Thursday, October 9, 2014

Little Caesars Soft Pretzel Crust Pizza

It's been awhile since ole Mike graced your presence with a fatguyfoodblog babblefest, but when I heard there was a whole new way to get sick at Little Caesars, I was all over it. 

I like Little Caesars. Their pizza rates about a C/C+ for chain pizza, but an A+ for value. The only value close to as good as this, in my opinion, is being able to buy a slice of roni from Cumberland Farms for a buck. But even a whole pizza there is 7 bucks, and good ole Caesar only charges 5. And it's lukewarm and ready... sometimes. I'm actually quite happy when nothing is ready so I can get a piping hot pie with a very short wait, which gives me time to look at the very short shorts of the babes who work there, I'm just saying- they should cut it out with the whole Hot-and-ready thing since it happens so rarely. Ok sorry, I'm getting off topic. 

Little Caesars is good, but 2 of the 3 of us FGFBers have sworn off eating there due to the havoc they wreak on our digestive systems and the other one never really ate there anyway. I'm not sure what they put in their pizza to keep it so cheap, but I think it's a potent mix of fiber and Ex-lax. Long ago, I decided their value and tastiness was not worth the time spent on the throne the next morning. I love my reading time just like anyone else, but I've never felt good the day after Little Caesars. Never.

Could a new pizza with Pretzel crust change my mind? 


Look at this thing. For real, that's a gorgeous pizza. It's like they made this for a commercial shoot. 

So what's the deal here? Clearly there's a pretzel crust covered in salt (just what pizza needs- Salt!). Next, they put a cheddar cheese sauce on instead of tomato sauce. Next is their standard cheese and either pepperoni or nothing, then a mix of Asiago, Fontina, Parmesan and White Cheddar cheese on top. Not bad for 6 bucks!


Time to bite into this cheese monster. 

someone wants a piece...

Aaaaand.... A+ right away. Review over. Seriously. Bravo, Little Caesars. Bravo. The cheese and roni are the same as a normal Little Caesars pizza, but that cheese sauce... god damn. It's EXCELLENT. I can confidently say I would rather have this than tomato sauce any day of the week (at least for Little Caesars). It's really creamy and really cheesy- not sharp at all, not too cheesy (as if there were a thing). It's just right. My only complaint is the one we all saw coming- there's not enough of this cheese sauce. 

In lower light, it's a mess of cheese and gloriously glistening cheese sauce:


In better light, it's scrambled eggs:

sort of

And then there's the point of this pizza- the crust. I'm gonna be honest and embarrass myself right now- I haven't had a lot of the pretzel stuff that's come out recently. I like crunchy pretzels from time to time, but I never cared about the big puffy ones you put mustard on. So, when everything started coming out pretzels, I didn't share the excitement of everyone else.

I was dumb. This flavor rules. This crust tastes exactly like pretzel. The salt is awesome, the crust is greasy and, if you're lucky, a bit crunchy. It really tastes like a giant pretzel as an added bonus after a gooey cheese-fest. 


As great as this pizza is though, this is where I turn from Reviewer Mike to This-is-where-you-can-improve-your-product Mike. I don't make a lot of the things you buy, I make a lot of the things you buy better

So, Little Caesars, here are my suggestions for you, since I'm smarter than you:

1. More cheese sauce. Pretty simple one there.

2. Give us the ability to customize. One friend said he got this with just bacon. Josh said he asked for something else and they shot him down right away. Cheese or Pepperoni were the only options. This drives the point home that these pizzas may not be as fresh as advertised (I always assumed they were just frozen pizzas). The pepperoni was good, but if I get this again, it will be just cheese, or hopefully bacon if they'll let me. Something sweeter and less salty and hot like bacon or ham would probably be phenomenal on this. The pepperoni's acidity just kind of offsets the creamy cheesiness a little too much. It's not a complaint- it's just more that the good of this pizza is lost a little bit because of the roni.

3. Make the crust more crunchy. Yes, soft pretzels are a thing people love, but the parts of mine that were a little more crispy and had a nice collection of congealed grease were the best part. 

4. Either make the whole thing pretzel or put in spots of pretzel. Let me explain. The pretzel rules, but it's honestly just the outer crust. Little Caesars might tell you otherwise, but the rest of this pizza is their regular dough. It's almost as if they brushed a pretzel-flavored glaze across the outer crust that colored the crust dark brown, then they sprinkled salt on and called it a day. And that's ok if they did that, but realistically, other than during the last few bites, I was just eating a pizza with cheese sauce, then, when the pizza was gone, I had a pretzel to eat. The bites towards the end where I got a little bit of everything were the best. So, either make the whole thing pretzel, or mix pretzel bites in like it's another topping. How cool would that be? You'd get pretzel in every bite. 

5. Stop being Little Caesars. Ok, this one isn't entirely fair, but the whole time I was eating this pizza, I just imagined how awesome it would be if a better pizza place that didn't make me sick had made this pizza. But that is bound to happen at some point... Imagine, a Dominos pan pizza with cheese sauce and a pretzel crust or bites... mmmmmmm...

Because, as great as this was, I did not feel good the next day. Perhaps the problem was with the order of Italian cheese bread I ordered on the side, but that's not my fault. That shit is IRRESISTIBLE. 

someone was very let down after this picture was taken, and it wasn't me

I have to give this pizza an A-. I'm taking back my A+ rating from before, because Little Caesars, as good as they can be, will never be worthy of a +. I don't know how soon I'll get one of these again and put myself through the pain, but I'm sure it will happen. This is just too good of a pie. 

Oh- one last and very important note: get one of these quick. I just looked into it, and this is a limited time pizza (WHHHYYY??!?!?!).

It's only available until October 26th, which gives you 17 and a half days to get this as much as possible so Little Caesars considers adding 1 thing to their already massive menu of what, 6 items? So lame. You couldn't even have waited until the Ides of March to cancel this? (sorry, had to get one Caesar joke in there).

-review by Mike

4 comments:

  1. I ordered this too. You can't really call it a pizza, because it tastes nothing like pizza, but if you dip it into spicy brown mustard......Then HELL Yeah, a pretzel with pepperoni and cheese. You're wecome.

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    1. haha there you go! I think this is deliciously cheesy enough that I would't want mustard, but that's certainly a great idea

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  2. I think this is a great pizza too, I just hate that it's a limited time offer. Come on LC, get with it, this one is a big hit, why not capitalize on it?

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    1. Agreed. But the last time I was there, it was still on sale and I swear I saw a commercial recently. Maybe they realized they should keep this one going?

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