31 May 2009

Domino's Breadbowls: A Review

The new Domino's pasta primavera breadbowl has a description of: "Offers fresh spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and onions mixed with penne pasta and baked to perfection with creamy Alfredo sauce. $7.99"

On the whole, I prefer Pizza Hut's pizza over Domino's, at least when we're talking about pizza places within walking distance of my home, but thought I'd give the breadbowls a try. I wasn't expecting much with the actual bread, since that would be the same as what they use for their pizza crusts, but figured the pasta might be good. So I ordered one.

Half an hour later, I'm not at all impressed.

It did have mushrooms, spinach and onions in it - but the latter two were barely cooked. That was okay for the spinach, not so much for the onions. There wasn't very much spinach or onions in the thing, maybe about five little pieces of each. There were no tomatoes at all. There was, however, a whole lot of bacon (and, oddly, a piece of green olive). At first I was okay with that, since I'd pondered getting them to add sausage, but decided against spending extra money until I found out how good the rest of it was. However, there was so much of it that (combined with the oversalted cheese sauce) the whole thing was way too salty.

As for the bread. As I said, I wasn't expecting very much. However, I was expecting it to be all the way cooked. This one is distinctly doughy on the inside, and as far as I can tell it never did rise up to surround the pasta with tasty oven-baked goodness like the box says it would. That, added in with the near-raw onions and barely steamed spinach, makes me think they need to work out their cooking method for these things a bit more.

Then there's portion size. It's ridiculously small for the price I paid. For $7.99 at a sitdown Italian restaurant serving real pasta, I'd get two to three times as much food. This breadbowl had maybe five total bites of pasta in it, total.

So, in conclusion: $7.99 (plus tax) down the drain and I'm still hungry, and now must drink lots of water. And I guess I'll stick the empty breadbowl in my toaster oven and see if I can get it all the way cooked.

Dare I try one of their new oven-baked sandwiches? The bread looks like it's something different from their pizza crust bread, at least. Maybe some other time...

9 comments:

Eric said...

Domino's is the easiest boycott ever: I hate the founder's ultra-right-wing politics and religious views, but giving up their crummy food isn't exactly a huge sacrifice, either. :-)

Nathan said...

You called Dominos? Traitor!

(Need I remind you of how they left me hanging?)

MWT said...

Forgive me Nathan for I have sinned. T.T

Domino's is a mere 300 steps away from my front door, according to the pedometer. Plus I order pickup. It'd be hard for them to not give me my food. And the pictures on the ads they stuffed into my mailbox looked so tempting. >.>

Carol Elaine said...

Eric, I've been boycotting Domino's for the same reason, but you're right - it's not exactly a hardship. The suckiness of the breadbowls is not a surprise.

Remember, MWT, Domino's is evil. Their ads are misleading because they want to tempt you the dark side of bad, bad food.

Anne C. said...

The pictures DO look good, MWT, and I was tempted too. It reminds me of when I was a kid and babysitting my brother and sister when my parents went out. As a "treat" my mum would take us down the frozen dinner aisle and let us pick out Whatever We Wanted from the TV dinners. It took several times before I started to realize the beautiful and tasty looking food on the package had nothing to do with the actual food inside. So, armed with this experience, I was able to resist the lure of the baked pasta photo (though I do think I will have to make baked pasta sometime soon).

Thanks for the PSA. ;)

MWT said...

PSA = ?

Smart mom. ;) And yeah, I'm thinking I want some actual real pasta primavera sometime soon too. It'll probably be some version of this.

Domino's may be evil but ... only 300 steps from my front door. T.T

neurondoc said...

My aunt was a food stylist for a long time. Her job was to make and arrange to food for photo shoots. Her favorite "kitchen" appliance during that time? A small blow torch. :-)

I hate Domino's pizza. Bleah.

Dr. Phil (Physics) said...

Growing up, TV dinners were considered a special treat. So when we first came down to West Michigan house hunting and stayed at a condo the university owned, AND found out that the local cable station had Comedy Central, which we didn't get back home, AND that they had MST3K scheduled that night, which we had never seen, Mrs. Dr. Phil and I knew what we had to do.

Yup. Went out and bought TV dinners to watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with.

It was "perfect".

Dr. Phil

John the Scientist said...

PSA = Public Service Announcement