What's on the Menu: Pizza Hut UK 2012

The Internet has been abuzz about Pizza Hut UK's recent limited-time menu item, the new Hot Dog Stuffed Pizza, topped however you like and with a free mustard drizzle (is that really a selling point?) but I'd thought it be interesting to see what else they're serving at Pizza Hut across the Pond.

In the United Kingdom, it seems they have Pizza Hut Restaurants where the menu is a bit more expansive (they serve wine and offer free unlimited salad with your order). You can even book a table online! And then, they have delivery units. Their delivery menu is more congruous with what we have here so that's what we'll look at.

Some of their terminology is a bit different from us; they call their cheese pizza, the "Margherita" and instead of "Hand-Tossed" it's "The Italian." They also still have Cheesy Bites! I miss those!

The pizzas and pastas are pretty similar to our Pizza Huts. The pastas are available in three fairly traditional varieties: Chicken Alfredo, Penne Bolognese, and Four Cheese and Vegetable.

The pizza toppings they offer are pretty similar as well: steak, pepperoni, ham, spicy pork sausage, crispy bacon, spicy minced beef, chicken, Cajun chicken, tuna, anchovies, mixed peppers, onions, tomato, pineapple, mushrooms, sweetcorn, sliced black olives, jalapeños, green chillies, and extra mozzarella cheese. The steak, tuna, and sweetcorn are notable differences.

It's the sides and dessert options where Pizza Hut UK really differs from our Pizza Huts. While we pretty much just have various forms of the same ingredients (breadsticks, Pizza Rollers, and P'Zones are all just different forms and combinations using the same ingredients as pizza), in the UK, Pizza Hut seems to carry more of a variety to go along with your pizza.

They have salad and coleslaw. No breadsticks, but garlic bread! I wish they had garlic bread here. Not sure why they don't. They also offer potato wedges and... nachos, but its made with mozzarella cheese(?!). I guess they do liven it up with jalapenos and salsa though.

Where we have Cheesesticks, they have Cheesy Garlic Bread and one-up us with Cheesy Garlic Bread Toppers (which tops off the whole affair wit bacon). They also have potato skins, chicken strips, wings, and deep-fried cheese to cover all your sport watching needs.

For dessert, they actually deliver frozen and cold stuff. I guess that means in addition to the insulating pizza carries they have some sort of cold box for their delivery drivers.

They have warm, fresh-baked cookies a la mode...

And a variety of packaged cakes and ice cream. They have pints and what looks like mini Bon Bons.

The most interesting items seem to be the ones based on UK snacks: the Chocolate Jaffa Cheesecake and the Jammie Dodgers Cheesecake. Jaffas are a UK sponge-cake-like cookie with orange-flavored jelly, covered in chocolate (most recently, they're known for lining a lickable elevator in an interesting and somewhat disgusting marketing stunt). Jammie Dodgers are a shortbread cookie sandwich with a plum jam filling (other varieties contain different fillings).

I wonder if people in the UK occasionally just order the cake and ice cream from Pizza Hut instead of going to the grocers?