MEXIFORNIA FESTIVAL
AT
CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN
Being an avid Pizza
lover, I never miss an opportunity to team up with friends and pounce on
incredibly good looking pizzas topped with green vegetables and chicken. And
when the destination is my favourite pizza joint, I cannot have any second
thought. Few days back, I was invited for ongoing Mexifornia Festival at
California Pizza Kitchen, a.k.a CPK. This was my sixth visit at CPK and second consecutive
year for the Mexifornia Festival.
The Mexifornia festival
brings together the taste of Mexican and Californian cuisine. What I love about
CPK is their willingness to experiment and not bore their customers with the
same old pizza and other cuisines.
The Mexifornia festival
2014 has carved out twelve special, innovative items on the menu. I started
with mocktails and for appetizers I first chose ‘CPK Nachos’. Well who doesn’t love Nachos? The first slice of
nachos and I was over the moon. It was very different with a innovative
concept. It has famous Nachos made Califorian style, with cheese sauce,
jalapenos, cilantro, tomatoes and sour cream. This is priced at Rs. 325.
The second
appetizer was ‘Tick your Pick’. This
was a new concept where we could create our own tapas platter by choosing a
base, topping, sauce and garnish and have our choice of Mexican appetizer. Each
of us gave a different combination and to say the least, it was a wild
experience tasting the different combinations. It is priced at Rs. 325.
My choice: Chalupa
for base, Sonara Chicken for topping and Sour cream as sauce and Shredded lettuce
for Garnish. Before I could pick up a
second piece of my choice, my fellow bloggers finished it off and I did the
same with theirs.
Moving on, there was
five varieties of Pizzas on the menu, mix of both vegetarian and
non-vegetarian. And this were we see the scope of experiment, playing with
herbs, spices and toppings on a thin crust and regular crust pizza. All the
below mentioned pizzas are available in size 9” & 14” and is priced at Rs.
525 & Rs. 685.
The first pizza on
the table was, ‘Serrano Cotija Pizza’. It
had marinated Baja cottage Cheese on regular crust, with mozzarella, roasted
corn and mushrooms, garnished with lime cream & scallions. This is a real
steal on this menu. Being a non-vegetarian, I don’t praise a vegetarian cuisine
until its outstanding. And this was one of those.
Next was, ‘Tijuana Chicken Pizza’. This was an
Albuquerque Sauce on a thin crust with mozzarella, grilled onions, shredded
chicken & sliced jalapenos Tijuattna style and garnished with cilantro.
Third pizza on the
menu was, ‘Sonara Salsa Pizza’. This
was a thin crust pizza topped with roasted tomato salsa, mozzarella, homemade
roasted corn & black bean salsa, garnished with jalapeno guacamole sauce
& cilantro.
‘Egg
& Chicken Pizza’ was the fourth on the list. It was
spicy but simple. This pizza had minced chicken, whole eggs & red bell
peppers, garnished with scallions on a regular crust. This was a real surprise
for me- egg and chicken in a pizza. I really appreciate Chef for taking this
risk but I didn’t really like this one as the taste of egg over powered and
dominated the taste of chicken.
The last pizza on
the menu was ‘Southwestern Pizza’. This
was refried bean sauce on regular crust topped with, grilled onions, tomatoes,
baby corn, broccoli, oregano and sour cream.
The next on the
menu was the specialty. But by now I
was almost full. In the specialty menu, there were three varieties of different
cuisine. First was ‘Baja Fish in banana
leaf’. This was a Baja marinated Basa fish wrapped in a Banana leaf baked
in the CPK special hearth oven. Being from Bengal, I have a special liking for
fish and this item was perfect in every sense. It is priced at Rs. 625.
Second was ‘California Styled Burritto Wrap’. This
was a Californian style burrito wraps, filled with California rice, refried
black bean sauce, cheddar cheese and shredded lettuce, drizzled with sour cream
and served with our home made spicy BBQ sauce and fries. It is priced at Rs.
585.
Last specialty was ‘Tex Mex Fajita’. This was a sauteed
onions, bell peppers & shredded chicken or paneer tossed in soy sauce &
fajita spice, wrapped in homemade tortillas, served with sides of guacamole,
sour cream and roasted tomato salsa. It is priced at Rs. 585.
And to conclude the
evening, we had the deadly CPK desserts. The Coconut Lime Tres Leches Cake was lip
smacking. This is a popular Mexican dessert, light and fluffy in texture with
flavors of coconut and lime. We alI had just one request to the Chef, make this
a permanent dessert in the menu!! It is priced at Rs. 225.
Apple Enchiladas
took every one of us by surprise, more because of its crispiness. This was a
crisp wonton sheets with apple compote and Philadelphia cheese, fried until sweet
and golden brown, served with apple sauce & vanilla ice cream. It is priced
at Rs. 225.
This time the
Mexifornia Festival at CPK has some very new, innovative and lip smacking food.
The festival ends on 6th July 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment