Giving Them a Chance After a Long Time Away

Although I wouldn’t think I’m picky about pizza, I actually might just be. Pizza is pizza, and everyone likes a good pizza. Good, in this case, can be pretty relative because once you put sauce and cheese on a baked crust, it’s hard to be mad at the results. Except, even as a little kid, I got pretty picky about my pizza. School pizza, for example, always seemed gross to me. Bad cardboard with dull sauce and plasticy cheese that everyone else seemed to gobble up but that I truly hated. I was one of the elementary school kids grabbing one of the salads usually meant for the teachers instead of getting a slice on the Friday pizza day they had every week. I was the weird one.

So yeah, there are some pizzas I just won’t eat, places that have turned me off that I’ve refused to go back to. I like Pizza Hut pan pizza, despite how trashy it is, because there’s some ineffable deliciousness that is both greasy and awful but also so delicious. Little Caesars is shitty but when you can get it hot and ready for five bucks, that’s hard to pass up. I used to like Papa John’s back when I was in college, but a recent visit left me cold on the flat, boring pies. Of all the chains, though, I’ve basically avoided Domino’s altogether because I found their pizzas to be a level of bad that far exceeded all the other chains around.

And yes, I know there are better local joints, and I even have one in my area, but they’re more expensive, closed a couple of days a week, and don’t deliver so they’re in a different judgement zone from the chain places. I like my local joint, but they’re for certain occasions.

I recently caught a video about how Domino’s had gone through and completely reinvented their pies to try and lure customers back. They changed all their recipes, started using actual cheese, and made themselves into a whole new experience. It apparently helped to goose their numbers and changed their outlook. No longer were they the worst pizza joint in the United States (as per customer surveys). They were now among the best (at least for the chains). This happened over a decade ago, but it’s also been that long since I last ate there (because the last few times I’d had them I found their pizza to be pretty gross), so, with video in mind (and the possibility of doing a podcast on it later), I went over to my local Domino’s to get a selection to sample.

Ultimate Pepperoni Pizza

When reviewing stores in general I do like to try and sample a “baseline” item, something I can compare from one place to the next to get an idea of how the restaurant handles their business, and when it comes to pizza there’s nothing more “baseline” than a pepperoni pie. Dominoes has a specialty pizza called the Ultimate Pepperoni, which features “two layers of pepperoni sandwiched between parmesan, provolone, and mozzarella cheeses with oregano”. This is the pepperoni pizza they use to lure their customers in, so that seemed like the perfect baseline item to sample. If this is what they think pepperoni should be, that’s what I’ll eat.

And it was… fine. There were parts of the pizza I liked, and parts I didn’t. For starters, the pepperoni was nice and zesty. I wouldn’t really call it spicy, at least by my standards, but there was a little kick, a touch of something more than meat and salt flavors, that let you know it was a tasty pepperoni on the pie. Two layers is a solid amount, and the pepperoni felt substantial. It wasn’t super crispy, since we are talking about two layers with a bunch of cheese in there as well, but it was tasty and tangy and I liked it.

I also felt the seasoning mix on the pie was good. I’m not a huge fan of pie crusts, but I found that with the mix of garlic seasoning included on their hand-tossed pies, as well as the oregano mix sprinkled on the Ultimate Pepperoni, there was a good flavor to the crust. For a topping mix that’s supposed to feel “specialty”, I would say that Domino’s certainly nailed that part of their pizza-making process.

With that said, I wasn’t really sold on Domino’s pies in general from the servings I had (two sliced hot and fresh for dinner, plus another two the next day to see how they heated up because everyone enjoys leftover pizza). While I liked the toppings I was left wanting by the base pie. The tomato sauce just isn’t very good, tasting like bottled pasta sauce, like a Prego or Ragu. I also didn’t dig their cheese. I found it pretty flavorless and dry. The pie is cooked enough that I wouldn’t expect the cheese to be dry, just melted, with a bit of cheese pull. We could probably blame the provolone included in this pie for some of that, but it still threw off the experience.

