I’m a firm believer that you can put anything on pizza and it’ll turn out well. I’ve made Coney Island pizzas, Big Mac pizzas—hell, I even put Arby’s roast beef on a pizza once, and it was weirdly incredible. Apparently this “anything goes” sentiment is global, because Pizza Hut Hong Kong has partnered with local institution Ser Wong Fun to create one of the most unique topping combinations I’ve ever seen. Who’s ready for reptile pie?
Pizza Hut Hong Kong’s snake pizza, explained
When you think of genre-bending flavors, Pizza Hut probably isn’t the trailblazer that comes to mind. But Pizza Hut Hong Kong currently has the most interesting limited-time offering I’ve ever seen: A snake meat pizza.
CNN reports that the pizza, based off a traditional snake stew, features shredded snake meat, Chinese dried ham, black mushrooms, and abalone sauce. It’s not a one-time stunt like the Pickle Pizza, which was only available for a single day in a single location. This pizza will be available on the menu consistently until November 22. (You know, in case you’re doing some fun traveling out near Hong Kong and happen to be craving pizza.)
The company partnered up with Ser Wong Fun, a specialty snake restaurant in Central Hong Kong, to come up with this formulation. And interestingly, this is not a one-snake dish; it’s a mix of white banded snakes, banded kraits, and Chinese rat snakes.
What does the Pizza Hut snake pizza taste like?
The South China Morning Post gave the pie a spin and posted a video on YouTube about the experience.
Charmaine Mok, the Morning Post’s food and wine editor, said, “I think a lot of people, when we told them we were going to have a snake soup pizza, they’re like envisioning all these kind of crazy images, right? Oh my gosh, is there a whole snake?”
Not exactly. Overall, Mok said, it’s a “pretty normal-looking pizza, not scary, not offensive.” And it didn’t taste alien, either; mostly you could taste the cheese and mushroom. Between the soup and the pizza, the journalists involved in the taste test said they’d prefer the soup in a heartbeat.
I have eaten rattlesnake before, but it was in the form of sausage, and from what I recall, there wasn’t anything too special about the experience other than the novelty of it. It was, as the Morning Post journalists said, inoffensive. Still, I’m sure it wouldn’t be the go-to pizza topping for most Pizza Hut customers.
As some of you already know, my tolerance for unusual food combinations is extraordinarily high, so the idea of a snake pizza doesn’t bug me in the slightest. How about you? Would you go out of your way to try a snake stew pizza?