Pizza Hut releases a turtle pizza that looks like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Only available in one country in the world, and it’s not Japan… 

Pizza Hut has created many unique pizzas over the years, but the weirdest and most wonderful can be found in Taiwan, where our reporter Yui Imai has been tasting them.

This week, she was amazed to find yet another limited-edition special on the menu, and it was one of the most bizarre she’s ever seen, because this pizza is shaped like…

▼ …a turtle.

Released on 24 March, the new Cheese Mugwort Mochi Rice Cake Turtle Pizza contains a bevy of traditional ingredients on its back, and when Yui purchased hers and lifted the lid on the box, she was surprised to find it looked a bit like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

▼ Well, the Ninja Turtles do have Italian names, and the sign above shows it emerging from a sewer, with a sai behind it…

The green of the Ninja Turtles was likely a way to put a new spin on cao zai guo, a Taiwanese mugwort dumpling traditionally filled with sweet red bean paste and commonly eaten on 5 April during the Qingming Festival.

▼ The central part of the “shell” takes its inspiration from a savoury cao zai guo, and mugwort mochi is used for the green embellishments.

Other ingredients include coriander and hash brown potato discs, and inside the limbs and head you’ll find a red bean filling.

Yui couldn’t bring herself to tear the head off the turtle just yet, so she started by biting into a flipper, which was crunchy on the outside, pillowy soft on the inside, and slightly sweet.

The mugwort and red bean was a delicious combination, and as she inspected the rest of the turtle, she found its edges were filled with mozzarella cheese, providing a variety of different flavours around the reptile.

The cheese was hot and melty, adding a decadent richness to this section, which was slightly salty with the hash browns.

The centre of the shell, though, was the true highlight, with mugwort leaves and dried daikon radish, stir-fried with prawns, creating a delicious sweet-and-salty flavour combination.

With both savoury and sweet cao zai guo in the one pizza, this is a truly unique Taiwanese offering that has the rest of us wishing our own local Pizza Huts could champion our countries in equally creative ways.

Priced at NT$399 (1,890 yen [US$12.49]), the Turtle Pizza will only be on the menu for a limited time. And for more great Pizza Hut creations from Taiwan, don’t forget to check out the chain’s sakura and durian pizzas!

Related: Pizza Hut Taiwan
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