Classic California Style: CPK

Place:
Fashion Valley Mall
7007 Friars Road
(619) 298-4078

Time:
Tuesday 25 August 2009
21:00

Investigation Led By:
Agents Nick, Chastity, Nader, Nader’s girlfriend Melissa, her two guy friends and Joe

Pizza:
8.5out of 10

Atmosphere:
7 out of 10

The development of the California pizza style is shared between California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) and Spago’s. The idea was to bring gourmet ambition into an originally classified peasant food. For better or worse, these ambitions led to the California style of pizza. I happen to be one of those who are not completely on the boat with the gourmet idea. The notion of having gourmet food is a great idea, but the pretentiousness that comes along with it may not measure up to the advancement of the pizza. CPK dose bake a good pie in California style, but the concomitant atmosphere adds an unfortunate aspect to the tradition of pizza.

Pizza is originally a peasant food, but you’d never know it if you ate at CPK. In this way, CPK is similar to the frequent stories of professional athletes, who came from the slums and rose up to athletic greatness. Having achieved the success and money that comes with this recognition, these athletes soon forget their roots and begin to live as though they never had a history. As a result they tend to lose good friends and even distance themselves from their family. Ultimately, they become unhappy since they begin to lose what is really needed to sustain a good life. CPK are these professional athletes in the pizza world. As I sat in their restaurant, it almost seemed inappropriate to talk about how pizza was originally a peasant food. After all, the fabulous bar was tended by, what seemed like, a knowledgeable sommelier uncorking a variety of wines. To be fair, the atmosphere CPK presents to its customers is a nice sit-down restaurant that is not out of range for the occasional visit of the lower middle class. But the attempt to bring the democratic nature of a slice of pizza into the realm of an elite food does not digest well.

The California style is a variation of the Neo-Neopolitan style pizzas. Naples will be our starting point for the development of pizza even though it has earlier origins that go back to Greece. When Italians immigrated to America so did their culinary tradition. The New York style is a variation of the pizza made in Naples, hence the name Neo-Neopolitan for the New York style (there are also other styles, such as the pies in New Haven, that are also classified under Neo-Neopolitan style). The New York style is a large thin crust pizza, whose pizza bread is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. My paradigm example of New York style pizza in San Diego is Bronx pizza. The focus is on producing a quality pizza bread. The toppings are a bonus, not the center piece. This encompasses the more traditional idea that pizza is basically just bread with a little something on top. This is where the California style differs. The focus on California style pizza is the toppings. The idea is to place unique, sometimes heavy, sometimes fairly sophisticated toppings on pizza. The spotlight moves from the bread to the topping in California style. The emphasis on bread seems to move away from creating delicious bread to creating a bread that is at least good enough so that it will not interrupt the eater’s enjoyment of the fantastic toppings. The central difference from a New York style pie and a California style pie is the shift of focus from the bread to the toppings.

By far the most impressive aspect of CPK was the beautiful fired oven. We sat at a table the allowed me to stare at it while the conversation went on around me. I say it was a fired oven because I’m not sure exactly what was fueling it. If I had to guess I would say gas since the flame was bright and powerful the entire time we were there. The rest of the place was also thoughtfully constructed. The restaurant tables were a light tan polished wood and separated from each other by panes of glass. The numerous pictures on the wall were of cartoonish renderings of pizza ingredients and words too small to make our from our seats.

The people around us were of a mixed variety. Directly behind us sat a couple of girls that looked to be in their mid twenties, young and single most likely. I figured they were either in college living on loans or off the wallets of Mom and Dad, or just got a real job and making the transition from having nothing in college to having more money than they are accustom to spending. Two middle-aged men sat at the door. They appeared to be professionals of some sort, perhaps engineers with a devious hint of the capitalist spirit of entrepreneurship. Our waitress was a tall, kind brunette with a nice smile, most likely this was job was paying her way through college. She took our order, which ended up being three pizzas, an artichoke dip and some drinks.

Nick made the great decision of ordering the artichoke dip as an appetizer. They brought out a combination of blue and white tortilla chips that we used to shovel the creamy balance of spinach and artichoke into our mouths. But if you had told me that this was a spinach and cheese dip I would have agreed with you; the presence of artichoke was secondary. Nonetheless, the dip was great. But we were there for the pizza, well, at least I was. I think Nick and Chastity might have been there for the drinks above all else But there was no doubt that at least Nick appreciated the Shrimp Scampi pizza. We ordered three pizzas: the Shrimp Scampi, the Sweet and Spicy Italian Sausage and, of course, the Original BBQ chicken, their pioneering work.

The Shrimp Scampi Pizza consisted of shrimp, mild onions, roasted garlic, Mozzarella, oregano and Italian parsley with a white wine lemon-garlic butter sauce. The minced roasted garlic complimented the shrimp well. The butter sauce had a potent taste of garlic, and there’s nothing that goes better with shrimp than garlic and copiuos amounts of butter. However this pizza had a good balance; the sauce was not too buttery or too strong with garlic.

The Italian sausage was the least impressive one out of the three; it consisted of a combination of sweet and spicy Italian sausages, tomato sauce, red and yellow peppers, mild onions and Mozzarella. This pizza was not bad, but it did not stand out like the Shrimp Scampi or the BBQ chicken. Unfortunately, I could not try this pizza without a sumptuous amount of Parmesan sprinkled on by Nader’s girlfriend Melissa. Parmesan is a strong cheese; it doesn’t take much of it to overpower other flavors, but I still think I caught the essence of this pizza. The yellow peppers stood out as visually appealing. The spicy Italian sausage was not very spicy, and my adverse review of this pizza may be due to my dislike of sweet sausage, although I couldn’t taste the sweetness that much either. The tomato sauce was nothing extraordinary, but it was good.

And last but not least their famous BBQ Chicken pizza. This pizza consisted in barbeque sauce, smoked Gouda and Mozzarella, BBQ chicken, sliced red onions and cilantro. Fortunately for Nader and I, we were still full from reviewing Newport Pizza, where one of the pies we had was a BBQ chicken. So we were able to compare and contrast the different pizzas that we ate within only hours of each other. Not surprisingly, CPK’s BBQ chicken dominated Newport’s. The onions, just as at Newport, went well with the BBQ sauce. However, CPK had superior pizza bread and higher quality cheeses, which resulted in less grease and stronger cheese flavor. The cilantro was also a nice subtle touch that gave the pizza more of a bite but not so much so that it came out from being a background flavor.

CPK does make a pretty tasty pizza in its own original way. That in itself is worth respect. But I don’t know if I see myself in the near future having the irresistible desire to experience the entire CPK ambiance again.