Gut Check is suffering from Pizza-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the last month we've seen Pizza Hut UK introduce a hot dog stuffed crust pizza and Pizza Hut Middle East roll out a cheeseburger-stuffed-crust pizza and a chicken-filet-stuffed-crust pizza. We reported that Pizza Hut US re-released its cheesy bites pizza, which is basically a crust made of mini cheesy breadsticks. We call shenanigans. We call bullshit. And we demand satisfaction.
In an attempt to offer Pizza Hut US more creative (read: monstrous) ideas for ingenious (read: abominable) stuffed-crust pizzas, Gut Check conducted a series of decidedly non-scientific experiments in our test kitchen. The ingredients included: Crab Rangoon from Chinese Noodle Cafe (6138 Delmar Boulevard; 314-725-9889), sliders, French fries and mozzarella sticks from White Castle (7485 Manchester Road; 314-535-7430), Bagel Bites, Pizza Rolls, taquitos, Combos, pretzel dogs and a combination of Nutella, bananas, peanut butter and jelly.
Shit got real.
To put it delicately, buying more than $100 worth of food from three different businesses in less than 45 minutes is the closest we ever hope to come to an Intervention-style eating disorder. It was not pretty. Full of the shame that only a binge eater (not us!) could know, we kicked off the Gut Check "gimme pizza" pizza party, fusing together foodstuffs to make some bitchin' stuffed crust pizzas.
We began with the White Castle mozzarella sticks as they seemed the most appropriate crust-stuffer, basically being the same as Pizza Hut's original except with an added layer of awesome deep-fried breading. Mmm, breading. We topped this pie with pizza sauce and, of course, mozzarella cheese, and moved on to the crab rangoon. This was the ingredient that elicited the most concern and disgust from our friends and co-workers, and therefore, was the pizza we most looked forward to trying. We chose to buy our crab rangoon from Chinese Noodle Cafe because it's our belief that it makes some of the best in the city. It also makes some of the largest. After halving the rangoons and tucking 'em into the crust we topped the remaining (almost non-existent) circumference of the pizza in sweet and sour sauce. We told you shit got real.
See the full results below for the winners and "every second I live is agony" losers.
