The great breadstick debate

Pizza has often been on my mind lately. It has become a kind of treat food for me, a forbidden delicacy that I can only gift myself once in a great while. I know, I know, I can put a metric ton of emotional importance on food, but I've accepted that. I remember the pizza that I loved in my childhood, pepperoni, always pepperoni, and usually Little Caesar's. Sometimes Pizza Hut when we were feeling fancy, and the local arcade place had pizza, but that trip was purely about playing video games. No, the days of enjoying pepperoni are past for me. Though I still love the flavor, the grease gets to me. So what do I love about pizza, I asked myself. Why is it on my mind?

Exotic toppings. New flavors. But what makes a really good pizza is if the restaurant can nail the crust. Not soggy, flavorful, soft inside, wonderful lovely breadiness made to carry that sauce and heavy toppings. And what better way to evaluate someone's crust than to order simple breadsticks? Ah, this thought, when it came, carried with it deep satisfaction, that moment when you know exactly what you want to eat. But I couldn't compare everybody's breadsticks, so feeling nostalgic, I decided to hit the big three: Domino's, Little Caesars and Pizza Hut. The pizzas of my childhood, the OGs. Domino's was founded in 1960 in Michigan, Little Caesars in 1959 in Michigan and Pizza Hut 1958 in Kansas. If anyone could have perfected the breadstick on a national level, it surely would be one of these guys. They've all had more than 60 years to do it after all.

Before I left, I logged onto the internet and preordered my breadsticks from both Domino's and Pizza Hut.

So let's talk breadsticks.

I stopped at Domino's first. I got an order of eight garlic bread twists (the closest thing I could find to straight, non-cheesy breadsticks) for $6.99, which comes to about 87 cents a stick. It came with one sauce, and an extra one was 70 cents. The twists were very fluffy and yeasty, soft and really wonderful. They were brushed with a garlicky butter/oil, and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and spices. The presentation was the best here, as the twists were the only sticks I tried that came in a box. The other two came in bags. The sauce was room temperature, served in a pre-sealed container and very smooth.

On to Pizza Hut. I got an order of five bread sticks for $6.29, which comes to about $1.26 a stick. It came with one sauce, and an extra one was 65 cents. I love Pizza Hut's deep dish pizza, and the breadsticks are everything good about that crust. Thick and fluffy, with a decent crunchy crust on the outside, the sticks were brushed once again with butter/oil and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. The sauce was warm, sweeter than the other two marinaras, and it was my favorite, but you don't get very much of it. I should have ordered three containers of dip rather than two.

Last was Little Caesars, and I took my chances and walked in without ordering, hoping the restaurant would have a crazy bread ready to go, and it did not disappoint. The employee who helped me here was the most friendly and polite, a super nice guy. I got an order of eight crazy bread for $3.99, which comes to about 50 cents a stick. It came with one sauce, and an extra one was $1.35. The crazy bread was very soft with less of an outside crust than the other two. It was brushed with butter/oil and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, though no extra spices here. The sauce was warm, and more acidic than the other two, although I got a ton of marinara and appreciated the amount. I didn't feel like I had to conserve sauce to make sure it lasted. It was also the chunkiest sauce of the three.

So, do we talk money for value, or just taste, or quality/amount of marinara? Each has their strong points for me: cost for Little Caesars, popping bready flavor for Domino's deep dish crust goodness and yummy marinara for Pizza Hut. Better sticks can probably be found at specialty pizza places, but nostalgia and convenience did it for me this time. Man, I love bread!