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| - Originally the plan was to have dinner at Maria Maria with the family. The wait for a table on a Saturday evening was too long, besides my three year old was starving and demanded mac & cheese, so we decided to move on. Strolling through Tempe Marketplace we found ourselves in front of California Pizza Kitchen, looking through the glass of the door we could see that there was no wait, and that is exactly what we needed. Walking in the door we promptly got greeted by a very friendly hostess and we got seated immediately with crayons ready for my little one.
Here is what we ordered:
Thai Crunch Salad, Carne Asada Pizza and Curly Mac n' Cheese.
Generally I am not a fan of big franchise concepts but I have to say that the quality of the food was excellent considering it comes out of a "system kitchen".
At first I was not so sure about Carne Asada on a Pizza but it was surprisingly good. National favorites of two soccer-crazy countries, that had to go together. The Thai Crunch Salad was quite good as well and probably for the first time I noticed that all the ingredients mentioned on a menu item were actually in the dish. But perhaps that is just the way CPK designs an writes their menu.
My little boy also approved the mac and cheese.
On a side note we ordered one Maragrita (Cuervo gold tequila, not blended) and it was done well, but then how hard is it to screw up a Margarita?
Over all we were very satisfied with our dinner at CKP, we got to sit down on a Saturday evening without waiting, the food came out quickly and the young waiter was very friendly.
If I could rate this California Pizza Kitchen with 3.5 stars then I really would. The only thing I was not so fond of is that the check arrived at the table too quickly. I can appreciate the intention of speedy service, and that is good, but please let me finish my dinner before you bring the check....or am I too old fashioned?
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