Last night, The Wife and I decided to putt putt to the Pizza Hut for dinner to try out a recent addition to their menu: The Crown Crust pizza, seen above. As a matter of full disclosure, I had inquired how long the limited-time promotion would be available, as I wanted to do this review before they stopped serving them and I’m still waiting for my paycheck to come in. In response, the folks running their Twitter account offered me a gift card which handily covered the cost of the meal for this review.

While fast food isn’t always good for you, it’s not always a terrible thing for you to eat, either– at least, as far as certain items go. Few will argue that a Double Down is really good for anyone who has had anything to eat in the past week, but other items are okay as far as indulgences go.

It’s all about moderation, and the occasional cheeseburger or taco isn’t likely to kill you, as long as you’re not eating them for lunch and dinner five days a week while avoiding exercise. And as it turns out, there are some items out there which are surprisingly not as bad for you as you might think.

Courtesy of “The Medium Large TV Holiday Special: O Christmas Tree, My Parents’ Christmas Tree (Interrupted with Classic Christmas Commercials).”

Recently, Burger King revealed the latest promotion in their BK Crown Kids Meals: The Wii U. I covered the line at Mario’s Hat, but now I’m here to examine these toys a little more closely than what the promotional website allows. It’s three of my favorite things together: Toys, fast food, and video games, so how can I resist?

Incidentally, I’ve not been able to find any Burger Kings carrying the toys until tonight, and they only had two. So rather than wait until I have them all (which may not even happen; we’ll see), I’m just reviewing them as they come. Tonight, it’s the Wii U Sticker Dispenser and a Luigi figure.

This past week, I had the opportunity to try out one of Coca-Cola’s new Freestyle machines at a nearby Wendy’s here in the Greater Toronto Area. For those unfamiliar with the Freestyle machine, it is described as follows on the product’s Facebook page:

“Coca-Cola Freestyle is the brand name for a new Coca-Cola fountain dispenser that uses microdosing technology to dispense more than 100 sparkling and still beverage brands from a single freestanding unit. The new unit has approximately the same footprint as today’s six-or eight-valve dispensers.

Just a quick review, for those interested. This time out, I tried Pizza Hut’s new Hot Dog Stuffed Crust pizza.

For those unaware, Harvey’s is a proud Canadian fast-food chain which prides itself on making your food the way you want it. To that end, rather than having things assembled back in the kitchen, they will cook things there and add the garnishes out in front along the counter behind a pane of glass. Think of it as a burger joint meets Subway, and you get the basic idea.

Their newest promotion is for two new items: The “Great Canadian Pulled Pork Burger” and “Pulled Pork Poutine.” And last night, The Wife and I had the opportunity to go down and sample this new offering for ourselves.

I am not really what you would call an “onion ring person.” The reason for this is simply because I do not like onions. No matter where I go, I will generally not eat onions or onion rings. I might eat the batter, but that’s it; throw the rest away, as far as I’m concerned.

I think it may be a texture thing, or it might be something else, but onions (and usually peppers, for that matter) tend to make me gag or worse. And it’s really too bad, because I sometimes like the smell of those things, like on a supreme pizza, but to actually put it in my mouth? Nuh-uh; it would never make it.

There is, however, one exception to the onion rule (besides onion-flavored seasoning, such as that found on potato chips): Burger King’s onion rings.

As is ever the case, just because the U.S. and Canada may share chains– be it stores, restaurants, or something else– that does not mean they share anything else. For instance, while KFC has been willing to bring its infamous (but tasty) Double Down to Canada periodically, we’re still waiting for them to introduce more non-fried offerings, such as Kentucky Grilled Chicken. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg regarding differences, but that’s an article for another day; we’re here to talk about Pizza Hut.

While consumers in the States have the company’s new garlic bread pizzas to try out, those of us north of the border who like to putt-putt to the Pizza Hut have something else to try: Signature Singles.

Okay, first things first: My apologies for this update coming so late. I know I said on Twitter that I would have something new up a lot sooner, and I had every intention of it, but working on other things has sapped my writing energy when it came time to turn my attention here. I might try to make PMO more of a weekend thing to the more weekday-oriented everything else I do, but I don’t want to make the mistake of locking myself into something here.

Suffice to say, I’ll try to keep things more frequent than… sheesh, 11 days ago? Again, my apologies.

That said, I’m trying something new here: Food reviews! But don’t think I’m turning PMO into some sort of food-oriented website– for one thing, I imagine the name “Poison Mushroom” already doesn’t lend itself well to sounding appetizing, but I just wanted to try this out to expand my horizons, and… well, who doesn’t like food anyway?