Review - California Pizza Kitchen, Malad

Food: 5/5
VFM: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4.5/5
Service: 5/5
Veg Friendly: 4/5 

CPK has been a favorite for quite a long time. We started out with the Oreo smoothie and the veg platter starters. 

The Oreo smoothie was rich and thick, and had a generous amount of Oreos thrown in. It is a worthy competitor to the Brownie shake at Aromas. 

And now, the veg platter. Which was fabulous.

It included fried mac n cheese, black bean quesadilla, margherita rolls, crispy potatoes in chili sauce, and hummus and pita.

From the right - 
First, the margherita rolls, with cheese oozing out. Perfectly made.
The crispy potatoes with onions, in chili sauce. The sauce was a combination of hot and sour and it was great. The potatoes has a great texture, I think they were roasted.
And you can see the pita bread on the far left. Pretty soft, but got harder as they got colder.

These are the black bean quesadillas, next to the fried mac and cheese. Both wonderful, and the sauces just added to the flavor palette.

The three sauce containers, from the right:

Firstly, sundried tomatoes marinara. Not watered down salsa or ketchup. Really tasty, and we loved it so much, we scooped up every last bit!
Second one contained hummus, which was good. A regular hummus, to be honest.
Third was their ranchito sauce. Ranchito = ranch + chipotle. Goooood stuff. Sharp yet flavorful, I couldn't get enough of this one.

The platter served three and this is how it would be divided between three people getting an equal portion size. Not bad!

On to the yummy pizza now! We ordered the Albuquerque, 12". The toppings were albuquerque sauce, cheddar and fontina cheese, roasted peppers, and olives. We got it in a wheat base. There is also an option of multigrain base, but that's only in the 9" version. So keep that in mind before you pick a size, in case the type of base is important to you.

At the very end of the meal, dessert! They have a special tex mex menu going on right now, so make sure you take advantage of that!

I got the mexican spice cake. They told me the spice was cinnamon, and it wouldn't be sharp or spicy. I couldn't wait to try it out! 

The cake was thick and dense. You could smell the cinnamon, and it shone through in every bite. Amazing stuff. Dense and rich, you better make sure you have enough space to polish it off, else you'll definitely regret not being able to eat more of this!

The little bits at the top are cinnamon sticks. This is undeniably one lovely dessert. Go for it!

VFM: Its alright. The costwas around Rs. 2500 for the above mentioned items, but the quality makes it worth the price.

Service: The service is fabulous, as the servers are really attentive. 

Veg Friendly: Lots of vegetarian options, and they even make some of the options Jain if you request it.

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Review - Wok Express, Bandra

Food: 4.5/5
VFM: 4/5
Ambience: 4.5/5
Service: 5/5

Sudden cravings for bubble tea. Friend wanted Chinese.
What combines the two? Wok Express, that's who.
(I'm sorry. I had to make it rhyme.)

In all fairness, this was my first time at Wok so I didn't really know if the bubble tea would be any good or not. Plus I'm not a fan of Chinese food so I was really taking a risk here. It was not bad at all though!

I'm vegetarian, so I expected limited options but I was pleasantly wrong (that is not an oft-heard combination of words, mind you.) I chose the medium size wok box, and picked the flat wheat noodles with black bean sauce. Now, one of the adjectives written below black bean sauce on their board was 'spicy'. I do not like/eat food that is too spicy. But I do like black bean. I asked if they could tell me how spicy it would be, and they brought out a little of the sauce on a spoon for me to taste! I think that was good service. They didn't have to do that. Well, it wasn't too spicy, and I was more than happy to add that to my meal. As for the veggies, I got tofu, French bean, red and yellow bell peppers, broccoli, and carrots. My add-on condiments were cilantro, fried onion, and burnt garlic.
 

My non-vegetarian friend got a medium size wok box too - with prawns and Udon noodles. She picked teriyaki sauce to go with it. She doesn't really like vegetables so she got just baby corn. He put in a very generous portion, maybe because he felt she needed atleast some veggie goodness. For add-ons, she picked Cilantro and crushed peanuts.

The box is deceptively small but oh so filling. And the portions are so very generous. One box is more than enough for one person. We had to take breaks from eating, I kid you not. All the flavors melded really well and I was glad that they didn't skimp on the portions of the veggies even though I got quite a few added. They even added a little extra if we requested them to.
 

Since we have to create our own by picking and choosing our ingredients, it could totally be a hit and miss. That's why at such places, in my opinion, it's important that you know what you would really like, even all thrown together. You could just add every single thing you like and hope for the best. It's really upto you. But they do make it better - just ask them for suggestions in that case. I did see them offering suggestions to people who seemed a little confused by the array of available options. Also, the veggie boxes are black and the non-veg boxes are red. That's a pretty nice touch.

Friend wanted crystal dumplings. They did sound interesting. I still don't know why 'crystal', but okay. To be honest, I thought they were missing something, but I couldn't really say what exactly. Now, Wok Express gives these little containers of sauces at each table to add to your meal, if you are so inclined. Since we thought it was missing something, she decided to dip the dumplings in the garlic sauce container. And then we just dunked the whole thing inside. She loved it. I thought it was a little sour now.. I think it's a matter of preference in this case. But try it if you feel it's lacking flavor. You may just like it.
 

And finally, what I came here for. French vanilla milk coffee. With boba pearls! The bubbles I wanted! I know it's not tea, okay. I know I ordered coffee. But come on - its French vanilla. Plus, it was more about the bubbles and not the tea. So, there.
 
And when I got the drink, guess what? There were no bubbles. They'd plain forgotten. This would absolutely not do.
 
I went up to them and said, 'excuse me, there's no bubbles in my bubble tea.'
And they say 'no ma'am, it must be there.'
I silently handed them my glass.
They opened it and checked.
They added the boba pearls in.
They apologized.
I came back.
I drank the bubble tea.
 

 It was every bit as good as I wanted it to be.
Yummy chewy boba pearls. And when can one ever go wrong with French vanilla?

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