New Addition

The city of Maringá has a new addition to its already long list of eating establishments. It is one that appears to be loved by Brazilians, almost as much as McDonalds. Believe it or not, it is Pizza Hut. Or Pizza Hutch, as it is pronounced in Portuguese. I still can’t make sense of this little language specific where te, and sometimes just t, has the sound of ch in English. So it is Pizza Hutch here in Maringá, Brazil.

We never had an interest in going to Pizza Hut in the U.S. On the long list of our preferred pizza it didn’t even make an appearance. The last time I remember willingly going (except for a few years ago when visiting family) was to redeem my Book It! Certificate for a free personal pan for reading books in school.

Well, due to a lack of tomato sauce and thick crust with the pizzas down here, we decided to try it out while at the mall this past weekend. On our last trip to the states we did try the one in Sao Paulo airport to compare and found that while the pizza was similar to that in the states it was outrageously expensive, about R$50 for a large pizza. So we were giving Pizza Hut Brazil a second chance.

The restaurant itself was actually really nice, nicer and more modern than any Pizza Hut we’ve seen at home. At first glance of the menu, we were happy to see that the food and drinks were along the same lines in price as other restaurants in the area. The crust is right on, the pan pizza was a great change from the thin crusts found all over town. The meats are a little unusual, some of them diced, but other than that the taste is the same. The breadsticks were similar to those in the US, but the sauces much different. The choices of dipping sauces were BBQ and Rosé. Rosé is a combination of mustard, mayonnaise and ketchup. Despite offending someone, I do have to say that the sound of that makes me a little sick to my stomach. I’ve never been anywhere in the world where they put mayonnaise on pizza except here in Brazil.

The service, for lack of a better term, completely sucked. The food came quickly, but after that our waitresses were no where to be found. We are used to and enjoy the simple differences here in eating out, such as asking for your bill and not feeling like you are rushed, but when it comes to drink refills we want some better service. It seems crazy that they wouldn’t provide it considering that here you pay for each drink. There are no unlimited refills like in the states.

So I’m noticing a theme with myself here. I keep visiting these US chain restaurants in Brazil that I hardly went to while in the US. There is just something about wanting to compare the experience I guess. I hear they have Burger King in Curitiba…