Pizza Hut’s sakura pizza takes cherry blossom season to weird places in Taiwan

Forget about putting pineapple on pizza because this is a lot, lot worse. 

When it comes to unusual pizzas, Pizza Hut has been thinking outside the box in Taiwan, giving locals a few weird creations that require a little bit of courage to bite into them.

The chain’s latest weird release is one that combines the beauty of the sakura cherry blossoms with one of Japan’s most divisive foodstuffs — natto.

For the uninitiated, natto refers to fermented soybeans, which are known for their musty smell and slimy consistency. Packed with health benefits, natto is usually eaten with rice and people either love it or hate it, so Pizza Hut is really taking a chance by including it as one of the star ingredients in its new Sakura Full Bloom Natto Seafood Rice Bowl Pizza.

▼ “Wow” indeed…

http://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3417862278530909

As a Japanese person living in Taiwan, our reporter Yui Imai knew this was one pizza she had to try immediately, so she headed out to pick one up as soon as they were released on 28 March.

▼ The pizza was being advertised out the front with a banner that read: “Japan’s stickiest food is in my mouth — dentist, help!“

For Taiwanese people, natto is seen as a mysterious Japanese food that’s sticky with a unique smell, so when she read through some of the comments from reviewers online, she wasn’t all that surprised to find it wasn’t winning many people over, even when combined with the deliciousness of a crispy pizza base.

Some of the comments read, “This pizza is impossible for me” and “This has got to be an April Fool’s Day joke, right?”

▼ However, this was no April Fool’s Day joke, as Yui had the hot pizza in front of her, ready to be eaten.

Lifting the lid on the pizza, Yui found the contents actually looked beautiful, with plenty of pink ingredients on top to resemble the cherry blossoms.

Bending over to get a waft of it, she found the smell of natto wasn’t that strong, which was a good way to tempt dubious diners in for a bite.

Despite having “sakura” in its name, this pizza doesn’t contain any sakura or cherry flavours — instead, the focus is on honouring the flower with pink hues. That job was accomplished with the addition of octopus, crab sticks and pickled daikon radish, which were scattered like petals amongst other ingredients like mozzarella cheese, chopped green onions, and squid, marinated in a special teriyaki wasabi soy sauce.

It was a pretty good expression of a “Natto Seafood Bowl” in pizza form, and Yui was keen to see how it would taste. Picking up a slice and  taking a bite, she felt the pizza crunch in her mouth, but despite the crunchy texture, her mind was fooled into thinking she was eating rice, as the moreish pizza base blended with the seafood so well it was like eating a seafood bowl.

As for the natto, it was surprisingly subdued thanks to the cheese, which worked with the seafood to control the usual pungency of the fermented beans.

The slivers of pickled pink daikon worked a treat to lift the flavour profile and counteract the richness, giving it a light and refreshing aftertaste. All in all, it had a very Japanese flavour, and Yui gave it two big thumbs up, although it should be noted that she’s a fan of natto so those adverse to the fermented bean might have a very different opinion of this pizza.

Priced at 399 yuan (1,736 yen [US$13.19]), the pizza is only available for a limited time, so if you’re in Taiwan and you like natto, head on over to give this a try. Otherwise, if you’re in Japan, Pizza Hut’s new Too Much Coriander Pizza might be more up your alley.

Reference: Pizza Hut Taiwan
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