The Tuesday Taste: Papa John's Pizza

 

Sometimes I get overcharged

That's when you

see sparks

They ask me where the hell

I'm going

At a thousand feet

per second

Another Tuesday, another Taste. I've managed to avoid being run down by the complete maniacs driving cars in this city for another week, and to celebrate that I went for a pizza at Papa John's!

Ugh... what a week.

Some quick history: the origin of Papa John's dates back to Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1984, when founder John Schnatter began operating a pizzeria out of the back of his father's tavern. This proved popular enough for him to open his own separate restaurant within a year, and by the 1990s it had become a franchise with hundreds of locations. In recent years Schnatter has (very) reluctantly stepped somewhat aside from the company on account of numerous controversies... having a scummy dude as the name and face of your product can't be good for business. I mean, watch this abomination if you're not convinced... pure cringe. 

Papa John's seems relatively new to Canada... I don't recall seeing any at all until sometime in the past decade. There happens to be one a pretty close walk from me, so I made my way up there, dodged an asshole fuck who nearly pancaked me with an SUV, and ordered a large four topping. 

This was a frustrating experience: the lady taking my order, while friendly, didn't seem to understand I was trying to order parmesan cheese as a topping. Seriously, this took a minute to explain... and in the end it still got screwed up. I also requested a garlic dipping sauce and instead got a ranch. What, did I trample the flowers in some karmic garden or something? Good gawd.

Needless to say, considering the shitty founder, dim service and my own general rage at nearly being a traffic casualty (yet again)... I was ready to rip this pizza a new orifice. It would've been delightful to do so, but I'm also a fair monster and I actually can't insult Papa John's pizza. At least, not very much. It's actually rather decent... damnit.

My four toppings were an attempt to recreate a pizza I loved as a kid, sort of a meaty, cheesy Hawaiian style. Bacon (which was bacon crumble, so minus points there), pepperoni, pineapple and then parmesan to add something dry alongside the salty and sweet. Well there's definitely no parmesan on this, but otherwise the three turned out to be a successful combination. The pepperoni is a bit buried in there and not super plentiful, so you definitely taste more of the salty bacon bits and sweet pineapple. 

Quality-wise... meh. It's very ordinary. The pepperoni is generic, the bacon crumble is bacon crumble (try it once you've tried em all) and the pineapple is semi-dry and not particularly juicy (this is what happens when you bake canned pineapple instead of the fresh stuff. When fresh it can hold it's consistency better in heat). Also can we talk about pineapple on pizza again for a quick moment? I just don't get why some people are so militant about it, like it violates some sacred standard of pizzas. I've met chefs like this as well, it's not just a layman thing. Frankly I've heard of people eating peanut butter, jam and pickle sandwiches, which while completely disgusting to my taste I don't think it breaks some kind of PB and J sandwich code. Ah whatever, I'm grouchy this week. Get off my lawn! 

Finishing up my thoughts on this offensively okay pizza... the sauce is your typical "whatever tomato sauce" with a texture so unremarkable it's not even worth acknowledging again once this sentence is over. The crust though... probably the best base element of the pie. There's a light wheatiness to the dough, reminding me of a white bread baked in a supermarket, and the softness (at least when fresh) is quite enjoyable. As for the cheese... I get the sense either they thought I ordered double mozzarella (ecch, I never do that) or that they like to really load the cheese on there to hide the scarcity of the toppings. Probably a bit of both, but I am glad the sheer amount of cheese doesn't strangle this thing to death (call it The Domino's Effect, heh). The reheat value is solid as well, with the ingredients not becoming gross or stale after a few hours.

Overall! Man, this is twice in a row I've gone for a pizza review very ready to unleash some venomous slander... instead I get mediocrity thrown at me again. Does this mean when I finally review 2-4-1 Pizza it might not be awful? (I wouldn't cross my fingers). Anyhow, I wouldn't call Papa John's good in any way... like Domino's it tricks you when fresh because the sensation of eating warm pizza is so enjoyable. This is better than Domino's though: while the ingredients are as generic, the outer dough isn't as stiff, the overdone (and overcooked) cheese at least doesn't blanket every corner and you don't get that weird cornmeal crumble at the bottom. There's actually a place called Rosina here in Toronto that makes excellent pizza (reviewed em once before) and I loved everything about it except that they do that same cornmeal thing. Those little bits are distracting and the cornmeal base for whatever reason dries out and doesn't reheat well. 

