Dinner and dessert together in one pizza–great for convenience but is it great for flavour?

Pizza delivery services have long been bringing smiles to people all over the world, especially now during the global pandemic when so many of us are staying indoors.

One place where people are avoiding eating out right now is Taiwan, where our Japanese-language reporter Yui Imai is currently based. Over the past year, she’s been keeping her local Domino’s Pizza in business with regular orders, but recently she discovered a new item on the menu that was so unusual she had to write home about it.

▼ That item is stuffed crust pizza…filled with shiratama dango and boba balls!

As the screenshot above shows, Domino’s in Taiwan has a few crust stuffings on offer, namely: mozarella (left), cream cheese and cheddar cheese (top right) and a “pearl heart“, which contains…brown sugar tapioca and shiratama dumplings!

Yui immediately jumped on the chance to try this straight away, and when her friendly delivery driver delivered it to her door, the smile that usually beams from her face when she sees pizza was far brighter than usual.

▼ Just look at this thicc beauty!

Yui ordered a Quattro pizza with the pearl heart, allowing her to pair the sweet tapioca and rice dumplings with a variety of pizza toppings. With the delicious aroma of pizza enticing her senses, she picked up a slice and let out an audible gasp of glee when she caught sight of the hidden filling inside the crust.

Curious to know what this sweet and salty combination would taste like, she locked in on the crust and awkwardly clamped her jaws around it, grabbing some of the dough and toppings in a way she’d never eaten pizza before.

That’s when she realised this tasted more like a sweet than a pizza, but what a sweet it was. The brown sugar from the tapioca sang out immediately, before being enveloped by the shiratama rice ball dumplings, which mellowed out the sweetness and added a delightful chewiness to the mix.

The soft texture of the warm pizza dough helped to bring everything together, making Yui feel as if she was eating a delectable pastry filled with sweet Asian flavours.

Adding a bite of the pizza allowed the sweet flavours to meld with the cheese, creating another surprising layer of deliciousness. The richness of the cheese, the tartness of the tomato sauce, and the sweetness of the brown sugar tapioca and shiratama dumplings really complemented each other in a way that was surprising…and strangely addictive.

Folding the narrowest part of the slice back towards the crust and eating it from the side is the best way to get a good mouthful of all the different flavours at once, but if you like to follow your dinner with dessert, there’s nothing stopping you from ripping the crust off to enjoy the sweet part separately. In fact, that’s what Yui did with a few slices, and she loved being able to pick and choose her flavour combinations, all with just one pizza.

Domino’s currently has a number of unusual pizza offerings on the menu in Taiwan, including a cauliflower crust, which has only a third of the calories compared to regular pizzas. And over at KFC, they’ve had awesome items on the menu like Okonomiyaki Boneless Chicken, which Yui also introduced us to last summer.

Here’s hoping the global chains consider sharing the love with other countries as well, because it’s been a while since Domino’s last excited us with their ghost pepper Halloween Roulette Pizza. And now we’re hungry for more adventures!

Related: Domino’s Taiwan
Photos © SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]