What: Tim Horton’s Flatbread Pepperoni Pizza
Where: Tim Horton’s locations Canada-wide
Cost: $7.99 (optional dips +$1.00)
Score: 4/10
Picture the scene. I’m driving home following an appointment. I haven’t had a coffee yet. It’s like 2pm in the afternoon maybe? Anyhow, there’s a Tim Horton’s and by golly I’m driving thru their drive thru (as you do). I’m sitting there tired, emotionally vulnerable, a little peckish. Behold! A menu offering something new that really no self respecting coffee chain should be selling! Pizza! Feeling that this was a sign if there ever was one, I made my order.
Ahem. Sorry, I got a little carried away by my story telling there.
I don’t often get to write about food but the Tim’s pizza seems to have peaked peoples interest recently, so I figured I’d give my two cents. Seeing as I don’t really know what I’m doing, we’ll use the Charles Boyle method to sum up my thoughts. For what it’s worth, it turns out that this a terrible way to review food of any kind and I will literally never use it again. Damnit Boyle!
Textures: 4/10 (I’m also including flavour in this catagory)
The pepperoni was nothing amazing, but tasted pretty good and was about as crispy as you’d really expect it to be – so no real complaints there. The cheese was fine – no real flavour to it but also no real elasticity or stretch to it – kind of reminded me of a grilled cheese that’s sat out just a little too long before being eaten. Sauce was a little thin and watery, lacking the thickness you’d normally want in a good marinara but it’s flavour was fine (just fine). Crust was flatbread and very crumbly – it also had virtually no flavour whatsoever. Notably, the sauce and toppings were also not all the way to every edge, leaving entire bites as crust only.
Crust: 3/10
Yes, I know it’s a flatbread pizza and you probably shouldn’t expect all that much from a flatbread – but this was a real letdown. The crust was crisp, but honestly a little too crispy with little shards breaking off with every bite. Despite ordering at lunch time the day after the national launch, the bread also tasted and felt kind of stale.
Cheese: 4/10
As I mentioned above, the cheese wasn’t anything special. It was (probably) mozzarella, but there wasn’t much of it and it wasn’t particularly flavourful, or stretchy. It was fine. I would have been inclined to be more forgiving if the portion of cheese was a little more generous to make up for the sauce.
Mouth Feel: 3/10
In a word, poor. The pepperoni was really the only redeeming factor here. Otherwise, this was like eating a very cheap frozen pizza that had been forgotten in the oven for like, 10 minutes too long. Crispy and just generally not very pleasant.
Concluding thoughts
In a world of 20 various pizza chains, the only thing Tim Horton’s had to achieve here was essentially being a good value for the money – but at $7.99 for a very mediocre pizza, this just isn’t it. Had I chosen to drive about 5 minutes further down the road, I could have scored a medium two-topping pizza from Dominos for about $9.99. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like they’re the last word in quality either – but at lease the experience is consistent and you go in essentially knowing what you’ll be getting out of the experience. Oh, and for the record, pizza doesn’t pair well with coffee.
