I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to home delivery, fast food pizza. As long as it's cheesy and bready I am usually OK. We discovered last night that Papa John's actually delivered to our place, even though they are over on Ft Apache, so I thought we would give them a try.
I should point out here that up until last night I had never sampled a Papa John's pizza, however I have often heard them compared favourably to Pizza Hut or Dominoes.
I ordered a Ham and Pineapple pizza and a serve of wings with ranch dip and garlic dip. The pizza arrived more promptly than the 65 minute estimate and the driver was friendly enough.
When I opened my pizza box I was greeted with the sight of something that looked like it had come straight out from under a heat lamp at a food court. Upon eating a slice it turned out to be fresher than it looked, but it was a bit greasy and the sauce was overly sweet and unusual on a pizza outside of the frozen section at a supermarket. The pineapple on my pizza really didn't work well with the already very sweet sauce. I ate a couple of slices and consigned the rest to the fridge for more desperate times. I found myself eating for the sake of eating.
Next I moved on to my wings. I think they were honey chipotle or something very similar. They tasted pretty decent but were extremely gloopy and difficult to eat. They could have done with about 70% less sauce. The garlic dip in particular was a bizarre concoction. It looked like clear, melted butter and tasted weird. Probably not meant for wings, but I'm not sure what it would go with.
Sadly, I think Papa John's is going to have to be given the big miss in future. Of the low-end pizza chains I would have to say that it is easily my least favourite.