California Pizza Kitchen   (Closed)

My first review on this site ever

I used to eat at CPK when I was in the United States and always like their food. First time I eat CPK in Hong Kong.

The sign at the door says "please wait to be seated", but the waiters and waitress inside pretend to not see you at all. That's why I put waiting time as 2 mins even though there are a lot of empty tables inside.

Ordered:
1) Mushroom Pepperoni sausage pizza - Ok good
2) Spicy Chicken Quesadilla - Good
3) Spaghetti Carbonara - Great

The reason I wrote this review is not because of the food, but the poor service.

I went there at around 12:15 today (Thursday), so it's pretty empty. But somehow all the waiters and waitress are busy poking at the computer or standing at the kitchen counter. Well, pizza and pasta came first and somehow the appetizer (quesadilla) came last. Besides, it's served to the wrong table :/

Anyway, food was good. What pissed me off is when I try to refill my lemon tea. It's endless, free refill like American restaurants. I asked a total of 5 times and got the attention of waiters and waitresses numerous times that I need a refill. All of them nodded, or replied ok but they just go on and continue to poke on the computer screen or stand at the counter. Even the manager (the only one in light color shirt) said ok and ignored my request. The ONLY thing they act fast is when customers asked for check.

I had to finish my 2nd half of the meal without any drink, and wait an additional 20 mins before I got a refill from the guy who I asked 3 times!!! This is ridiculous!!!! I mean, how hard is it to bring a jar and pour me a drink. If they don't want to give out free refill, they should freaking change the menu!

I asked for check and it comes right away as expected. Oh, and there is no smile on any of the waiters or waitresses face. No wonder Hong Kong rank 2nd to last on the customer service ranking.

Went to CPK again as Michelle told me that the hawaiian chciken pizza she had last week was one of the best pizza she had ever had in her life. As a big fan of pizza, i obviously have to come out for a try.

It was Wednesday night but the place was surprisingly crowded. We had waited for nearly 10 minutes in order to get a table.

We ordered the same pizza Michelle had ordered last week to see if it was as great as she described. Also, we ordered a sprite and lemon tea as we were lured by the unlimited refill.

The pizza came 20 minutes after we have made our order. The pizza definitely looked good and I have really high expectation on it as Michelle claimed it was the best pizza she had ever had. My first bite of it was quite nice. But after the 2nd and 3rd bite, I found the pizza quite dry perhaps the chef put too little tomato paste on top of the pizza crust or the pizza baked too long?? The old saying of "the higher the expectation, the bigger the disappointment" applies again!

My second disappointment was that although the waiter refill my lemon tea quite frequently, they never refill the lemon for me! It reminds me the old days in 'Shooters 52' which they only refill you the tea but never with the lemon. I found this quite a rip off as my iced lemon tea turned to be iced tea at the end of the night.

I love the pizza and salad, very delicious, My friend and I enjoy the food very much.

The restaurant is suitable for gathering and celebration.

The service was very bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No waiter gave the water to us.
And we waited the pizza about half an hour.
The pizza was not that we had ordered but the waiter did not tell us what the pizza was.
The taste of the pizza was bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Their reception is so far away from the tables that it can take some time for them to notice you, so we just walked straight in, stood next to the main order entry computer and got a table straight away (not so difficult as it was a quiet at 4pm).

My favorite salad is the Moroccan Chicken, which I usually order with extra chicken, avocado and egg, but this time I opted for the standard salad for the first time just to see what the proportions are like. A half portion is never enough, I always go for the full size, which I had to note today has gotten a little smaller. Or maybe that's because all the extras I usually order are really extra! Good to know

In any case, California Pizza Kitchen salads have well balanced ingredients so that you don't run out of, say, chicken, before you are done. They don't try to keep the cost down by making the salad 80% leaves. The dressing is not over-powering and goes well with the salad.

They do three types of spring-roll sized wraps, each with their own dip, that my gf always orders that are very tasty. Also the avocado dip with tortilla chips is heavenly. Alas, I can eat neither of those two dishes anymore.

Service is good, unless you get a trainee. Drinks are usually refilled promptly.

The open kitchen is interesting to observe from one of the bar seats.

tomato beef spegatti

very tasty! there's fresh tomato juice and canned tomato juice mixed together~ beef is already diced and there's some union too~
the spegatti is al dentle, not too soft and not too hard~ i added some cheese powder on top of that too!
however, if tomato juice can b more then even better!

lemon tea
can be refilled but only for tea only, they give 3 slices of lemon only, however tea taste is rich, refilled speed is just alrigh, i need to ask them to refill by myself....

