Review: Pizza Hut - Garlic Bread Pizza

Pizza Hut's Garlic Bread Pizza is only pizza in the loosest possible sense of the word. It features nine round slices of garlic bread topped with cheese and your choice of toppings for $8.99.

I picked up one with pepperoni on top and it came with a side of warm marinara sauce for dipping.

I was hoping for some warm, garlic goodness with this one, but it ended up being overdone and slightly burnt here and there.

As a result, the bread was dry and pretty chewy. The slices were decently thick, but maybe they need to cut them thicker if they're going through the pizza oven conveyor belt. The crust had a decent crispness, but again, it gives way to a dry, chewy crumb.

The garlic flavor was a bit light for my liking as was the butter. I like my garlic bread really garlicky and buttery and Pizza Hut's version wasn't doing it for me.

The cheese came in a serviceable amount, but might have been better served with some parmesan or other stronger-tasting cheese blended in. Also, I found myself wanting more cheese and more gooey-ness because, while there's enough for coverage, there's not enough for stretching and oozing.

The pepperoni had those desirable crispy edges and provided much of the flavor for the dish. Pizza Hut's pepperoni is on the thin side but the same can be said of their major competitors.

At the end of the day, Pizza Hut's Garlic Bread was a big miss for me. I didn't enjoy it and found myself thinking I could make a similar, but better dish pretty quickly in my toaster oven.

Update 7/16/12: Pizza Hut sent me a replacement pizza:

It looked a lot the same, but wasn't bone dry like the first. It was more in line with what I was expecting when I first heard of the Garlic Bread Pizza. The crumb was moist and almost soggy at some parts.

The "not dry" condition really did a lot for the flavors. The cheese still misses that stretch that good mozzarella has but imparted more flavor. There was a little bit of sauce on each slice that I didn't notice the first time around and the pepperoni was slightly more peppery.

Most importantly, there was a nice garlicky taste throughout, and the slices heat up real nice in the toaster over the next day (I could not say the same of the first pizza).

On the downside, it didn't have as much crispness as the first, but I'll take less crispy over super dry on my pizza any day.