Mom Review: Pizza Hut Pizza Mia
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I’ll say it right up front, these pizzas are terrible.
I generally make my own pizza at home. Sometimes I take a shortcut and buy raw dough from the bakery at my supermarket, but then I top it with homemade sauce, deli pepperoni and great veggies. But, we were hungry, I had a headache and I did not feel like cooking.
I am very budget minded these days, so after seeing the ads on TV we ordered three Pizza Hut Pizza Mia pizzas last night. Two of the pizzas had pepperoni and one had Italian sausage. There was nothing wrong with the toppings. They appear to be the same toppings used on any other Pizza Hut pizza, but that is where the similarity stops.
The Pizza Mia pizzas use a different crust, different sauce and different cheese. When I called to order the pizzas, I was not told this. When we called to complain about the pizzas, the manager referred to them as “budget pizzas” and told us how the crust, sauce and cheese differ.
The crust is sweet, but dry and vaguely crumby. In fact, it tastes stale. As soon as it cools, it becomes very arid and looks like it has paper pulp in it. I’m sure that is not truly the case, but it’s my best comparison.
The sauce has a decent flavor that relies heavily on oregano, but it is obviously thickened with starch or some other substance. It is not a good quality, tomato-reliant sauce at all. The cheese is fine, really, but there is very little of it and because of that it is not evenly distributed. The cheese seems like a careless afterthought.
I loathe the pizzas from Dominos and when Pizza Hut introduced this deal where you can get three or more 1-topping medium pizzas for $5 each, I was excited to finally have a good source of inexpensive party food from Pizza Hut – a pizza place we generally find to have high quality products. But, this new Pizza Mia line is just as bad, if not worse, than the product from Dominoes.
Don’t waste your money. By the way, the manager promised to credit my account. That is the only good part of my experience.
They use that new, nasty sauce on everything now apparently. It’s a terrible quality sauce and it doesn’t suit a P’zone at all. I don’t know why I even gave Pizza Hut a second chance with this. I definitely won’t try the pizza since I know I detest the sauce.
I’m pretty sure it is thickened using corn starch or a similar product. To me, that means they skimped on tomatoes and added water to make it go further.
What do you expect for five bucks? The pizza mia is a pizza designed for those on a “budget” and those too cheap to pay for good quality pizza. Lets get the facts straight. The sauce and cheese are different from normal pizza hut pizzas. The crust is not. The crust is the same hand toss style that pizza hut uses on it’s normal hand toss style pizzas. The reason it tastes different is because of the sauce. First it’s a slightly sweeter sauce and there is less of it on a pizza mia. About a year ago Pizza hut reformulated their hand toss crust to have a sweeter taste. The normal hand toss pizza uses a lot more sauce, a lot more. There is more sauce on a hand toss than any of their other styles. In todays world an old saying holds true. Especially in food. You get what you pay for. Spend five bucks on a pizza from a pizza place… 90 percent of the time or better, you will get crap. Spend 15 bucks on a pizza from a pizza place and you will get great pizza.
What angers me about this whole five dollar customer base is that no one holds value on pizza anymore. It has become antequated with the crap you get at mc donalds or burger king. It used to be that you would go out for pizza and spend good money on it and get a good product. In today’s world people want things instantly, it’s fast paced and people want fast food. Well, I’m sorry… good pizza takes time. And good pizza costs a lot more than five bucks
I was told by an employee at Pizza Hut that we should have been informed that the product itself was different. As someone who will glady pay more money for better products, I would more than likely have changed my order.
I’m not an idiot, but I did assume that this was perhaps a promo to reel consumers back into the fold. I assumed it was the same product as they generally produce.
I’m someone who generally makes my own pizza. I surely know excellent pizza. I worked at Pizza Hut in the 80s and trust their quality for the most part.
I still hold to the opinion that this Pizza Mia could destroy their brand.
I worked at Pizza Hut in the 00’s and will never eat there again! Every single ingredient is frozen, the “hand tossed” crust is nothing but a frozen disc. The sauce comes out of a pouch and you just add water. There’s no reason to trust their quality, if you want good pizza and not fastfood, you gotta go somewhere else.
I worked at Pizza hut in 2002, and the crust is certainly not frozen. It’s made in a big dough mixer and put in pans the night before to rise.
The vegetable ingredients aren’t frozen either. They are simply refrigerated. The sausage and the meats are frozen, but I don’t see how that’s a statement of their quality. I’ve worked at several different pizza places and pizza hut’s ingredients are no less fresh than any other place.
I tried the Pizza Mia in the store for the first time tonight and thought it was pretty good despite expecting it to be gross. The sauce was a little too salty, though. Leftovers a couple hours later were inedible however. After cooling the crust reminded me of eating leather.
Pizza mia is probably the worst pizza I have ever eaten. I didn’t expect it to be great, but domino’s 555 deal is alot better.
