Domin-NOs

This is my review for Domino's pizza for my Eng 474 Review Class. Judging by the title, I'm sure you can figure out my opinion.

Domin-NO’s

It’s past midnight on a Wednesday night and you’re so starving that the words on the page are getting blurry. You walk to the kitchen to find in a rage that your college roommate ate the last of your ramen and you’re so upset you could throw your 4.5 pound Lit Theory book out of your 3rd floor window.

You quickly think what fast hot meals are available this late for an under-21 year-old with no car. Obviously you can’t get into a bar/restaurant so there’s Ihop, which takes too long, Safeway, but who cooks anymore? and both Taco Bell and In-N-Out are drive-through only at this hour. So what’s left? The answer: Domino’s Pizza.

For the past 3 years of living in Arizona whenever I’ve been severely hungry I have thought of Domino’s food as “yummy breadsticks”, “tasty crust”, and “good pizza”, and then an hour after digesting, “nauseous sticks”, “heartburn hearty crust”, and “puky pizza”. No, Domino’s and I have not had a friendly relationship. However, when I saw their new advertisements offers news of an updated version of their pizza I decided to give them another go.

A little past 1am on a Wednesday night I find myself in front of the Domino’s on ----Blvd…Domino’s is not hard to spot, with its lit up red and blue plastic colors I haven’t seen anywhere else but a childhood crayon box.

As I walk in I’m surprised how alert and friendly the 4 or 5 college-age guys are who are working this late shift. After I order and am assured that it will be ready in “definitely less than 10 minutes” I ask the guy at the counter how exactly he is able to be this spunky this late. He tells me with a shrug he says that he manages it someway, somehow. To me, they’re all awake, chipper, and an excellent first impression of Domino’s new image.

Domino’s is a take-out pizza place but this Domino’s in the courtyard has the benefit of several tables in front of it. I sit at one of them as I wait for my order and spy the nightlife of the other hungry college students.

At any given point there are ten or so college students around Domino’s, with nearly all of them coming out in clusters of 3 or 4, usually from the direction of -------and from -----. The majority of guys are wearing casual attire of basketball shorts and ASU, and there is a group of girls to my left in short shorts and full make-up with shopping bags on their table as they eat their pizza. I’m wearing pjs, flip-flops with a heavy coat to battle the cold wind of the first night of April, so there’s no way they’re wearing shorts for comfort. Their glances often flirt to the guys at the doorway of Domino’s, which prompts me to think that this is perhaps one location to have a better chance of getting a date rather than a pizza.

It’s been over 20 minutes now and I still don’t have my pizza. I notice the other customers getting antsy as the last person who was called out was someone named “Sarah” whom never showed up. A few more minutes go by and one of the guys who ordered after me goes in and comes out with his pizza. I get up too and ask for my order and am handed it immediately.

This sporadic calling out orders has been a problem for me every time I’ve come to this Domino’s. Sometimes they call out orders, sometimes they don’t. Then there is the problem of the design of the small building. There is only one door directly in front of the register with that worker doing both the ordering for customers and retrieving the pizza for them from the heated pizza cabinet. This often creates a bottleneck situation inside of the store and would be quickly alleviated by having an ordering section of the counter and a pick-up section of the counter. Alas, by the time I get back to my apartment it’s now about 1:30am and I’m far more interested in pizza than architecture.

My small pepperoni pizza ($10.04) smells good in the box but upon opening the cardboard lid I’m disappointed to discover that it doesn’t even look like an appetizing pizza. The pepperoni is standing up in awkward vertical slants in the cracks of the slices, the cheese looks like discolored yellow confetti in a semi-melted stage, and it’s already oozes thick red sauce. I take one my first bite of the “new and improved pepperoni pizza recipe” and it’s revolting. The pepperoni is burnt in an unpleasant chewy dry way, the cheese brakes apart like flakes (hot cheese should stretch, not flake), and the sauce is rudely acidic and dripping everywhere. I keep eating this greasy disaster until I reach the surprisingly delicious garlic crust. The crust is the only redeeming quality of the pizza, with soft dough with a very slight crunch of the top layer of the crust. However, in my second slice the knockoff garlic on the crust is grossly clumped and I have to scrape it evenly before I can eat it.

I’m not sure how it’s possible but after having it for all of 10 minutes the pizza is already cold and looks like a red piece of mangled dough. In a short time my stomach starts turning over and I mentally calculate how fast I can reach the Pepto Bismol in the medicine drawer. So much for a new delicious recipe.

Not all is lost, however. Domino’s has these divine Chocolate Lava Cakes ($4.31). The small lava cakes come in pairs with a tiny bit of confectioner’s powered white sugar grazing the tops. The outside of the cakes have a real crunch, with hot chocolate sauce as its filling. It’s perfect in every bite with its sweet flavor and texture. I ate both greedily and wish they were the only things I spent money on at Domino’s.

Domino’s also has other food to order such as their warm sandwiches ($4.99 for all varieties), salads ($4.99 for both garden and chicken Caesar), breadsticks ($4.49), and bread bowls (anywhere from about $5.99-$7.99 depending on which one is ordered). However, Domino’s is best known for their dozens upon dozens of permutations of pizza orders. Who can manage to eat these pizzas is beyond me. As a broke and hungry college student myself I’ve eaten a lot of cheap unsavory food, but even I couldn’t eat the horror they insultingly call “pizza”.

It can be hard out there for a car-less and hungry minor at, but trust me, it’s far better to starve than to ever go to Domi-NOs for a late night meal.