The Newly Refurbished Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant

Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant underwent a complete refurbishment earlier this year.

The beautiful new entrance takes you to the Hostess stand. No longer do you have to wait in their old switch back queue. You simply check in and if there is a wait they will ask for a cell phone number and they will text you when your table is ready. So your wait is exploring the California Marketplace.

If you do want to wait inside the restaurant there is a spacious lobby area.

There is now a full service bar. They have some wonderful boysenberry-infused cocktails.

Two of your boysenberry options are a draft boysenberry beer and a boysenberry lemon drop. They also offer a boysenberry mojito.

The biscuits are still served fresh and warm.

You get your own butter and boysenberry jelly.

The chicken noodle soup is still one of the best ever. And one can never go wrong with some salad as well.

The Mrs. Knott's Famous Friend Chicken Dinner with mashed potatoes and corn. Now I used to think that Mrs. Knott's chicken was one of the best on the planet but I don't know if it has been years of eating the flavorful and juicy chicken at the Plaza Inn at Disneyland but there is a lack of flavor on Mrs. Knott's chicken. The chicken here is still moist and juicy but the lack of flavor made me sad.

And what else would you finish dinner off with than a slice of boysenberry pie?

A wonderful refurbishment of the Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant is sadly held back by the flavorless chicken. Other than that, the service, the ambiance and the rest of the food is authentically homemade. Maybe I will try something other than the fried chicken on my next visit.


Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant

Address: 8039 Beach Blvd, Buena Park, CA 90620

Phone: (714) 220-5055

Square One Pizza Cafe in Irvine Brings Fresh Ingredients to Pizzas, Pastas and More

I was invited to check out Square One Pizza Cafe in Irvine along with friends and team members Marco and David. Marco and David are also part of the team who built a recreation of the famous Pizza Planet Truck from Toy Story. I thought it would be cool to have them bring the Pizza Planet Truck here as well. Above are the awesome owners of Square One Pizza Cafe, Kyle and Liz Gillies with the Pizza Planet Truck. I love that Kyle covered up the Pizza Planet logo with their logo!

The restaurant is informal and casual. It's the perfect place to stop in for a lunch or dinner. You simply step up to the counter and order and your food is brought to your table. Service is super friendly and you can tell the employees take pride in their job.

Did someone say salad? I love a good salad and we tried two of them. You can never go wrong with a classic Caesar salad. Crisp and refreshing and you can really taste those anchovies in the dressing.

The mixed greens with roasted vegetable salad is my new favorite salad. The roasted vegetables blend perfectly with the fresh greens. Make sure you get it with the balsamic vinaigrette for a fantastic combination of flavors.

The star of this amazing meatball sub is the house-made meatballs. So many places do meatballs but sometimes they are almost burnt on the outside or not cooked all the way through. These meatballs are perfectly cooked all the way through and still moist and flavorful. The rich marinara sauce and melted mozzarella cheese are equally as good as the soft baguette. Do not pass up on the meatball sub.

We also ordered the baked penne pasta. A wonderful combination of soft penne pasta, tomato cream sauce, fennel sausage and peas.You are going to love the perfectly cooked pasta with the creamy sauce, the sweet fennel sausage and the peas. Plus, you can also get pasta that is gluten-free.

Now we get to the pizza. As you can see all the pizza's are square, hence the name of the restaurant. You can order the pizza 50/50 so you can get to eat try two pizzas. We combined The McTernan which combines tomato puree, sweet fennel sausage, pepperoni, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella cheese. The other half of the pizza is the Charred Steak which blends marinated steak, roasted corn, roasted red peppers, red onions, manchego cheese and topped with sour cream and cilantro.

This is a great pie. It's thin crust pizza, almost flatbread like. The thin crust is sturdy and crisp. I'm a fold kind of guy when it comes to pizza and this is the perfect pizza to fold a slice and eat. I loved the McTernan with the slightly spicy sausage and pepperoni. But I would have to say that the Charred Steak completely won me over with the perfectly tender and flavorful steak. Combine that with the flavors of the sweet corn and fresh vegetables made for a refreshingly hearty pizza. I cannot wait to come back and try more of their creations.

