Cycle 13 – Item 246

8 (Thu) September 2022

Cheese Waterfall Chicago Chef Classic Tomato Pizza

0.5

by Pulmuone

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

solo

Earlier today, I was involved in what could’ve been a fatal car accident.  I was driving.  We had just dropped off my father, who’d been sitting in the front passenger seat.  The car was in the right lane, idling at a red light.  My mother, sitting in the rear right passenger seat, suddenly decided to move to the front passenger seat and opened the door.  At that precise instant, a motorcycle was passing by in the narrow space between the car and the curb.  The door clipped the motorcyle, which crashed into the curb.  From my vantage point, as if in slow motion, I could see the rider thrown from the motorcyle, roll down the curb, and crash headfirst into a tree.  I will never forget this image.

Thank God (with a capital “G”), the rider got up and brushed himself off, no injuries immediately apparent.

[A month later, the rider ended up fine.  He didn’t ask for any compensation beyond minor medical bills and vehicle repairs.]

An odd side story.  When I got out of the car and rushed over to help the rider, a foreign woman happened to be walking by, and she approached the scene.  She kneeled next to the rider and asked him, in English, “Are you okay?”  I turned to her and said, in English, “I’ll take care of him.”  She seemed relieved, “Oh, great!” –  whether because I had declared my intention, or because I had declared it in English – got up, and walked away.  Meanwhile, imagine the rider, already dazed from hitting his head on the tree, looking up and seeing this exchange – surreal.

Just thinking, if my mother had opened the door just 1 second later, the motorcycle would already have passed by, no collision; if just 1 second earlier, the door would’ve been fully opened, and the motorcycle would crash into it head-on, possibly with serious injury to the rider; if 2 seconds earlier, my mother would’ve been partly emerged from the car, and only God knows what might’ve happened.

Cheese Waterfall Chicago Chef Classic Tomato Pizza (as it is called on the package in Korean) is a frozen pizza product by Pulmuone.

I’ve never been a fan of Chicago-style deep dish pizza, but it was the only pizza available at J-Mart that didn’t include a processed meat topping, so I gave it a shot.

The box provides several suggestions on how to enjoy the so-called “biscuit edge” crust to the very last bite: strawberry jam, garlic dipping sauce, chocolate dipping sauce, whipped cream.  Other than the garlic dipping sauce, the other options sound repugnant.  I would wager that nobody at Pulmuone had actually tried any of the suggestions before the box design was approved (or since).

Absolutely atrocious.  The crust was horribly dry and flavorless.  The tomato sauce was sickeningly sweet.  The cheese was rubbery and bland.  I took one bite, gave some to Louis, then threw the rest away.  I hate to waste food, but this was unredeemable.  The worst product from Pulmuone that I have experienced.

(See also FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also PULMUONE)