What I Ate: January 30, 2010 (Domino's Pizza, El Pollo Rico)

Lunch: We decided to order Domino's Pizza to try their new pizza which supposedly has a new crust, new sauce, and new cheese mix. We ordered their Cali Chicken Bacon Ranch and their ExtravaganZZa Feast Pizzas with Hand Tossed crust. We liked both pizzas before, so we were eager to see if they made it better or they screwed it up. When they arrived it was a huge disappointment. Here's what the Cali Chicken Bacon Ranch looked like.

The pizza was soggy with grease and slippery with ranch flavored liquid goo (dressing?). Half the pizza wasn't topped and part of the toppings has slide off the pizza to pool on the side of the box. This wasn't surprising given that the entire cheese layer floated on the Ranch dressing. It was pretty disgusting in flavor - too much Ranch.

The ExtravaganZZa Feast was much better, but had too much parsley flavor. Once past the toppings, the crust was horrible to eat. The first few bites were okay, but the ones after start tasting like movie theater popcorn. There's an overwhelming taste of butter flavoring that seriously detracts from the crust. I think pizza crust should be salty and slightly yeasty in flavor - like a good simple bread. Dressing it up with olive oil is okay, but drenching it in butter aroma just didn't work for me. It turns out that they brush the crust with a garlic butter sauce after it's cooked, so you can ask them NOT to do that when ordering your pizza.

Dinner: We picked up a Whole Chicken Combo with extra rice, extra tortillas, and rice pudding (which they don't make, but comes in a prepackaged container) from El Pollo Rico (704 West Stassney Lane, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 326-1161‎). Delicious.