S M Ong: Pandemic drove me to bubble tea pizza

Covid, Covid, Covid.

That is all we seem to hear about nowadays.

Remember the good old days when the biggest threat to our health was sugar?

It was public enemy No. 1 when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong dedicated one-third of his 2017 National Day Rally speech to diabetes. He wore a purple shirt that day.

Sugar was such a hot topic that Maroon 5 wrote a song about it. But why no song about the coronavirus, Adam Levine? Why?

Sugar didn't prompt an $11 billion Resilience Package in this year's Budget announced last week. Covid-19 did.

But the sucrose menace remains among us. We are just not practising safe distancing to avoid it.

Perhaps because of the coronavirus pandemic and the stress it is causing us, we are turning even more to the sweet comfort of evil sugar for succour. High glycaemic index be damned.

Or at least that is my justification for trying the new Bubble Tea Blossom Pizza from Pizza Hut.

Yes, that is my story and I am sticking to it. The pandemic made me do it. Blame the coronavirus. It is Covid-19's fault I am eating Pizza Hut's latest Frankenstein food creation.

The concept is simple. People like bubble tea. People like pizza. Why not put them together?

That was also how we ended up with durian and mala pizza.

I mean, durian pizza and mala pizza separately, not durian and mala together on a pizza, although that sounds much more interesting. Disgusting! I mean, disgusting.

But the bubble tea pizza is definitely not disgusting even though it may sound like it.

It is "drizzled with brown sugar milk tea sauce, topped with chewy marshmallows and fresh boba pearls, spread atop a bed of mouth-watering cheese", touted Pizza Hut.

One Facebook commenter wrote: "Not only is this a stupid combination but it is a simple disgrace to all pizza."

Another typed: "This is worse than pineapples."

My favourite comment: "Halo polis."

What I suspect is that these commenters have not actually tasted the bubble tea pizza. They are just reacting reflexively to the unholy union of bubble tea and pizza.

But people who did try it weren't sweet on the saccharine concoction either.

REVIEWS

The AsiaOne reviewer said: "The pizza did have a pleasant aroma but was a tad too sugary for their liking, clashing with the savoury cheese base."

You see, unlike bubble tea, you can't customise the sugar level of the bubble tea pizza. So it is always 100 per cent whether you want it or not.

The 8 Days reviewer said: "The pizza tastes a tad like someone accidentally spilled a cup of brown sugar pearl milk tea on it."

Mothership.sg said: "Bad enough that you should try it."

Which sounds like an endorsement to me.

So I fired up my Pizza Hut app and ordered a large Bubble Tea Blossom stuffed crust pizza.

Despite a Facebook comment that it "looks like some rabbits had diarrhoea on the pizza", I didn't think the pizza looked like animals had defecated on it mostly because I am not sure what that would look like.

While the marshmallows provided some colour, there weren't enough of them to add to the taste or mouthfeel. The pearls did, but the brown sugar sauce sort of overwhelmed everything.

Which I didn't mind.

I was more disappointed that even though it is called bubble tea pizza, there was no tea in it.

I mean, you got the bubble, you got the pizza, but where was the tea?

It should be more accurately called brown sugar boba pizza.

I feel misled. I risked type 2 diabetes for this?

Should have listened to the Prime Minister.

I blame Covid.