Drive-thru Gourmet: This pizza takes a dip

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 - 5:29 am - Fun Entertainment Life

This week I reached out for the Big Dipper, a new pizza from the World’s No. 1 pie man, Pizza Hut, with 10,000 restaurants in 50 states in the U.S. and 90 countries around the world.

The Big Dipper isn’t really a new pizza with different ingredients. Pizza Hut has done the Taco Bell trick, simply raided the refrigerator for the same old ingredients, just in a different shape or combination plus a catchy new name. Here’s the Big Dipper blueprint: a rectangular pizza cut into long, thin strips designed for dipping. It comes with four 3-ounce containers of marinara sauce for said dipping.

Total calories: 270 (for two strips). Fat grams: 10. Dietary fiber: 2. Carbs: 36. Manufacturer’s suggest retail price: $12 for a one-topping Big Dipper. Pepperoni is the favorite topping by a mile.

The Big Dipper starts with Pizza Hut’s pan-pizza dough, so it’s light and buttery. You can eat more pan pizza than pizza made with Pizza Hut’s hand-tossed crust. The Big Dipper is shaped like a Sicilian pizza but thinner and less doughy.

The Big Dipper’s 24 strips are each 2 inches wide and about 5 inches long. This is key because the pieces fit nicely in the marinara dipping cups. They’re also neater to eat, so you won’t get clown mouth, and nobody will say, “Hey, did you play the Joker in Batman?”

The quirky difference is the “build” (industry talk) of the Big Dipper. The pizza is topped with cheese and your choice of pepperoni or sausage or whatever. There is no sauce on the pizza. This makes it difficult for low-carb pizza eaters because it’s harder to pull off the toppings. The sauce is in the dipping cups. Dipping is the gimmick. Pizza Hut research shows that 57 percent of pizza eaters dip their pizza.

The big plus for a cheapskate pizza snob like me — and those qualities rarely go hand in hand; it’s what makes me so fascinating – you get a ton of pizza for $12.

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