Lets give Papa John's a 'C' grade. Perfectly acceptable and better than Little Caesars (bland) or Domino's. It's so painfully average though in every way I'm not even sure what could make it better... a deeper, more interesting sauce perhaps? More variety of toppings? (their selection was pathetically limited). People who know what freaking parmesan cheese is? All right I've got to go yell at a cloud.

 

Burnt Ends -- It's been a week of editing! Mostly on my look at the Led Zeppelin albums, which I think will be ready around the time of next week's TT. Beyond that, trying to find a way to watch the Star Wars prequels so to torture mysel-- I mean review the Star Wars movies! Frankly it'll just be a lot of fun to write such a thing... explore the history of the franchise as an appreciator of the universe but someone far from hardcore fandom. Still thinking that could be my big "end of 2021" piece but I'll have to get on that wagon soon. 

 

Okay, Blue Jays -- So you're telling me that while the Jays lost both Marcus Semien and Robbie Ray to free agency, neither are going to the Yankees or Red Sox or AL East... meanwhile Toronto locks up Jose Berrios and nabs another high price pitcher in Kevin Gausman. Some will always throw thorns at this front office, but you can't say they've been off the ball or cheap here in this case.  

 

Bikes and Cars -- Look, people know that I'm both a committed cyclist and I complain about drivers a lot. Thing is, I'm not at all interested in the "bikes versus cars" debate Toronto seems to like having and that's because it's a stupid fucking debate. Like seriously, what does that accomplish? The real problem isn't cyclists are entitled idiots or drivers are stupid and dangerous... the problem is stupid and careless fucking people. 

Take it from me, your friendly neighbourhood foodman, in that certain cases it doesn't matter whether somebody is driving a car, riding a bike, gliding on a scooter or using their feet... they're just a complete clueless moron endangering people around them. Maybe they have the awareness of a hammer, maybe they just don't give a shit about anybody but themselves? I dunno! I'm not a pathetic waste of skin.

I see people make the argument that cyclists should have registrations and licenses and what not... okay sure but then you gotta do the same thing for e-Bikes, electric scooters... I dunno anything that can travel faster than 10km? I understand the spirit of the idea, but you also have to consider this will act as a further hindrance to people getting on a bike at all (and the dangers of riding downtown is a big enough hindrance as it is). Hey, I love having open lanes all to myself but I also think as a society we should be biking more, not less. 

My biggest argument against cars isn't that the drivers are overall dumber, it's the 1/100 buffoon you encounter is operating a two tonne death machine that can and does kill people. If you want to counter me with a "bicycles can hit and hurt people too!" argument, well you're an idiot and should probably stop reading this. Consider: I crashed into a thin tree once on my bike, probably with the circumference of a beer tall can. Damaged my bike a bit, maybe the tree was scuffed and I had a few bruises. A car crashes into that same tree? It's completely destroyed, probably uprooted and is off to be kindling. Trees: also not quite as soft or delicate as human bones and organs.   

This is becoming longer than my actual review (almost getting run over by a cretin will do that) but regardless, my argument stands that this isn't a vehicle problem but a human stupidity one. I've got so many insane stories in my years biking... one drunk fuck took a swing at me riding past him, an e-Bike riding the opposite direction on a One Way Street full speed towards me on Richmond (and told me to fuck off)... plus I've been hit by cars twice! Literally fucking twice, both on green lights for me. If Thing is, I've had altercations with dumbass pedestrians and just total prick cyclists as often as negligent drivers. Huh, maybe when I said I was a "committed" cyclist, what I meant was that I should be committed somewhere.... heyo! That's how you end a rant, people. 

 

Tuesday Tune -- I had a totally different song and band in mind this week, but to be honest this whole review has not gone according to plan. My intention was to try a completely different restaurant but their internet was down and were cash only, and since my bank is nowhere nearby I had to adjust. Then that fucker in the SUV almost runs me over at Kingston and Silver Birch (for the record, when you have to jump out of the way and they're not signalling, I think that qualifies). Sorry not sorry for my crassness this week, go enjoy this wonderful song sung by a man very rightfully afraid of cars. 

 

 

That's it for me. Until next time, stay safe out there, don't act like an entitled and dangerous jerk, be kind to each other and don't spill that mustard.