A couple of weeks back I posted about Blaze Pizza coming to Kuwait and the Middle East. I had never had Blaze Pizza nor even heard of them up until a few days before that announcement, so I was curious to try it out. Since I’m currently in L.A., I ended up stopping by Blaze Pizza yesterday and figured I’d let you know what to expect.
What makes Blaze different from other pizza places is that it was modeled after the Chipotle concept with a made-to-order approach. As a customer you create your own pizza which they then cook in a high-temperature open-flame oven in 3 minutes. They have a few signature pizzas on the menu if you don’t feel like creating, but all the fun is in the creation.
To start with you get a choice of three doughs to choose from, the original, the high-rise (thicker) and the gluten free. You then get to choose your sauce, they had four kinds, regular tomato sauce, spicy tomato sauce, a white cream sauce and a garlic pesto sauce. After that you get to choose the kind of cheese you want followed by all your toppings. The process is pretty quick and familiar if you’ve ever been to a Subway or a Chipotle. Baking the pizza takes just 3 minutes unless you order the gluten free dough which takes 6. So by the time you are done paying and find a table to sit down at, your pizza would be ready.
If you manage your expectations beforehand, the pizza isn’t too bad. My friend ordered the gluten free dough and I thought that was a better option compared to my original one since it was thinner and crispier, but overall I didn’t like my pizza and only ended up eating half of it. Blaze Pizza isn’t going to taste better than Solo PN or even try to compete with it or similar real pizza joints, instead it’s going to compete with the likes of Pizza Hut and Papa John’s. I’m not so sure how it will end up doing in Kuwait, but more options is usually always a good thing.
