Saturday, September 12, 2015

Grilled Chicken with Jerk Sauce Pizza - Aldi: Cherry Hill, NJ

Grilled Chicken with Jerk Sauce Pizza - Aldi: Cherry Hill, NJ
This week has been absolutely crazy, and even though I have a ton of edited photos ready to go, I'm having a really hard time sitting down and typing. (Even though I run a food blog, writing is something I've always struggled with, and it's gotten easier with practice, but I still struggle with it a lot.) My thoughts are so spastic and I find it very hard to focus! Hopefully this review makes sense, because it's long overdue.

Anyway, I wanted to review something fun and interesting, and what's cooler than a Jerk chicken pizza?
As far as the packaging and design, I'm kind of surprised that Aldi went with this palm-tree layout and not something over the top and obnoxiously Jamaican. (I mean, look at their Cuban pizza box.) In the long run, I understand why. This is the Aldi version of a real flavored pizza sold by California Pizza Kitchen, so it seems they wanted to look more like the product they were mimicking than something original, which I understand, but it seems kind of boring. Even so, this copy isn't that bad. The colors are nice, I immediately knew what brand they were emulating, and the foodie photo on the front is definitely appealing. (The typefaces are still really ugly and default looking, but it's store-brand, so I'll let it slide.) 


Okay, right away this crust is pretty impressive for a frozen pizza. It's sturdy enough to hold up to the toppings and not droop, but it's not overly dry and cracker-y, like some other frozen pizzas out there. (I'm looking at you Totino's Party Pizza & Ellio's. You know you're cracker-like, but I still love you.) 


I took a bite, and the jerked sauce was way sweeter than I ever expected. I've eaten Jerked chicken and other Jamaican dishes, and they were no where near as sweet as this. Instead of a classic tomato sauce, we have a "jerked" sauce that is supposed to be fancy and exotic, but it ends up tasting like Kraft BBQ. In fact, it's really similar to a honey BBQ sauce, but with a tiny kick of jerked spices at the end. Even with that slightly spicy finish, I wouldn't say this was "jerked" at all. It's kind of like a supreme pizza, but with BBQ sauce replacing the tomato or white sauce.

It's not inedible, or bad, but it's barely different from BBQ chicken pizzas I've had in the past. I easily ate the whole thing (don't judge) but it's no different from pizzas I've reviewed before, and overall, I'm pretty disappointed. If you really like BBQ sauce based pizza, this is something slightly different for you, but if you're like me and looking for something adventurous and different, this just isn't it.
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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