That’s saying a lot, since the Dominos pizza are iffy anyway. But yes, I agree that Pizza Hut’s Pizza Mia pizza is worse. I say load up on Tombstone Pizzas when they are on sale. You can get them for about $2.50 and they are bigger, better, and generously topped.
We tried this pizza a week ago. Never again. Gross. Just gross.
Never again. I agree.
I tried the Pizza Mias and I thought they were awesome. In my opinion the crust, sauce, and cheese are way better (and healthier) than the typical Pizza Hut pan pizza.
Just curious, what about the pizzas did you find healthier?
We had a similar experience, but I wasn’t sure if it was just because our pizza hut here is lousy. Good to know the Pizza Mia is consistantly lousy no matter where you go.
I wish we had a Little Caesars here. That’s yummy $5 pizza.
Pizza Mia really is pretty bad, even when fresh.
There isn’t enough cheese to cover the sauce.
Pan Pizza is a lot better tasting, albeit unhealthy.
Come on, how does it cost $20-25 for a large pizza at some places. It’s just overpriced.
i wish i had read these comments prior to ordering. but you really dont know how bad it is until you try one
it was really horrible and i will not recommend it to anyone. I have tried (mushroom, olives and tomatoes) and all 3 were really really bad and after it cools down it becomes like cardboard
it is much worse than dominos pizas…
I tried it today and absolutely loved it. We ordered cheese pizza, mushroom pizza, and pineapple pizza. My cousin’s dog went crazy over it too…I don’t know what everyone else is ragging on about.
I’m sure you have your own reason for liking it, but I just wanted to remind you that a lot of dogs will go outside and eat poo — so they are not generally seen as good indicators of food quality
I tried these pizzas today after having Little Caesars before. L/Caesars is not great but it’s edible (after all it’s $5. These Pizza Hut $5 pizzas were awful. Crust around edge is about 2″ wide & they are already smaller than L/Caesars, we all could have eaten a whole one by ourself. Never again.
You Go Mom!
It really is hard to believe that Pizza Hut can sell these and stay in business.
For me this was a new low in fast food exceeding even Taco Bell for tastelessness and lack of appeal.
I do agree with you about Domino’s and find them an acceptable, inexpensive, and generally flavorful meal.
More restaurant and food reviews please!
BTW, you may enjoy my curmudgeonly rants on my blog. Currently I’m going off about mailbox theft from apartments.
Cheers!
I like this pizza so much; I did a search to see what others think. We order pizza a couple of times a week. This is my favorite pizza of any in my neighborhood, and we have all the big names and a couple of small ones. I like the crust the best, as it has a slightly sweet taste. My spouse on the other hand refuses to eat this pizza and says the crust is too soft. The kids like both.
I find it interesting that you and your wife have such different thoughts on this product.
actually these pizzas were really good i dont see why ppl think its bad
i had it and it’s TERRIBLE. i agree with the others, when it cools it gets flat and hard. the sauce has no real flavor to it and its evident that the cheese is of a poor quality. i’ve had to cut back on pizza hut since they cut back on the coupons and i tried the pizza mias to feed my friends who were helping me move. and we all agreed that it sucked. and to add insult to injury, they skimped on the toppings. i’ve just decided that from here on out if i have pizza hut its going to have to be payday. otherwise, i’ll just do like i’ve been doing and stick to frozen pizzas. and i used to work at pizza hut and they do use frozen discs for the hand tossed and personal pan crusts. the pan and thin crusts are hand rolled and the pan crust is left to rise for a few hours. the veggies are prebagged and trucked into the store (which isn’t a bad thing). quality was far more important to them when i worked there 10 years ago.
I worked there almost 20 years ago and I always thought highly of their quality. These Pizza Mias are a huge blow to their reputation.
Pizza Mias weren’t as bad as the reviews say.. actually I liked it and will order it again
Little Caesars is alot better and bigger but they don’t deliver and they only have cheese and pepporoni.
I had this pizza for the first time today, recommended by a friend from work, for lunch.
I didn’t think it was bad at all! I asked for only mushrooms and it was loaded with them!
The cheese was a little skimpy, but I like it that way. I hate greasy pizza.
The sauce tasted great!
The crust was good too. YUM!
I must mention that it did taste best when it was nice and warm…but doesn’t all pizza?
Overall, I would buy this pizza again and would suggest it. It’s obviously not as calorie packed as regular pizza and is affordable. And it tastes way better than a frozen pizza!
I cannot agree with you on this. A cheapie Tombstone frozen pizza actually tastes much better.
And, to present the Pizza Mia as a less “calorie-packed” pizza option is something that sounds like it comes out of a marketing office. I can see how less cheese makes for less fat/calories, but what part do poor quality sauce and crust play in the whole health angle?
I really don’t see where you’re getting this opinion that Domino’s Pizza’s isn’t good, maybe in your area it isn’t but it’s much better than disgusting Pizza Hut’s pizza in all of the states that I’ve been to. The Pizza Mia tastes worse than Tony’s Pizza. I’d take a Red Baron frozen pizza over a nasty Pizza Hut pizza any day of the week.