How does Domino’s Thailand measure up to the original?

COCONUT’S CRITIC’S TABLE – Among the many delicious things I ate while on my last visit to America was Domino’s Pizza. I say this with absolutely zero irony. It was late at night. My friends and I were drinking and hungry. The pizzas arrived within 20 minutes of when we ordered.

The four of us devoured our feast with gusto: one medium cheese, one large pepperoni. The crust was bubbly and brushed with the new garlic-herb seasoning, the sauce was sweet but tangy, the cheese plentiful and melty. The pepperoni was the American-born, bastardized offspring of artisanal Italian sliced sausage: salty craters glistening with glorious orange grease.

So, I bristled a little after reading some of the negative comments about Bangkok’s inaugural Domino’s Pizza online. When I reached One Fenix Square at Sukhumvit 22, I was full of hope. After taking the elevator to the second floor, all looked well. There were employees in Domino’s hats and polos rolling pizza dough, and a few customers waiting to make their orders.

It felt, well, very familiar having to order from the counter and pay first – even when dining in. Domino’s in America, after all, is all about take-out or delivery. (Truth is, I don’t know if there is a place to eat inside most American Domino’s locations). Before we made our order, a friend and I assessed the menu in the dining area, a square, low-ceilinged room that would feel very 1990s suburban America if it weren’t for the wooden flooring.

This is Asia, after all. And this is a chain restaurant. There are going to be localized menu items that will gross you out, no way around it. For example, there is the “Seafood” pizza, which includes squid and imitation crab. Or the Super Hawaiian, which has shrimp and a “mayo swirl” (along with pineapple, but no ham).

We nixed the stranger concoctions. That still left nine reasonable-sounding pizzas. Our instincts steered us toward the individual options – seven inches in diameter – since they were all priced at THB99. The nine-inch mediums were priced at either THB325 or THB365, and the 12-inch larges were THB435 or THB479. After running some calculations, we came up with the following baht / square inch breakdown.[1]

Individual: 2.57
Medium: 5.11
Large: 3.85

Medium pizzas were effectively double the price compared to individuals; large pizzas – though not as bad – were still roughly 50% more expensive. We would’ve opted for all individual-sized pizzas, but we were curious about the thin crust, which was only offered in medium or large. Our final order included the “Extravaganzza,” “Meatzaa,” “Ultimate Pepperoni,” and “Cheese” (all 7-inches and handtossed), and one “Hot & Blazing” (12-inches and thin crust).

Shortly after the cashier took our order, my name came up on several T.V. screens with an expected delivery time of 12 minutes. Sure enough, the pizzas, stacked in cardboard delivery boxes, arrived as quickly as predicted.

The fact that our order came in boxes, and we were not given plates, shows how little thought the Domino’s management has given to its dine-in clientele. Even the napkins and condiments – chili flakes, oregano, and ketchup – came in ready-for-delivery plastic baggies. (Tip for Domino’s executives: wire pizza racks, condiment shakers and paper plates will probably lower your bottom line).

The pizzas, for all their pizazz-tastic names, looked rather anemic. Not enough cheese. Suspicious-looking meats. No garlic-herb crust – in fact too much crust on the individually portioned pies.

Still, the first slice I tried, of the cheese pizza, was a reasonable approximation of its American counterpart. There was no char on the bottom (to be fair, Domino’s in America doesn’t have any char either), and the sauce was merely O.K., but the crust was a comfortingly familiar throwback to my elementary school days.

Next, I went for the thin crust “Hot and Blazing,” (pepperoni, chicken sausage, red onion and chilies) which, to be 100% honest, I really wanted to hate for being such a terrible value. The crust was like Matzo – crackery, unleavened – but at least it didn’t overwhelm the other elements. Here the cheese seemed reasonably applied, and the sauce had a nice kick. Unfortunately, the pepperoni and the sausage were as bland as Thai 7-11 sausages, and managed the dubious feat of also tasting like bologna.

After that I halfheartedly went through the three remaining individual pizzas. The “Ultimate Pepperoni” fell far short of its claim. The pepperoni was just as bland as in the “Hot and Blazing,” except now, as if to compensate for the topping, there was correspondingly less cheese. This was an even bigger problem with the “Meatzaa” (pepperoni, ham, pork sausage and chicken sausage) and the “Extravaganzza” (pepperoni, green capsicum, onion, mushroom, black olives and chicken sausage), which were both terriblandzza.

So I’ll admit it. I was wrong. Domino’s in Thailand sucks. It exists in a Bizarro world wherein beauty is hated, ugliness is loved, and where non-American expatriates can mock yet another one of our traditional foods.

Screw it. Next time I’m ordering Canadian Pizza.