I called at 7.30pm for a delivery, and find the waiting time is around one and a half hours which I feel is a bit excessive.
California Shrimp Rolls($62) were very good, the small Caesar salad ($55) horrid. It had been made with cheap powdered parmesan cheese that smelt of old socks, and the croutons were neither crisp, nor garlicky.
The pizzas, Works and Hawaiian, ($92 and $82), were very average and came with small pots of the same industrial cheese used in the salad.
Overall a pretty disappointing meal.

My boss loves the idea of working lunch so we have ordered delivery from California Pizza Kitchen, one of my favorite delivery restaurant

We have ordered pizzas (standard pepperoni, mushroom and chicken) and pastas (carbonara, spaghetti bolognese) and caesar salads....

Pizzas are average.... crust are too thick and not crispy.... pretty much the same standard of Pizza Hut....
Pasta are good.... especially the carbonara.... not too much sauce but stick to the pasta..... when we finished there was no sauce or liquid at the bottom of the box....
Salad..... the cheese and the sauce are great.... but the lettuce can be fresher

Overall I like the food especially the pasta and great turnaround time..... half an hour and the food was at our door already.....

Went for a late lunch in the afternoon. 2 drinks for $10 special, very worth it - esp the iced lemon tea, free refills. Usually its around $28 for a drink. CPK is def a place for sharing food. Large portions, you should probably under-order.

Spinach artichoke dip is just a CPK classic and tastes the same as the US. However, they didn't have the blue tortilla chips any more, just the normal corn ones. Messing with a classic man.... They should change their menu listing then (it says it comes with blue and corn chips) and charge less, considering the blue chips are imported from the US, and just a nice addition altogether. Oh well, dip was still good.

I was surprised how 1 waitress waited on this entire area, like 10 tables. So service wasn't as attentive, but she still managed it. The bill literally took 15mins to get back to us...so the register is definitely the bottleneck, I believe another person/manager mans/has access to the register.

Went here to get a break from cooking. Saw there was a line of people outside, but since we didn't mind sitting at the bar, we went straight in.

The pizzas were great, nice flavor and right amount of toppings. We found that 1 pizza each was a little too much but 1 between 2 people would definitely not be enough.

Unlimited ice tea was also nice.

Also noticed that they do delivery at no extra charge. I'll definitely be using that service in the near future.

This place is getting added to my list of places to go when I'm in the mood for a reliable feed.

We went there for tea.

We ordered a pepperoni pizza, quite good, if there is herbs, it would be better.

Besides, we ate a tiramisu, not too sweet, but not impressive to me. The cake was saturated with coffee.

There is a promotional offer that we can order 2 drinks (coffee or tea) at $10 during tea time.

Earlier this evening, I had a sudden craving for my all time favorite pasta dish, CPK's Portobello Mushroom Ravioli, and so my boyfriend took me there for dinner.

Food for me: Potato and Leek Soup (always promising!), Portobello Mushroom Ravioli (highly recommended!)
Food for my boyfriend: Sedona Tortilla Soup, the Original, BBQ Chicken Chopped salad

CPK never failed to make us finish up all the food we ordered, lol.

I had lunch with a friend at CPK yesterday, it was a rather quiet place, great for chatting! We were seated at a booth. They served lunch set and of course other things in the menu (but very pricey). So, we both ordered lunch set. Surprisingly, they served a good portion. I had soup with salad and my friend ordered soup with pasta. I was glad that I didn't order pasta coz it was really big and I wouldn't be able to finish it. Salad was very tasty with a whole bunch of cheese on top (couldn't tell what sort of cheese it was tho)! Coffee and tea were also included in the lunch set.

Service was alright and they gave you whatever you asked for. Price was reasonable and portion was more than enough for ladies.

Bad service!

The service is horrible. This is the worst service restaruent I ever been to. The Waiter does not even meet basic requirement.

I think they have serious management problems.

Came here for lunch with family today. The 4 of us ordered

- half size grilled vegetable salad: Good
- Thai fried noodles: Good but a little too creamy
- Mushroom Neapolitan pizza: Fresh and crispy

So yes. The food was good, but we had to wait for an hour before the pizza came. The excuse was the first pizza got burnt and they had to make another one, except I still didn't think that that would take an hour. And when we tried to get the check, it took them over 10 min to get it. Don't tell me the cashier needs 10 min to print out a check. I can maybe understand if the restaurant were very crowded, but the place was half empty. No excuse for such services!