Around 2002, the first Pizza Hut opened in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province. At the time, my wife and I lived about an hour away in Kaifeng. Growing up, I loved Pizza Hut’s Thin-n-Crispy pizza, so I was beyond excited that Pizza Hut was coming to town, or at least a nearby town.
JP and I went, and since we were there opening week (possibly opening day, I forget), we received a couple of Pizza Hut mugs that we still use today.
However, times have changed. In late 2010, Pizza Hut in China discontinued the Thin-n-Crispy pizza. Pizza in China has not recovered.
Papa John’s came to China, but only a few are left open in the big cities. (A quick search online shows that as of 2017, there were 199 Papa John’s open in China, but Google maps showed that they are only open in 8 cities in China. All I know is that the ones I knew of have all closed.)
There are a lot more local pizza shops now, but they usually don’t have the best pizza.
There’s still some decent, if not good, pizza in China. Such as, in Changsha there’s a Yellow Cab Pizza from the Philippines, which is good. It’s probably the best in the city, but it’s not the best I’ve ever eaten.
In Xining, Elite’s Cafe has some of the best pizza I’ve had in China. Greenhouse Coffee, also in Xining, has good pizza, but no pepperoni, and pizza without pepperoni ain’t good pizza.
The best pizza I’ve had in China was at a little place in Wuhan called La Sicilia. The owner worked four years at a pizza shop in Australia while studying there, and came back to China and opened this place.
But that means where we live, in Changsha, except for Yellow Cab, now on the other side of the city, we don’t really have good pizza anywhere around us — well, Wuhan is 1.5 hours away on the high speed train.
This means we need to make our own pizza. I’ve been making pizza for years, but I never thought it was anything special — just better than the local shops.
However, recently I came across two recipes that changed our pizza. Both are found at kitchn.com. One for a thin crust and the other for sauce.
Both are easy to make, and together they create a great tasting thin-n-crispy pizza. We get shredded cheese from Walmart. Metro Store has pepperoni logs, which I shred since I don’t have a slicer. Then add on some shredded pineapple. When we have them, I like to put peppers on our pizzas. Jalepenos work, but I prefer pepperoncini peppers. This one is pepperoni and pineapples.