But the worst part was the greasiness of the pizza. While it’s not as overtly greasy as a Pizza Hut pizza, which positively drips grease and leaves a greasy stain in its cardboard box, there was still a lot of grease that came off the pizza. I didn’t notice it while eating it, but I felt it on my fingers after (even after washing my hands with soap) and I could taste it on my lips. It’s a far greasier pizza than Papa John’s, for example, and someone less delicious overall than a Pizza Hut pie. If I’m gonna suffer the grease I may as well get a good pie out of it and Domino’s just wasn’t good enough.

I don’t think it’s a bad pizza, just not a very good one either. I like my other options in town (not even counting the really good local joint near me) so it’s a case where I’d only go to Domino’s at this point if there’s a really good deal, or a solid coupon, or, I don’t know, the Pizza Hut burned down or something. I just didn’t enjoy the pie enough to get it again on its own.

Gluten Free Pepperoni

To go along with this, my wife (who is gluten intolerant) decided to get a small (because that’s the only size the crust comes in) gluten free pie. She got hers as a basic pepperoni (not the ultimate version) since that’s her go-to. And she liked it well enough. She didn’t have the complaints about the sauce or cheese that I did, which could be because she got the basic version or could just be I’m just too picky about my pizzas. She wasn’t a huge fan of the crust, though, finding it rather thin (which is to be expected) and unevenly cooked. Too soft in the middle, too crunchy on the outside. Flavor was good but the overall experience was not.

She did say she’d be more willing to go back than I was, just because it’s hard to get even a decent gluten free pizza. But if she could have it, she’d much rather have a Pizza Hut pan than Domino’s gluten free offering, so on that front we are in agreement.

Mango Habanero Wings

Finally, what’s a pizza without wings? I grabbed an eight order from Domino’s along with my pie so I could see how they stacked up. And, let me mention, if I’m picky about my pizza I’m even worse about my wings. I expect them to be not only hot and well sauced but also crispy on the outside and flavorful throughout. I’m a pretty traditional wings guy normally, preferring to stick to the hot buffalo flavors, but Ghoul Mike did convince me to get the Mango Habanero, a sauce he usually prefers on wings, on the off chance to review Domino’s together on the podcast.

Like with the pizza, I was unimpressed by the wings. On the upside, Domino’s did get two things right. First, the wings were nice and hot, but spice wise and for the temperature as well. They were also well sauced, coated all over, and dripping with flavor. That should be the baseline for any wing, really, but when I get the wings from Pizza Hut they aren’t always piping hot, and often it’s clear that they’ve just thrown the wings in the container, then splashed some sauce on top. It’s subpar serving and I really don’t like it, so kudos to Domino’s for getting this basic preparation right.

With that said, they also missed the mark in one key area: the wings weren’t very good. The wings I got, despite being piping hot, were somehow soft and flabby. It certainly didn’t help my opinion that the very first wing chunk I bit into was almost entirely fat, but I have to knock off for that. All the wings were a bit too flabby, a bit too chewy. Some extra time cooking, getting towards the crispier end of the spectrum could have helped. It would have rendered off some fat and made the experience better. Although considering that it felt like they were using subpar wings from a less than excellent source, I don’t know how much you could improve these through cooking.

I didn’t hate the sauce at least. The Mango Habanero was tasty enough, if a bit sweeter than I normally go for. I think there are wing places (like Buffalo Wild Wings or Quaker Steak & Lube) that have good sauces that nail the flavors better, but I didn’t hate the sauce Domino’s used. In some ways it tasted better than almost anything else I got for the meal. Just a pity it had to be on such crappy wings.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, overall I was unimpressed by the Domino’s experience. I get that they’ve likely improved, and I will even admit this wasn’t the worst pizza, or worst set of wings, I’ve ever gotten. But when it comes to pizza chains in the grand fast casual dining landscape, Domino’s still rates lower for me than most other chains. Their various items all had some failing that knocked points off, for me, and it led to a middling, below average meal that I just didn’t really enjoy. Better than the were clearly still isn’t good enough, at least not for me.