Howdy!

The time is 11.42 on a Saturday, and I am currently awaiting a pizza delivery. This is not a normal Saturday – but then, of late, what has been a normal Saturday? Normally, at this point, I would be in bed, dead to the world, listening to the radio and trying to get past a tricky level of Candy Crush, with a view to getting up “at some point” to either make some soup (my usual Saturday stable) or a cup of tea.

But not today.

Today’s review is bought to you by two (well, three) notifications I received on my phone during the week.

The first was this:

The other one was this:

So the twin pressures of an exciting new kebab related product to the United Kingdom’s ever growing grilled meat sector, and the eternal need for validation from people on the internet have combined, forcing me to be the only person in the history of the solar system to have ordered a pizza for delivery in the morning. Hey – I wanted to get in early, folks!

So why have Domino’s jumped on the kebab wagon? I done a google, where I found this press release on their corporate website. Domino’s UK write:

IT’S A KEBAB. ON A PIZZA

DOMINO’S GOES ‘OUT OUT’ WITH THE NEW BEEF DONER
Nights out haven’t quite been the same this year as we’ve swapped dancefloors for dressing gowns and stilettos for slippers. With nights in being the new normal, Domino’s, the nation’s best loved pizza company, is bringing the UK’s most famous 3am treat to your living room with the launch of the one-of-a-kind – the all new Beef Doner Pizza.
Let’s not lie, the post-partying grub is definitely one of the things we all miss from a night out on the town. The latest mind-blowing creation from the Domino’s pizza chefs is topped with all your kebab classics so why not embrace an evening ‘in in’?
Topping the Domino’s fresh dough, vine ripened tomato sauce and 100% mozzarella cheese there’s succulent beef doner slices, freshly chopped tomatoes and satisfyingly crunchy red onions. There’s also a delicious drizzle of Franks(R) RedHot(R) sauce to add a fiery kick to finish.
Bringing the UK’s most famous end-of-the-night treat to sofas across the nation, Domino’s new Beef Doner Pizza is available to order from 1200 stores across the UK and Ireland today.
Domino’s Director of all things Doner, Josh Engleman said: “We’ve gone and done it again. First the Cheeseburger and now the Beef Doner. We all miss tucking into our favourite post-night-out treat but whilst we’re all hunkering down in the wintery evenings, you can always trust Domino’s to deliver the party spirit with our delicious new pizza.”
“A kebab is a thing of beauty, as is a Domino’s pizza so combining the two makes perfect sense. Franks RedHot drizzle will provide the heat, but no kebab is complete without a bit of garlic sauce. Thankfully, we have the perfect answer in the form of our famous Garlic & Herb dip. A marriage made in heaven.”
The Beef Doner Pizza is available now to order online, through the Domino’s app or via your nearest store. For more information and to find your nearest store visit: www.dominos.co.uk

Well, there it is, folks, probably the finest writing you’ll ever read on this website, and it’s been nicked.

But does it live up to it’s promise? Let’s have a look. The time is now 12:10, the pizza’s arrived, so let’s crack open the box and have a look

Domino’s are by no means the first people to have put doner meat on a pizza – your local kebab shop will likely do a kebab pizza of some sort already – and we reviewed Pizza Punks effort a couple of years back (almost to the day – though sadly Pizza Punks have since removed doner meat from the list of toppings, which sucks) – but Domino’s are to my knowledge the first of the Big Three pizza delivererers to embrace greasy pole meat – and it’s to their credit!

(EDIT 25/12/2020 – just checked the Pizza Punks website and they now have “Lamb Shawarma” listed as a topping – the game is back on!)

So what’s it like? Well, it’s not bad. It is much as I imagined it would be to be honest – it’s a Domino’s pizza with a handful of kebab slithers on top of it. Taste wise, the Domino’s sauce is the big flavour that I’m getting from this – it is quite overpowering – however I do note that you have the option on the website of changing it to sundried tomato and garlic. I probably should have done. The meat is actually pretty good, albeit limited in size. When I saw the rectangular shape I had vivid flashbacks to the Farmfoods frozen doner which I wasn’t hugely fond of, however having levered a chunk off the pizza base I found it to be perfectly palatable – lightly spiced with your usual doner flavour, and not particularly chewy – i.e. it’s not your standard kebab fayre, but it works well enough on a pizza.

The hot sauce is the killer flavour here, I feel – 15 minutes after eating my last slice, my tongue is still tinging, which is always a good thing. Can’t help that feel that they’ve missed a trick by not pouring the garlic dip directly onto the pizza but, lets face it, the crust dip is there if you want to do it yourself (recommended).

Combining different types of fast food has been a theme of Domino’s (and other pizza companies) over the years – they’ve had the Cheeseburger pizza, which was alright, and the Sizzler, which is my all time favourite from Domino’s. Having eaten the Beef Doner, the Sizzler remains my favourite. It’s not bad, but it’s not amazing. What I may do is re-order it at some point (it’s a limited edition thing but they don’t say how limited) with double meat and update this if I do, but unlike the aforementioned pizzas which nicely blended pizzas with cheeseburgers and Indian takeaways respectively, this is simply a regular pizza with doner meat and spicy sauce on it. Well worth trying, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not blown me away.

Domino’s Beef Doner Pizza

The one sampled was a small pizza (6 slices) with an Italian Crust with reduced fat cheese. As part of a deal, it came to £13.99.

7/10