Cover your eyes, Italians. It was only a matter of time before Japan put ramen on pizza.
Kotteri-fuu Ramen Pizza is a collaboration between Pizza Hut and Tenkaippin, a popular Kyoto, Japan-based ramen chain known for its thick chicken-and-vegetable broth. Kotteri-fuu translates to “rich-style.”
There’s no tomato sauce on this gimmick of a pie, but you will find pretty much everything you’d expect in a typical bowl of ramen: noodles, chashu pork, green onions and a sauce based on Tenkaippin’s signature soup.
The pizza comes with a warm pouch filled with extra sauce. Drizzle it on top of your pie before serving.
There are also two kinds of cheese — mozzarella and Gouda — baked onto the cracker-like crust, but those flavors are buried. I barely noticed them.
The pie’s aroma reminded me of the seasoning you shake onto freshly boiled instant noodles. And it tasted a lot like instant ramen, thanks to the sauce.
The thinly-sliced chashu was more like Canadian bacon, but the noodles were pretty good — soft in some places and a bit crunchy in others.
Verdict: Worth a try for the novelty, but this was a one-time-only experience for me.
The ramen pizza, sold only in medium size, costs 1,980 yen (about $13,40) for takeout and 2,230 yen for delivery, tax included. It’s available to Pizza Hut customers in Japan until Feb. 12.