Pizza Hut and Morinaga Milk Caramel Pizza (product announcement)

The Japanese have to show that they can take anything America does and do it better. They've finally turned their attention toward the excess which is "dessert pizza". Given the enormous task involved in taking something as sacred as putting sugary delights on pizza dough, Pizza Hut decided to combine its research forces with that at Morinaga, a company known well for it's caramel delights.

As you can see by the ad, the pizza costs 800 yen (about $8) and is topped with "colorful marshmallows", almonds, and caramel sauce. It is 25 cm. (about 10 in.) in size. This monstrosity became available on June 10 and will be making new cavities for a limited time. You can have it delivered to you, but only if you buy at least 1400 yen worth of food at the same time.

Pizza Hut "Supporter's Box" (product information)

One of the customs that is popular in the U.S. is for people, mostly men, to come together and watch sports while ingesting large quantities of nutritionally suspect food and intoxicating beverages. In Japan, this is done as well, but generally not in people's homes. The idea of what they often refer to as a "home party" (a get-together with friends that usually involves food and drink) is still a little alien to them since Japanese folks take entertaining and hostessing much more seriously than Americans do.

At any rate, this offer from Pizza Hut seems designed to help encourage people, mostly men, to eat junk food and watch sports. In this case, the sport would be soccer, or, as the non-Americans call it, football. For 2,680 yen (about $26 U.S.), you get a split pizza with your choice of four possibilities: margherita, teriyaki, avocado and shrimp, or meat (Iberico ham, bacon, sausage). You also get several side dishes including corn, chicken wings or tiny drumsticks, and roast potato wedges. As someone who bought a Pizza Hut pizza, I recommend the "paku chiki" or spicy chicken drumsticks as well as the potato wedges. As an addition, they will also give you a small packet of mayonnaise to draw a soccer pitch and goal post on your pizza, or at least that is what the illustration seems to be suggesting.

Pizza Hut "Greedy Meat" Pizza (product information)

I'll be upfront and say I'm not sure if I'm translating the name of this pizza properly. And, in all honesty, I'm good with a bad translation because it makes for a much funnier product name. Being wrong in the service of being funny is something I do often, and more often intentionally than not. This sometimes gets pedantic people up in arms and makes them want to bitch slap me into "rightness", but that's okay. It's a win-win. They feel superior to what they perceive as my stupid self and I (hopefully) was funny. This is one of the small ways in which my meat-sack's presence on this planet is of a tiny service rather than simply taking up space.

Speaking of "meat sacks" (see how I cleverly segued there?), this is supposed to be an insane amount of meat though it is probably pretty anemic by American standards - of course, anything which isn't a bacon crust covered in meat is anemic by such standards. This is one of the very common types in Japan which offers four pizzas in one. The Japanese do enjoy and prefer variety, after all. This is Italian sausage with garlic, bacon, BBQ chikcen, and bulgogi.

Now, when I translate this, it comes out as "special horse" bulgogi, but I figure that can't be right. It has to be beef bulgogi prepared in a particular way that translates as "horse". It's not that I don't think that it could be horse as the Japanese do eat horse, but rather that it's really expensive. I'm sure someone out there who needs to feel smarter than me (and may indeed be smarter than me) will correct my bad translation and it'll all be win-win again.

(Okay, the truth is that "uma" is short for "umai" which means "delicious" or "tasty" in this case, but also means "horse" Sorry, smart people.)

Pizza Hut Offers the Cutest Pizza Accessories in the World

Images from Pizza Hut Japan. 

Have you ever wondered why pizza is so expensive in Japan? It's because the pizza-making companies have to keep paying licensing fees to various pop culture icon creators so they can use their images on whatever bits of junk they offer in their campaigns. If you pay 2,180 yen ($22), you can get a pizza, "Original 4", with 4 different topping sets (tuna mild, idaho special, bacon asparagus, and meat trio) and the items pictured above.

Most of what is given as part of campaigns is of limited utility. In fact, cups and bowls tend to be the biggest "gifts" that come with overpriced food. This time, they're offering a wooden "tray" and a cutter which could conceivably be useful. That being said, if you buy a pizza from Pizza Hut, there's a pretty good chance that they're going to cut the pizza for you and you'll eat it out of the box rather than grease up the adorable little Rilakkuma tray.

Personally, I think that the wooden tray would be put to better use as part of some sort of S & M furry activity... not that I think about that sort of thing or anything.

Pon Mania (product information)

Image from the Mister Donut Japan site. The commercials feature a chubby man in drag. He might be a sumo wrestler, but I'm too far removed from the sport after so many years to be sure. 

