Small town restaurant boom

We haven't decided yet if it's a good thing or bad, but we live in one of the fastest growing cities in California. Everytime we come back in the fall new strip malls, huge retail stores and residential developments seem to have sprung up overnight. Included are a number of "upscale" fast food chains.

We now have a Chipotle's Mexican Grille that Karen talked about it one thread (haven't tried yet), but we did try a few others out of sheer desperation thinking they would be a quick way to get something good to eat. How wrong we were...

The first was Pickup Stix. We intended to go to our favorite sit-down Chinese restaurant but all the seasonal residents are back and there was a half-hour wait. Some friends had mentioned they had tried Pickup Stix and that it was quite good and quick. The place has an open kitchen so you can see the "chefs" stir frying away. About half the tables were full with happy looking diners, but all the chairs in the "to go" area were filled with grumpy looking people. No one was at any of the registers, so we went up to the one we assumed was for ordering since the menu was suspended above it. We perused the menu and waited. Then a man came into the place and walked over to a different register and the young woman behind the counter went over to him and asked what he would like. We didn't press the issue and just got in line behind him. When it was our turn, the young woman gestured toward the frantic cooks behind her and said that there was a 25 minute minimum wait on all orders. We left and went to our favorite local, non-chain Mexican restaurant.

Last night my husband was craving pizza (not uncommon) but neither of us felt like leaving the house. With limited delivery options available (Pizza Hut and Dominos), I remembered a flyer we received promoting a new pizza chain called zpizza. See nifty flyer just below. Looks pretty good, huh?

Well, this is the same pizza, but with ADDITIONAL toppings added. Sausage on one side, mushrooms on the other. And those little round things that look like pepperoni? Those are fresh tomatoes! I think they were sliced with a vegetable peeler. All this for 25 bucks plus tip. (It was cold, to boot.)

[Jenise]

Carrie,

Back in So Cal, we tried Pick Up Stix once at the insistence of friends who loved the place. We ordered three dishes, and didn't like any of them. Everything had an extra helping of sugar in it compared to what we were used to, and one dish's sauce tasted decidedly of ketchup. They've calibrated their food to appeal to American fast food tastes. No thank you!

About that pizza--made me laugh. And I'm sorry, but isn't that the way it usually goes? The advertisement makes me drool--all those tomatoes. But what you got--horrible. That said, we went to a Z Pizza a couple times when we lived in Irvine a long time ago, and what they did particularly well was make something we love--a straight cheese pizza. Most pizzerias can't brown the cheese or the crust burns, but Z got that just right. We'd have them top it with dried oregano and scatter it with good parmesan as soon as it came out of the oven, and we loved that. The only other thing we tried there was an everything-type pizza which my inlaws insisted on once when they were visiting--which they completely lost interest in as soon as they tasted our plain cheese. Looks like the chain has done well for itself since I lost track of it.

When have you seen an ad that even remotely resembles the actual food?

When have you seen an ad that even remotely resembles the actual food?

Right, I know what you mean, but come on. Look how few tomatoes are on the pizza compared with the ad. These are supposed to be in place of tomato sauce. Were chalking it up to yet another "OTO." One Time Only restaurants that we don't go back to or order from again.

Actually, that's my point. Unfortunately, there's lots of legal wiggle room in advertising.