For dessert we decided upon the midnight layer cake. This is house-made with a toasted pecan crust, chocolate ganache and chocolate espresso cream with bourbon caramel. If you love dessert and are a chocolate fan, then you owe it to yourself to try this dessert. It's moist and full of amazing chocolate flavor. It's almost pudding like a solid pecan crust. A dessert that is almost too good to share.

The lunch experience was a fantastic one. Everything we tried was fantastic. The freshness of the ingredients really shine. The extra ingredient here is love from Chef Kyle and his passion for making great food, using fresh ingredients and making sure that no one leaves hungry. If homemade, fresh pastas, pizzas, subs, salads and desserts are your thing in a casual friendly environment with friendly guest service then look no further than Square One Pizza Cafe.


Check out their web site:

Square One Pizza Cafe

Oak Creek Shopping Center

5789 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92618
Phone: 949.451.1750
Email: info@sq1pizza.com 

Hours

Sunday - Thursday: 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Friday & Saturday: 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM

*Disclaimer: The experience was provided for free in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Review of Stacked

I have been waiting for this restaurant to open for months now and it did not disappoint! Located at the Del Almo Mall in Torrance, Stacked is another restaurant in a growing list of restaurant specializing in customization of your food. Like Freebirds and Pieology and countless other places, Stacked offers burgers, pizzas, sausages, shakes, salads and even cookies and ice cream to customize. For those that are less adventurous Stacked offers items that are already Stacked.

They utilize the use of iPads at your table to order your food and drinks. It's so much fun to order this way and send your order off to the kitchen. Within minutes your order arrives! What a neat way to order food and not have to wait until everyone is ready to order. While printed menus are still offered, you still need to use the iPad to place your order and send it off to the kitchen.

So let's take a look at the printed menu to show off all the options. Here are the burger options:

Here are the pizza options:

The salad options:

The sausage options:

The cookie sandwich options:

The shake options:

The beverage options:

But here is the all important iPad interface!

They suggest that you order your drinks first so we looked through the list of sodas and beers and wines and decided on shakes! I ordered an apple pie shake that was simply amazing! It was recommended by one of their VP's who helped create all of the shakes on the menu. The shake tasted just like an applie pie that was little on the crust and heavy on the apple!

My friend put together his own shake with chocolate syrup and chocolate chips!

We also ordered some sweet potato fries with a creamy BBQ dipping sauce. The fries were fresh and hot. The dipping sauce was smooth with just the right hint of BBQ sauce and perfectly complimented the fries.

We also ordered regular fries with regular ketchup. These fries were also fresh and hot.

I couldn't resist ordering the homemade chips with a garlic aioli dipping sauce. The chips were fresh and light and the garlic aioli was strong, just the way I like it.

The shakes and the sides came out almost as fast as we ordered them. Then we went to the task of putting out meal together. My friend put a salad together. Everything was light and fresh, just the way she wanted it.

I put together a burger. The photo below shows the way I stacked my burger. It's cool to see the different layers come together on your creation! I chose a brioche bun, a medium rare cooked angus beef patty, swiss cheese, green leaf lettuce, bacon, red onions, pickles, avocado, and stacked sauce.

Here is my burger. The patty was cooked to perfection. I would say the burger is right up there with DG, it's just that good! For some reason we forgot to take a pic of my other friends burger.

Then we moved on to dessert. One of my friends ordered the snickerdoodle cookies and I went for the snickerdoodle cookes with fresh strawberry ice cream. The cookies were nice and soft and the ice cream was just creamy. Just a perfect ice cream sandwich.

A great meal and I want to come back to try the pizzas and the sausages. Ordering off the iPad is a dream and there are plenty of employees to come by to offer assistance if you need it.In the future, when you sign up and join their club, you will be able to save your Stacked choices to post and share on Facebook and other social media. If other people order what you have put together, it will give you credit. If this means credit towards free food or what, I'm not quite sure. but it also means you can use the preorder button on the screen to place an order for items you have already Stacked in the past.

Also, the use of the iPad lowers their cost and they pass the savings to you. So, for two shakes, sweet potato fries, fries, homemade chips, two burgers, a salad, an order of cookies and a cookie sandwich, the cost came out to just under $47. What a great deal!

Stacked is opening two other locations this year in San Diego and later in Cerritos. I will be there at the Cerritos one but plan to visit the Torrance location again soon!