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Singapore, September 5, 2010 Pizza Hut This week, we dined at a restaurant that has become a household name thanks to its pizza deliveries.
But pizza isn’t all that Pizza Hut is about.
Since it opened its first Singapore branch in 1981, it has introduced new items to keep its customers coming back.
Examples include the Stuffed Crust Pizza brought out in 1997 and Super Sub sandwiches last year.
Also introduced last year were pasta dishes to prove that its “expertise is not limited to pizzas”, said the chain’s marketing director Juliana Lim.
The recent additions are pasta dishes prepared en papillote style or “in parchment” style. Which means the food is cooked in a folded pouch or parcel to keep the juices in.
The dishes – chargrilled chicken parchment and spicy seafood parchment – will be on the menu until the end of this month.
In total, Pizza Hut has 13 pasta dishes to choose from, including the two new limited-time pasta dishes.
What we liked
This week’s column turned out to be a table for three as one reader couldn’t make it at the last minute.
So, it was good news for the rest of us – more food to go around.
Madam Chan liked the chargrilled chicken parchment ($11.90), a creamy chicken pasta.
Apart from the chicken, there are also turkey bacon bits, button mushrooms, garlic and capsicums.
“It’s not too rich like most creamy pastas are. The pasta cream is smooth,” Madam Chan said.
“I noticed the ingredients, like the chicken chunks, are quite generous,” said Mr Noor Hamzah.
He and I preferred the spicy seafood parchment ($12.90), a tomato-based seafood linguine pasta with abundant servings of mussels, prawns and squids.
I found the tomato-based sauce tastier and more robust than the sauce of the chicken pasta. It wasn’t soggy or watered down and the consistency was just right.
Madam Chan also had the Oriental salad ($6.90), which came with a hearty dose of romaine lettuce, chicken karaage (Japanese fried chicken), cherry tomatoes and olives served with Thai style chilli sauce.
“The sour-sweet tang of the Thai chilli sauce whets the appetite well,” she said.
What we didn’t
The seafood tau kwa salad ($6.90) is topped with button mushrooms, tau kwa (firm soya bean cake), dried crispy noodles and tomatoes.
It’s called seafood salad because seafood paste was mixed into the tau kwa.
Mr Noor Hamzah and I felt that the bland Italian dressing made it dry and tasteless.
The fact that I couldn’t taste the seafood in the tofu made me feel as if the dish had a confused identity.
The honey roasted wings ($5.80 for six and $8.50 for 10) didn’t particularly excite Madam Chan and me.
“The skin is crispy and tasty, but the flesh crumbles into pieces and is mushy,” she said.
As for the drinks, they were too sweet.
Take the Mango Tango ($4.50), made from mango puree, tea, passion fruit syrup and aloe bits. I couldn’t detect the aloe bits, and the drink simply tasted like an iced tea with way too much syrup.
Pizza Hut
180 Kitchener Road
#01-19/21 City Square Mall
Singapore 208539
