For reasons that I don’t know of, I was the only blogger who was invited by a PR agency (on behalf of California Pizza Kitchen) to attend a food tasting solely for the medias. Yes, you read it alright, the only blogger among a pool of KL media, magazine writers, journalists and photographers.

In KL itself, there are tonnes of hardcore food bloggers who have probably twice or even ten times more of my traffic, yet I was the only invited blogger. Weird huh? Anyway, I am not complaining, just that it would definitely satisfy my curiosity if I know the reason why I was invited. Again, I took the public transport and it was surely tiring even at non-peak hours.

After checking out the location on the information panel, I made my way to California Pizza Kitchen. I think it was two floors above Burger King and KFC, a floor above Dome and Chinoz in the Park, I think. Haha!

It’s the open kitchen concept again, kitchen on the left side while dining area is just on the other side. On the far right are full length glass panels that exhibit views of the KLCC park and fountains, while allowing natural sunlight to brighten up half the dining area at the same time. Dining area is huge, probably able to accommodate more than 150 diners at the same time, with a private room / section at the far end, which was “our place” for the day.

For your information, Nee has paid this American franchise a visit almost a year ago. That day, it was my turn.

California Pizza Kitchen has recently changed their menu and introduced new flavours for their salads, pastas, pizzas and desserts. Hence, the medias were invited for a food tasting session. Me? I am just a blogger, and bloggers don’t belong to the media category.

Seeing that all the mainstream media and magazines were there to write the same thing, I decided to take the less formal a.k.a the blogger approach to write my dining experience in California Pizza Kitchen. I was invited as a blogger, not as a journalist, remember?

First up was the Mediterranean Salad (RM22).

A chilled salad of cucumbers, red onions, fresh tomatoes and Greek olives tossed with crisp Romaine leaves and lemon-herb vinaigrette, served on a bed of hummus. Topped with Feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and homemade Tzatziki sauce and served with pita bread.

Add grilled rosemary chicken breast @ RM10 / sauteed salmon @ RM14.50 / grilled shrimp @ RM14.

I am a carnivore and eating salad is a really dreadful thing to me. It tasted pretty decent, but the feeling of eating grass kept on popping up and it was a few spoons later, I decided to skip this particular dish.

Second was the Miso Salad (RM22).

Shredded Napa cabbage with fresh avocado, julienne cucumbers, daikon, edamame, carrots, red cabbage, green onions, cilantro, crispy rice noodles and crispy wontons tossed in a Miso dressing. Served with chilled grilled chicken.

Add grilled shrimp @ RM14.

Now, this is a salad dish that I wouldn’t mind eating again. It was really crunchy due to the rice noodles, wontons, cabbage, cucumbers and other stuffs inside. It was more of like eating snacks than salads. The slices of chilled grilled chicken definitely boosts the dish’s value since it is also priced at RM22, same as the Mediterranean Salad without the chicken meat. Value and taste wise, Miso Salad definitely wins hands down!

California Pizza Kitchen doesn’t serve only pizzas, but also some noodles and spaghetti dishes. The three newly introduced specialties were the Pan Sauteed Salmon, Chicken Marsala and Chicken Piccata.

Pan Sauteed Salmon (RM32) definitely went well for my taste buds. I am not the kind of person who loves sourness in my food, hence, the sourness in the lemon-caper sauce wasn’t exactly my liking. However, if I were to take away the sourness from the spaghetti, I would definitely be whacking them like a hungry man who has starved for a day. I definitely love the lightly seasoned and pan sauteed Atlantic salmon, which was quite a big chunk to begin with.

Atlantic salmon lightly seasoned and pan sauteed. Accompanied with fresh grilled asparagus and spaghetti in a creamy lemon-caper sauce. Served blackened upon request.

The second speciality dish was the Chicken Marsala (RM30).

Thinly pounded chicken breast sauteed with fresh mushrooms and grilled asparagus in a marsala wine sauce. Served with linguini pasta.

This tasted better than I expected, although the marsala sauce part wasn’t my idea of marsala. The almost tasteless chicken fillet sort of became “alive” after I mixed it with the marsala sauce and linguini pasta and walloped it down my throat. If and only it has some spiciness in it, that would be really nice. The asparagus sort of lost its texture after being tossed together but the mushrooms made up for it.

While the Chicken Piccata (RM30) was not made towards to my liking due to the sourness in the lemon-caper (Duh!) sauce, a few mouthful of the noodles didn’t taste as bad as I initially expected. If you are one who can take sourness, this is a much better option for you compare to Chicken Marsala.

Thinly pounded chicken breast sauteed in a creamy lemon-caper sauce. Served with spaghetti pasta.

Every year, California Pizza Kitchen renews their menu with new flavours. This year, they have introduced three new pizzas, the Italian Tomato & Basil, The Works and Sicillian.

Italian Tomato & Basil (RM26) may sound really simple and nothing to shout about, as it only uses four main ingredients, Italian tomatoes, basil, Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese, coupled with their own made tomato sauce. However, the taste definitely said the opposite thing. The slight and natural sourness of the Italian tomatoes, coupled with fresh basil and sinfully delicious Parmesan cheese, you get a saliva inducing and appetite opening pizzas.

Imported Italian tomatoes, Mozzarella cheese and our tomato sauce, topped with fresh basil and Parmesan cheese.

The lower right pizza inside the picture above is the Sicillian (RM32) pizza.

A spicy marinara sauce with sweet Italian beef and chicken sausage, spicy turkey salami, julienne beef salami, Fortina, Mozarella and Parmesan cheese. Topped with fresh oregano and basil.

Judging from the description above, that’s sure heck lots of ingredients used as the toppings for the pizza. No wonder it tasted so nice and I couldn’t help it but to eat not one, not two but three slices. By the time I finished taking my pictures, the pizzas served has already cooled down yet it still tasted really good. Imagine when it is served right after coming out from the oven, oh la la!

