Regular visit to the mall. Been noticing CPK, California Pizza Kitchen for those outside of California, has had the brown butcher paper up. Almost like Extreme Makeover Stuff … waiting for Ty to yell, “Move that bus!”
Well, today, my wife and I moved that bus and gave it a try. The new look CPK. First and foremost, you should know that they make a great pita and hummus appetizer. Since we already knew that, we didn’t get it. We came for their namesake. The pizza! It is brick-ovened goodness. The crust has a slight salty first bite and a subtle sweet linger. They cook it just right every single time, unlike some of those chain stores that just put their pizzas on a rack and let a conveyor belt cook your pizza.
What? The new look CPK also involves no brick oven. My first thought. How do you build your brand on your pizza. The word “pizza” is actually in your restaurant name. Decades of people enjoying a particular style of pizza and you change the particular way you make it.
We actually asked, “What happened?” and there are times when the servers should just lie to you. If I ask, was that a roach, the server should just say, “that was probably some cracked pepper that fell on the ground.” If I ask, “why did you change the way you make your pizza” you should never hear back because it was cheaper to make the pizzas in a gas oven like everyone else. Huh? It could also be cheaper for me not to leave a tip like everyone else. That tip thing … it’s just a hypothetical to get my point across. Don’t send the tip police after me. I’m a faithful 20-plus-percenter, good or bad service.
So the verdict … we didn’t eat the pita and hummus. We ate a gas fired oven that I could get at Papa Murphys and make myself. CPK is CP-KO’d. Down for the knock-out CPK and until you wake up and take your heads out of the gas oven, you’ll be down for the count.
Morning weight = 170.5
Today’s Meals:
MyFitnessPal 10-10-2013
2:15pm (Meal 2.1) — Katy Perry Kettle Corn Pop Chips. Not my first time trying these, but maybe my last time. I made the mistake of buying the huge Costco bag and if you are anything like me, seeing food in large quantities like that is the quickest way to get sick of something.
Meal 2.1 — 2:15pm
6pm (Meal 3) — California Pizza Kitchen (CPK). See above. No really, see above. And, you’ll notice I didn’t take time to talk about the Chinese Chicken Salad (sans chicken). Let’s just say I can’t be too negative in the same post.
Meal 3 — 6pm
Today’s Activities:
No scheduled run. We did watch a press release of A Fifth Estate, the WikiLeaks story. Let’s just say if you want to have a memorable first date, take your date to the new CPK and watch Wikileaks to end the night. It will make you that much more interesting because both of those options set the bar very low. Oops, there I go being sneakily negative. Sorry Mom!
Thursday, 10-10-2013