Little Caesars' new Deep Deep Dish Pizza ("Deep! Deep! Dish Pizza") promises a Detroit-style pizza with a crunchy crust with a crispy, caramelized cheese edge and a soft, chewy crumb, topped with pepperoni and a blend of mozzarella and muenster cheese.
I picked one up for
$8. It only comes in one size: large.
The rectangular pizza is actually two small square pizzas that are baked in a specialized dual-compartment pan.
While the concept sounds pretty good, my pizza ended up being quite mediocre. The pizza could have stood a couple more minutes in the oven as the crust wasn't quite crispy but rather a crispy-soft mix. The vaunted "caramelized cheese edge" was sporadic and missing from some slices entirely. The crumb was good though; spongy soft and satisfyingly chewy. There's a bit of olive oil flavor to the crust.
There was a lot of cheese going on here and it was nicely melted with a decent amount of stretch, but wasn't doing much on the flavor front. I think parmesan might have been a better play than the muenster they went with. The cheese also covered up the taste of Little Caesars' rather plain tomato sauce, which coupled with the thickness of the crust, became a bit of a wallflower.
The pepperoni wasn't doing too much either; coverage was sparse and the flavor was rather generic--not enough pepper to go with the 'roni. It wasn't cooked long enough to develop that desirable crispy quality.
Overall, Little Caesars' Deep Deep Dish Pizza sounded good, but left me rather unimpressed.
It wasn't crispy enough and needed more zing. Fortunately, I still had some
Papa John's Italian seasoning to liven up the slices a bit. Give me back Little Caesars'
previous Deep Dish Pizza!
Update 3/30/14 - I recently tried this again recently and the crust was much better, with a nice crispiness and caramelized cheese all along the edges. I had it topped with sausages which end up being meatier (they give you more of them) and tastier than Little Caesars' pepperoni.
Nutritional Info - Little Caesars Pepperoni Deep Deep Dish Pizza - per slice (145g)
Calories - 380 (from Fat - 160)
Fat - 18g (Saturated Fat - 7g)
Sodium - 660mg
Carbs - 38g (Sugar - 4g)
Protein - 16g
