Saturday, June 22, 2013

Vintage Pizzas Rule in California Pizza Kitchen

     Vintage food and modern living.  Can that be even possible?  My answer is a definite Y-E-S!  Food from whatever era it came from will always be timeless as long us it is palatable, healthy and yes in pizza form.
That is why California Pizza and  Chicken, home of legendary hearth-baked pizzas such as The Original BBQ Chicken, Thai Chicken and Jamaican Jerk Chicken, have brought back five of their original pizzas.

     I remember my first time at CPK (at Glorietta), it was our despideda for my sister leaving us for Milan.  We ordered a hefty serving of Thai Crunch Salad and some pizza selections.  Since then, eating salad has never been the same.  Check it out yourself and you'll see why.

Something New Yet Vintage:  CPK's Five Vintage Pizzas

     These pizzas, for a matter of time have been lifted up from their menu for some reasons.   Challenged by the needs of the modern world for innovative, fascinating comfort food with the twist, CPK responded with reinventing their menu with five vintage pizzas.

     All five vintage pizzas were created with their original ingredients but with a California twist.  The vintage pizzas are now created with CPK’s new hand-tossed pizza dough.

“Our vintage pizzas are made with a much improved and authentic hand-stretched pizza dough recipe.  Our long time patrons will find these vintage flavors familiar yet exciting.  They were all bestsellers when they were first introduced.  But CPK would not be CPK without infusing something new and different to these pizzas.  We redid the dough and  it now enhances all the ingredients.  These are vintages pizzas made better,” explains Archie Rodriguez, President and CEO of Global Restaurant Concepts Inc., the local partner of CPK.

     The hand-stretched vintage pizzas bring out more of the flavors of each pizza’s ingredients.  All of them are tasty and unique CPK creations.   “Hand-stretched pizza is the traditional and authentic way of making pizza, the original way CPK made it when we first started,” says Mr. Rodriguez.

 Goat Cheese Pizza
     Goat Cheese Pizza is the vegetarian choice in the set, made with Goat cheese, Mozzarella, sautéed onion, grilled eggplant, red and yellow peppers with tomato sauce and garnished with parsley. As a pizza topping, grilled eggplant is unique to CPK.  Well, where else can you find a pizza with savory eggplant.  This made my top choice among all the five vintage pizzas.  Goat cheese has more sharper cheesy taste but is creamy and a bit like fresh buffalo cheese.  To retain the authenticity they have to use imported goat cheese.

Peking Duck Pizza
     Peking Duck Pizza is their oriental take as it features roasted duck, Shiitake mushrooms, Mozzarella and hoisin ginger sauce.  True to its Asian inspiration, the pizza is also garnished with fried wontons, hoisin ginger sauce and slivered scallions.  The ingredients complement each other bringing a new level of unforgettable flavors.  Crispy fried wontons add extra texture to this pizza.

Tostada Chicken Pizza
   Tostada Chicken Pizza features Southwestern Black Beans, Monterey Jack, Queso Quesadilla and grilled chicken breast topped with lettuce, chunky fresh tomato salsa, ranch dressing, scallion greens and crispy tortilla strips.  The pizza is unique for its Southwestern  black bean sauce, which is widely used in Latin America in soups, stews and sauces.  Black beans originated from Mexico and have been used in their cooking for thousands of years.

Teriyaki Chicken Pizza
     Teriyaki Chicken Pizza, made of teriyaki chicken strips, Mozzarella, Queso Quesadilla, red and yellow peppers, red onions, and slivered scallions with a teriyaki-ginger sauce.  The pizza has a distinct flavor and lustrous picture, true to its roots in the teriyaki tradition.  Teriyaki is perhaps one of the most popular Japanese cooking techniques, with “teri” meaning luster and “yaki” meaning to grill or broil.  CPK’s Teriyaki Chicken Pizza adds a tasty differentiator to its teriyaki sauce that guests will surely welcome.

Santa Fe Chicken Pizza
     The last of the five, another Tex-Mex offering is the Santa Fe Chicken Pizza with grilled chicken breast, caramelized onions, Mozzarella cheese and topped with cilantro, chunky fresh tomato salsa, sour cream and fresh guacamole.  The caramelized onions serve as the pizza sauce’s base.  It has a mild sweet taste that matches perfectly with the aromatic hint of cilantro and the rest of the ingredients.  This took me by surprise, you never would imagine avocados (guacamole) and sour cream would work, but it fairly did.  It actually made the whole pizza lighter and refreshing to the taste.   Another one of my choice should I say.

There is really more to pizzas here at CPK.
To round up their exciting addition or let us say, re-addition to the menu they have made a promo which will make trying these out way more exciting and fun.    When you dine in at CPK, the staff will give you a pamphlet or what they call the passport.

 

     These vintage pizzas from CPK’s first menu will become available in all nine stores nationwide starting July 1.    In the new CPK Vintage Pizza Passport promo, every purchase of a vintage pizza earns a stamp.  Guests who try out all five vintage pizzas can exchange the fully stamped passport for P500 worth of CPK gift certificates.  The promo runs until August 31, 2013.

     For more details on Vintage Pizzas, join the CPK Philippines community at https://www.facebook.com/CPKPhilippines.

Or visit any of their  branches in Alabang Town Center, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Greenhills Promenade Mall, TriNoma, Power Plant Mall, Greenbelt 5, Lucky Chinatown Mall, Subic Harbor Point Mall and W Global Center in Bonifacio Global City.



1 comment:

  1. The Santa Fe Chicken Pizza is quite intriguing, I love pizza and guacamole but never thought the two go well together. Must pay CPK a visit soon, thanks for sharing Joy!

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