Introducing Biryani, The Pizza Hut Way. Really?

This photo can illustrate a general concept all it wants, but I still don't understand the mechanics behind Pizza Hut India/Sri Lanka's Birizza (captured in a full-page color ad in a Mumbai newspaper that my friend Sid sent me over the weekend).

This is a multi-step fast food eating experience, way more complicated than sandwiching bacon and cheese between two fried chicken filets and eating it with your hands. The commercial, which is necessary to explain how the dish works, begins with a bunch of people (who apparently have never eaten biryani before) arguing over what to eat. One wants spicy chicken, because the spicy chicken dishes in that region of the world are positively delicious. Rice and naan, vegetarian, so many demands! How do we satisfy everyone? Here's how:

It appears to be a cheesy, naan-like pizza crust on top of a mushier, saltier version of a world-famous dish enjoyed by dozens of cultures in hundreds of variations for thousands of years, but which has been sitting in a godforsaken pot for two days. Dip the naan-pizza into the masala gravy, which also goes on the rice (or whatever, who cares?) A video blogger in Bangalore, India filmed herself bravely eating it — after about 8 minutes of ...just skip to 7:50 — and named the video "shitty Birizza," so you can deduct how it went. Plus, now her boyfriend's mad at her.

I had a McPaneer Somethingorother the last time I was in India out of sheer foreign fast food curiosity. That was also not good. If I'm going to get sick from Indian food, I'm going down swinging.

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