BJ's Brewhouse, Cerritos (February 8)

BJ's Brewhouse
11101 183rd Street
Cerritos, CA 90703
http://www.bjsbrewhouse.com/

Telephone: 562.467.0850

Monday - Thursday:
11:00 am - 12:00 am
Friday:
11:00 am - 1:00 am
Saturday:
10:00 am - 1:00 am
Sunday:
10:00 am - 12:00 am

I don't generally frequent BJ's Brewhouse, which has locations all over the United States. I'm not really a big fan- the food is okay but not great, the service always seems rushed and harried, and every BJ's I've ever been to has been way too loud.

When my uncle was here, he kept wanting to eat "American food," so we decided to just go to BJ's one evening. After all, my dad and uncle are hearty beer drinkers and BJ's brews many different types in-house. For the sake of "research," we set out.

The women, just outnumbering the men, managed to "agree" upon getting the 7-beer sampler. There's also a 14-beer sampler, which seemed like an obscene amount of glasses with which to litter the table. The beers are arrayed in darkest ---> lightest order.

3 minutes after ordering the beer. Tentative sips ... no swigging (yet). None of the girls drink beer, so the two men were taking their sweet time with the taste testing.


















1 minute passes. Clearly, the dark beers are being shunned in favor of the lighter ones.


















2 more minutes, and an obvious winner stands out. The Jeremiah Red, a red ale that's apparently quite delicious. In second place is the Piranha Pale Ale, which my uncle seems to be leaning towards.


















18 minutes later, and three of the beers are dead and gone. The P.M. Porter was pretty much consumed entirely by Dad. He's the only one drinking the dark beers, as well. I stopped taking pictures of the beer after a while, but they did eventually drink all of them, as well as order full pints of their favorites (Jeremiah Red for my dad, the Piranha Pale Ale for my uncle).


















See how happy a little beer makes them? They're both terrible at smiling for the cameras, unless there's a mixture of seven different beers running through their systems!


















We got French fries as an appetizer because my uncle discovered a love of Idaho russets while he was here. He claims that the potatoes in Korea are not the same. American potatoes, I believe, are extremely mealy, while Koreans prefer the waxier varieties. Mealy potatoes do make the best French fries.

I learned that my grandmother (my mom and uncle's mother) loved French fries. We ordered the fries (half steak fries, half shoestring) in honor of her ... and proceeded to gobble them up like the piggies we all are.























I love the UFO-like pizza stands at BJ's. They're fun and functional!


















The actual pizza. It was the BJ's Favorite, which contains:

Oven-baked meatballs, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, black olives, white onions and seasoned tomatoes.

Pretty good, though the dough was very doughy. I doubt that 'doughy' is a synonym for 'deep dish,' but who am I to judge? I have no idea how to make pizza dough.


















The baked potato that my dad claimed was as big as his head (no it wasn't, but it was a close call). It really was an enormous potato. All five of us ate slices of it and it was still not fully consumed.


















My dad's hand is for visual reference. The ribs look almost small compared to that monster potato!


















I ordered the blackened chicken pasta, which is smothered in a cream sauce. The cheesy toasts that this pasta comes with are deletable. The actual chicken was good, but the pasta itself was a little overcooked, as was the broccoli. I do not like limp pasta. Especially when it's limp and overly doused in sauce.


















Pizookie! Pizza + cookie = pizookie.

We ordered the oatmeal raisin cookie with the vanilla ice cream. The cookie was way too sweet, the ice cream was just average, but I've always enjoyed the idea of a pizookie. And I like saying the name. Pizookie.

Pizookie.























The sister and the uncle after dinner. We all waddled out and came home to sit. I remember that we were exhausted from all the sheer eating we had done.

All in all, the company made the evening fun. My uncle only left a week ago, but I miss him already!