and the waiters will walk around the restaurant with the various pizzas. And you would then just pick a slice or two, of whatever you want to eat.

When I first saw the pizzas being taken out, I was able to tell immediately that the pizza toppings had been indeed placed closer to the crust than I had previously remembered from my last outing to Pizza Hut.

This is great because the more toppings and flavours there are in the pizza, the better it is – as you would be getting more value for your money.

As for the taste of the crust, I thought that the dough generally did felt lighter and more crusty than I had recalled from the previous time I had dined at Pizza Hut. So this had really helped to bring out the tastes and flavours of the various pizzas that I was eating.

Sometimes when the pizza dough is very dense, I realise that it may feel quite jelak after some time, but this was not the case with Pizza Hut’s improved pizzas at all. So I think that I would definitely like to eat these again.

Also, there was a rather slight hint of a smoky taste in the crust, which I had rather enjoyed.

However, across the selection of pizzas that I had eaten that evening, I had felt that the pizzas lacked some consistency, as some had a more crunchy crust, but others had been a tad more chewy and doughy – but this was possibly because they were not cooked for long enough due to the overwhelming number of hungry customers present at the buffet during that evening.

Tasting The Pizzas

For the pizza flavours though, my favourite one had been the Meat Galore because the flavours coming from the various types of meats that had been used in this pizza had complemented, yet balanced each other out quite well, and at the same time, the presence of so many types of meat had packed lots of flavour within each slice of the pizza. The amount of meat that was used in the pizza was not too much but the same time, but too sparse either.

In fact, I think that I would have had another slice of this if I had not been feeling so full by the end of the pizza buffet.

The Curry Chicken one had been quite unusual though, representing a fusion of East and West. I admit that I had quite liked the combination of the juicy chicken mixed with the predominantly Asian flavours of the herbs and spices. I couldn’t quite detect what types of herbs were used in this pizza; I only know that it tasted quite yummy and the flavours had all balanced each other out rather well.

For the Super Supreme pizza, I always like the medley of flavours and textures that this pizza gives me, due to the large number of ingredients used in it, and Pizza Hut did not disappoint in this case. The combination of flavours in the Super Supreme pizza really made my taste buds come alive.

The Chicken Supreme wasn’t bad too, giving off a strong meaty note due to the multiple variants of chicken that was used in the preparation of the pizza. It is a flavour that will definitely appeal to the chicken lovers out there.

As for the Hawaiian pizza, this is usually one of my favourite flavours, but I felt that for my particular slice of pizza, the chef had been a bit heavy handed than usual, on the sprinkling of the pineapples.

So as a result, this had drowned out the flavour of the ham. I’m not sure if this had been just for my slice, but I would have instead liked to taste more of a contrast between the savouriness of the ham and the sweetness that comes from the pineapples.

Perhaps if there could have been more consistency in the handling of the pizza toppings, that may have been better. But then again, this is an issue that can be very dependent on the chef who is preparing each pizza.

Added Paddy, “Our Hawaiian flavour generally stands out as being the most popular pizza variant.”

Also, I thought that the flavour of the BBQ sauce was also a bit too strong in the BBQ Chunky Chic pizza. And as such, I felt that this had drowned out the taste of the otherwise juicy chicken chunks. I do think it may have helped if the amount of the BBQ sauce could have been toned down slightly though.

Diners who go for the pizza buffet will be able to eat all of these six pizza flavours too. So if you love pizza but simply can’t choose what pizza to get, then this is a great way to get everything that you want without worrying that you will be over-ordering.

Diners who choose to have the pizza buffet however, must bear in mind that food wastage will be charged according to a-la-carte prices. So remember to take only what you are able to eat.

Besides the pizza, diners also get free flow of soft drink, as well as a bowl of the soup of the day, accompanied with two breadsticks per person.

The soup of the day was cream of chicken soup when I was at Pizza Hut. I thought this soup was quite yummy; it was quite rich and satisfyingly creamy and there were a few chunks of chicken inside my bowl of soup. Unfortunately apart from the chicken pieces, I could not really taste the flavour of chicken in the soup itself though.

The breadsticks however, were quite delicious. They were warm when they came out, and as a result, these were a little crunchy and crusty on the outside yet still soft and hot on the inside. When they were dipped into the soup, it was very satisfying, as the moist soup went very well with the crusty bread.

And for diners who want to have more variety in their meal than just pure pizza, they can choose to add on several side dishes to their pizza buffet. These are garlic bread (S$2.00), Sweet N Spicy chicken drum-lets or Honey Roasted Wings (S$3.00), Mozzarella Sticks (S$5.00) and Pasta (S$8.00).

Because I can never get enough cheese, I got the Mozzarella Sticks and I really enjoyed these. As the name suggests, they are basically Mozzarella cheese sticks that have been deep-fried till golden brown in colour.

When I bit into one, the warm, stringy cheese oozed out satisfyingly and this was very delicious for a cheese lover like me. I must state though, that the Mozzarella sticks however, might be be a bit salty, but you can simply dip it into the sauce that comes with the dish, and this will help to mask the salty taste and give it a slightly spicy kick at the same time.

But besides improving the actual pizzas though, Pizza Hut is also constantly working on improving their customer service as well as their speed of delivery, aiming to get both online and phone delivery orders to customers within 30 minutes.

This is because the restaurant hopes that with better customer service, this will improve the overall pizza eating experience for their diners and thus ensuring people will come back.

Said Paddy, “We aim to deliver every pizza within 30 minutes of you ordering it. If we cannot do it within 30 minutes, we will let you know exactly how long it will take, say 45 minutes or one hour, and we will let you decide if you still want to order the pizza from us.”

He continued, “And if we cannot bring the pizza to you within the time frame that we have promised, then your pizza will be free.”

Diners who want to enjoy the pizza buffet can head to the following Pizza Hut stores.

25 June – 8 July : Bedok Mall, Harbourfront Center, Jurong Point, Lot One Shoppers’ Mall
9 July – 22 July : Bukit Timah Plaza, Causeway Point, The Seletar Mall
23 July – 5 August : Ang Mo Kio, EastPoint Mall, NorthPoint City North Wing, West Mall
13 August – 26 August : Bukit Panjang Plaza, Plaza Singapura, Sun Plaza, WestGate

The pizza buffet is priced at S$16.90 for adults and S$10.90 for children aged between five and 12 on weekdays. During weekends, prices are S$18.90 for adults and S$12.90 for children. Prices do not include service charge and GST.