On the other hand, The Works (RM34) is a combination of the more common ingredients used in pizzas, such as the sweet Italian chicken and beef sausage, beef pepperoni, sauteed mushrooms, Mozzarella cheese, mild onions, green peppers, black olives and own made tomato sauce.

I wouldn’t say its super delicious or its really bad. Its somewhat in between of its counterparts. Definitely the ideal choice of pizza for those who prefer to go safe instead of being adventurous with the uncommon flavours.

Those were the main courses served that afternoon. Now, its time for desserts.

Red Velvet Cake (RM20)

Three layers of moist red velvet cake frosted with vanilla bean, cream cheese and white chocolate curls. Served on vanilla bean sauce.

It is a little bit sweet for my liking and the sweetness would definitely stop you from finishing the whole slice of cake. However, with the vanilla bean sauce and vanilla bean frost, the taste was definitely top notch.

Red velvet cake was the only new dessert by California Pizza Kitchen, but the guys served us with Chocolate Souffle RM25.50 and Tiramisu (RM25.50) as well.

A simple dessert like chocolate souffle will definitely not go wrong if one wants to be safe and order something bound to taste good. The brownies were definitely soft and moist, with strong flavour of chocolates in it. Together with the icy cold vanilla ice cream, you get the hot and cold feel inside your mouth, which is not a really good thing for your teeth but it is worth the risk.

The Tiramisu contained too much of rum, overpowering the coffee and cocoa flavours. The rum is supposed to be a passive ingredient, to bring out the taste of coffee and cocoa but not the other way round. While they got the texture just right, firm enough to stand on its own yet soft enough to immediately melt inside your mouth, the taste has to be improved.

Overall, it was a really satisfying food tasting session, definitely worth my trouble waking up early, taking the LRTs and coming up all the way to KL.
Will I return? Definitely.

California Pizza Kitchen
Lot No. 140, Level 1,
Suria KLCC,
Kuala Lumpur City Center,
50088 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel : (03) 23820512
Fax : (03) 23820516
Email : cpkoffice@po.jaring.my

P/S : Many thanks to Kelly Thean of Integrated Public Relations who invited me to the media food tasting and California Pizza Kitchen restaurant manager, Ronny Izwan, who hosted the lunch.

It was late evening when I came back from class and received an email from the editor, Kashminder Singh of Mobile World, informing that I was one of the 16 bloggers invited by Mobile World and Samsung Mobile to take part in their phone program.

I should have taken the picture when I first got the bag. Now, the picture looks so crumpled up. My bad.

The 16 bloggers are Jazlin Ernida, Muhammad Norizwan, David Cheong, Abner Lim, John Ling, Ng Jun Yan, Praveen, Visithra, Amy Lai, Kugan, Muzaffar Mustapa, Vincent Chow, Ellie Chee, Jolene, Lydia Teh and myself.

Group photo contributed by Jolene.

Looking at the names, I only know Jolene personally, saw the name Lydia Teh somewhere before, realized Muzaffar Mustapa is Nuffnang’s August Featured Blogger and read a few David’s (Royal Shortness) pings at Project Petaling Street. As for the rest, I didn’t know their existence until the event. Shame of myself, really.

Correct me if I am wrong, most of the bloggers in the list don’t ping PPS and probably are not that active in the blogging community / scene. It wouldn’t be very offensive if I assume that we are the lesser known bloggers (except for a few ones, of course) compared to the mainstream celebrity bloggers in Malaysia, right? Some of the bloggers are even just a few months old, I mean, their blogs.

Now, that being said, I am truly grateful that Mobile World and Samsung Mobile actually dared to be bold and had the courage to select us instead of the more well known and established bloggers. Seriously, all these while, it was the already famous one gets even more famous and the less popular ones continue to envy them. Hence, kudos to the organizers for taking the road less taken and hopefully, with this bold move, others would follow suit and give all bloggers in the community a chance to experience something out of the blue.

We would be loaned either a Samsung SGH-i450 or Samsung SGH-i550 for a month to abuse use and blog about it, with no strings attached. To top it off, negative comments about the phone are allowed (Probably, not recommended, I think.). Obviously, I got the SGH-i550.

The kick off event was held at Izzi Kuala Lumpur, where we would meet the teams from both Mobile World and Samsung Mobile and also the other bloggers. Of course, there are the usual speeches by the management people of Mobile World and Samsung Mobile before proceeding with a briefing session about the phone. On going are three competitions, best post, highest traffic and most people the phone was showed to. I doubt I would win any, so, I shall not elaborate on it. Looking at the pictures, I think its time for me to seriously consider to get an external flash for my camera. Bad pictures.

We were given a goodies bag as well. Two magazines, a round shaped (Yes, round!) playing cards, a DVD and some funky items.

I didn’t pay attention to the CD case at first, thinking it would be some promotion CDs with less useful informations inside. However, upon taking a closer look, its freaking Beyonce’s B’Day Deluxe Edition DVD!

Now, I am a rather huge Beyonce fan and I have always wanted to buy this DVD but was reluctant to do so because of the price. Man, this is just so OMG! Well, not surprising as Beyonce was the ambassador for one of their mobile phones. Now, for the people at Samsung Mobile, I wonder you guys can give me her posters. Oh please? Haha!

Well, that was it, about the kick off event. There will be multiple posts about the phone itself in the upcoming weeks. Of course, there will be my usual food / life posts, if I have any which currently, I don’t. So, stay tune!

P/S : To get awesome prices on prepaid cell phones, the net can be a good source of information. A cell phone company usually has a lot of various phones and plans to pick from, so read very carefully before you sign up for wireless plans or contacts!