If you saw my tweets yesterday, I finally got around to trying Papa John’s Chicken Parmesan pizza. I didn’t do an AP post then because I was downstairs and my cat decided I was going to be his designated couch while I bummed around Netflix.
BTW, Netflix’s disaster movie pile grows just a little bit, as it now has the original 10.5 for instant streaming. It’s… a start. Long ways to go, since it still needs to get pretty much the entire Roland Emmerich portfolio– Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow, 2012 among other things, but THAT’LL DO. Ahem…
So. ANOTHER POST ABOUT PIZZA. This time it’s the Chicken Parmesan pizza from Papa Johns, which debuted at the same time as Pizza Hut’s Garlic Bread Pizza.
Chicken… makes an interesting pizza topping, depending on how you cut it. Seriously. In this case, the builder on the website lies like a rug– these are not chicken strips, it’s more like mostly-shredded. If you’ve ever eaten the Chicken Parmesan sandwiches from Domino’s (on the rare instances they get it RIGHT, trolololo), this is pretty much the same thing in pizza form, just with more sauce. I don’t know if topping!chicken comes from the same source as chicken strips, but the topping version tastes a little… smoky? It’s a very mild effect, so it won’t take newbies by surprise, but it’s still quite noticeable. Papa johns claims to use some kind of parmesan blend with the cheese, but I can’t detect it.
It’s not a bad pie, it’s jut something about it comes off as “unexpected” for pizza. If you don’t mind throwing in another dollar or so for extras, I’d DEFINITELY add on more cheese, especially if you find the “smoky” taste of the chicken bits a little strong. Otherwise, the only other tweaks I would make would be to slice the chicken into actual, visible pieces (see: Pizza Hut’s Chicken Alfredo) rather than shred it, and possibly replace the pizza sauce with thickened parmesan sauce, since I’m thinking the marinara negates the parmesan blend effect.
Judgement: I would not be opposed to seeing this become a permanent spec. While it won’t likely replace my go-to spec of sausage+pepperoni (or, its Papa Johns super-form, “John’s Favorite”), I think this is something I might loot once in awhile. :)
BTW Papa Johns: Chocolate pastries. Bring those back, or some other chocolate dessert item. Please? :(