To me, getting a Pizza Hut Hot Dog Bites Pizza was like getting GoBot for Christmas. Sure, they’re vehicles that transform into robots, but they’re a lame ripoff of other vehicles that turn into robots. They’re no Transformer, robots in disguise.
In my eyes, the Transformer equivalent of a Pizza Hut hot dog pizza is the Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza that other countries, like Canada and the U.K., were sold. It was a pizza that looked like a normal Stuffed Crust pizza but instead of the crust being stuffed with gooey cheese, they had significantly not gooey at all hot dogs in them.
Why didn’t that come to our shores? We’re America, dammit! We’ve done so many things with our hot dogs. We’ve wrapped them in bacon. We’ve injected them with cheese. We watch people eat dozens of them one after another for sport. FOR SPORT! I don’t want a GoBot, I want a Transformer! But I have to settle for the GoBot version of a Pizza Hut hot dog pizza.
Each Hot Dog Bites Pizza has 28 pigs in a blanket as the outer crust. Half the slices have three bites and the other half have four. The crust around them…ugh, I can’t delay it any longer. I have to talk about how they look. I don’t know about you, but there’s something disturbing about the way these bites look. Some folks have said they look like toes, and the photo below helps prove that. But my active imagination sees a few other things that probably aren’t appropriate for a food review. But let me just say these things are seen below the waist.
Now back to the review.
The crust around the hot dogs were toasted nicely, giving them a slight crispy outside. And the dough inside was soft and had a slight chewiness. But the hot dogs themselves don’t look like hot dogs or taste like them. Instead they look like Vienna sausages and have a flavor that reminds me of those little smokies cocktail sausages. As someone who had eaten a lot of cocktail sausages wrapped up in Pillsbury Crescent dough, I liked the familiar flavor of the hot dog bites. But, again, they don’t taste like hot dogs.
Each pizza comes with a container of French’s yellow mustard to use as a dipping sauce. Because, you know, hot dogs. After trying them with ketchup, mustard, and a combination of the two, I have to say going with mustard was the right choice. Ketchup seems too close to the sauce on the pizza. Even with mustard, the smokiness of the meat was still noticeable.
Combining the two super junk foods, pizza and hot dogs, into one bite isn’t going to open a portal into Awesomeland. Together, without the mustard, they’re okay. But I think they’re best left separated.
I will admit, although it’s not exactly the Transformer I wanted, this GoBot is kind of cool and it still makes me want to eat the crust more than a cheese-stuffed crust would. Also, I found that one slice with four hot dog bites was enough to fill me up. Maybe it was the extra protein. But I now know I can never eat hot dogs for sport.
(Nutrition Facts – Not available on website.)
Item: Pizza Hut Hot Dog Bites Pizza
Purchased Price: $17.99
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Pizza Hut
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Makes me want to eat the crust more than cheese-filled crust. It’s still pizza with hot dogs in the crust. One slice is filling. Enough mustard for dipping all 28 hot dog bites. Transformers.
Cons: Not as cool as getting a Hot Dog Stuffed Crust Pizza. Hot dogs don’t taste like hot dogs, more like cocktail sausages. For those with active imaginations, the hot dog bites look a bit disturbing. I can’t eat hot dogs for sport. GoBots.
Is anyone else seeing a herd of Jawas surrounding a pizza?
Uhh, wow. I can’t see myself buying this, though there are sadly no Pizza Huts left around here.
Seems like we’re on the same page, as it sounded better in my head but is just OK/fine pizza (the somewhat new sauce/drizzle options at Pizza Hut weren’t as much of a change as Domino’s a few years ago) with OK/fine mini hot dogs (or Vienna sausages or whatever they are: they didn’t taste like ballpark hot dogs but still fit in my general category of “hot dogs.”). The mustard portion is quite generous (at least for someone who only likes a taste of mustard on what probably amounts to 3 normal size hot dogs), though garlic and ranch are good as well.
Too bad my Pizza Hut closed down last year without telling anyone they were going to close down. They didn’t even tell the Employees. There was a paper on the door the following day that said to “Go home” because “This establishment is now closed” It was really random and strange. There was no explanation given on why.
Look at that ample cheese coverage! Impressive. Unless I buy “cheese lovers” with toppings, I get a sparse coverage of cheese. Some slices a mere sprinkle of 2-3 “shreds.” I can’t stomach the thought of combining pizza and hot dogs. Get back to me when they allow toppings to be placed in the crust at my discretion, then hello mystery 1/2 and 1/2 pizza! Will I get a pepperoni stuffed slice, or chicken! Or bacon! Or sausage! Endless opportunities.
I already mentioned this on Kotaku:
http://kotaku.com/i-clearly-see-were-this-hot-dog-pizza-fails-i-mean-1712745972
It’s totally clear that Pizza Hut had to fail with this kind of Pizza, except if you’re looking for a appetizer/lunch combination; first eating the hotdog rolls than devour the pizza. Then this kind of pizza is perfect.
But if you’re doing it right and use hotdog as topping the combination hotdog and pizza is more than awesome (see links and pictures in the comment linked above) 🙂
Destitute
Instead of normal crust, you can instead get a pretzel crust, which really is only necessary if you want more salt (that’s about all I tasted, rather than much pretzel-ly).
I heard that the crusts are prefrozen rather than made on site, not surprising since they look hard to make. How does that affect the taste? Or It would be easier to slice the hot dogs as a topping… Or serve pizza dough wrapped hot dogs as a side. It looks kind of ugly in the current form.
Was this really available for less than two months? It no longer shows up as available at my location in Arizona when I try to order online (the Cheesy Bites does); I figured they’d at least have it until Labor Day as a summer option.