There were many food-related words that I heard in Japan, but I never gave a second thought to what they meant in English. It's like "sushi". We can see what it is, and don't have to necessarily translate it. It merely is a Japaense word for a food that requires no English. Another one of those words was "pon". Until I started to write this post, I never gave a second thought to what "pon" meant. I just knew that certain foods of certain shapes either were called "pon" or contained the word "pon". Unfortunately, because I decided to write about this topic, I had to go off and look into this pressing issue.

What is more unfortunate is the fact that there are several possible translations of "pon". It can be the sound that is made when something is hit, such as a ball hitting a tennis racket. It can refer to a mahjongg term or the old video game "pong" by Atari. It can also refer to Pom juice, since "m" and "n" can sound the same in Japanese (hey, don't take me to task for this if you don't like it - I got this from the Japanese Wikipedia page - go bitch at them). It can refer to a type of punch or cereal. It also, apparently, means "small" in the language of the Ainu, the aboriginal people of Japan.

From top left (clockwise): "Nama" (fresh) ring, golden chocolate, nama chocolate, chocolate crunch

So, after all of this research, what did I learn about the meaning of "pon"? Well, I didn't learn anything conclusive, but logic tells me it refers to small round shaped food or food made up of small round shapes. For 10 years, Mister Donut has been making a "pon de ring", which is a rather chewy ring made up of little round blobs (due to being made with rice flour or mochiko). As part of their anniversary celebration, they're releasing a "nama" (fresh) line and a line of mini "pon". The minis look like regular donuts, but are made with the same chewy batter.

Image from Pizza Hut Japan's web site.

 

I did experience "pon" in other food avenues as well. MOS Burger at one point offered a "cheese pon", which was a super chewy ball of dough with, unsurprisingly, cheese inside. In that vein, Pizza Hut Japan is offering two types of "pon" with rather different flavor profiles. You can see by the little dough blobs flying around the happy fellow's head that they are either stuffed with orange and white stuff or brown stuff. That's cheese filled or chocolate filled. And the common denominator continues to be the chewy texture of these dough blobs. 

So, though the Japanese Wikipedia never told me so, experience and current offerings would seem to indicate that "pon" is chewy baked blobs made with rice flour. That means that the "winning" definition on Wikipedia is the one that refers to the Portuguese "pont de queijo", or cheese bread. This is a riff on another European bread product, much as many Japanese baked goods are.

If you're interested in celebrating the anniversary of the pon donuts at Mister Donut with a background screen, there are some pretty funky ones currently on offer. I can't directly link, but if you go here, and then click on the button that I've circled in red above, you'll be given two choices of picture designs. I recommend you click the golden lion designs on the right, but if you get off on transvestite sumo wrestlers, feel free to click the image on the left. Once you click the general style, some other options will pop up that you can choose from, but you should be able to work it out based on graphics and screen resolution size choices. 

Pizza Hut's cute bear/dark superhero campaigns

All images are from Pizza Hut Japan's web site.

Pizza Hut Japan is offering something for two very different demographics. The question you have to ask yourself is "cute cartoon bear" or "raspy-voiced superhero?" This question is slightly complicated by the fact that neither looks particularly happy, though I'm guessing one would be marginally less creepy to invite to dinner than the other. The choice of which is the less savory number to share your pizza with really sort of depends on the kind of person you are. I'm sure that such a choice would yield some insight into the soul of the chooser, but that is between you and your mental health professional.

Click to load a large image. 

If you choose from column A, you'll have to buy a bowl of overpriced soup. With the purchase of  corn potage or minestrone soup, you can get yourself a "free" Rilakkuma bowl. The soup is 420 en ($4.91), and the bowl is made of plastic and not particularly exciting. The site says that the bowls are only available while supplies last and, NO, you cannot choose the color you want. Take what they give you and shut up.

Click to load a larger image.

For those who choose column B, you can get what look like Dark Knight (aka Batman) paraphernalia which looks like it has been worn for several years by someone else. The hat is torn around the edges and the shirts look like someone slept in them for the last 6 months and ran them through the washer several times. Note that getting these items (including a blu-ray disc of the movie or a "journal") requires one to collect points, not merely purchase a food item. Clearly, Batman plays a lot harder to get than Rilakkuma, but then again he does have crimes to fight and can't just sit around being your "relax bear" toy.

Finally, Pizza Hut seems to be riding the iberico ham bandwagon which was in full swing while I was in Japan earlier last year. It's supposed to be monumentally popular, which goes to show that some food fads really don't die fast and easy, but linger on well over a year. At the very least, it'll give the three puppets in the Pizza Hut ads work for a few more months.