You still have 2 days to go to send in your answer!  Join the Wii Night Online Contest and you might just win a Wii Night for you and 4 of your friends!

Announcement of winners is on November 17, 2008.

Stay tuned!

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s California Pizza Kitchen.  And there’s definitely love at CPK.  Invites to the Make Your Own Pizza event were sent out and eager participants were not shunned away by the rain and Wednesday’s heavy traffic on the evening of September 10, Wednesday.

Kitchen adventures always intrigue me as a lot of things happen in the kitchen (after all, isn’t that supposed to be the most exciting part of any quarters… or do I hear bedroom echoing somewhere)?  The culinary excitement started when we were asked to choose from a variety of titles:  Bollywood, Where’s the Way, etc.  The choice was Bollywood –vivacious barely clad bodies and energetic music suddenly entered the mind.   We were then handed a CPK box with a cap inside.

The enclosed area was so packed that tables had to be arranged outside the reserved venue to accommodate more participants.  The history of California Pizza Kitchen flickered on the LCD screen.  Lawyers who became restaurateurs founded CPK.  The brilliant JR Hernandez hosted the event, while Chef Archie Rodriguez, President of Global Restaurant Concepts, Inc. opened the culinary session by demonstrating how their premium pizzas are made.

Top-quality ingredients such as handpicked Roma tomatoes, imported Italian sausage, special dough and other premium goods were readily available to help recreate any of the more than 30 pizza offerings of California Pizza Kitchen.

Recreating the California-style pizza was a cinch with the freshest ingredient and the knowledgeable team of CPK Philippine franchise behind the counter.

Make Your Own Pizza participants then arranged these high-quality ingredients on top of special dough before baking them in a hearth oven. “Our hearth oven baking process creates a pizza crust characteristic of fine bread. It also retains the color, texture and taste of our toppings, lending our pizzas a distinct and complex flavor,” explained Rodriguez.

The guests had the chance to savor their different creations, which were served fresh from the oven.  From the curry based Tandoori Chicken, spicy Thai Chicken to the smoky sweet Jamaican Jerk Chicken, the international pizzas of California Pizza Kitchen offer a taste of the world.

“Our pizzas draw inspiration from the diverse culinary heritage of the Golden State, which is called home by many migrant cultures,” said Rodriguez. “This is why California is also a melting pot of flavorful cuisines—a culinary heritage mirrored in the pizzas of California Pizza Kitchen.”

CPK menu include: Pizzas, Salads and Appetizers, Soups, Pastas, Focaccia Sandwiches, Desserts, Smoothies, Beverages, Blended Beverages.  I remember having one of my lunch meetings at CPK Shangri-la  2 months ago and not one dish disappoint.

“Our range of pizzas encourage Filipinos to be adventurous so that they enter California Pizza Kitchen, thinking: ‘Maybe I’ll try a new pizza today’. Because whether it’s Goat Cheese with Roasted Peppers or Tuna Melt, we want our pizzas to be as exciting as they are satisfying to the palate,” said Rodriguez.

The Philippine franchise is owned by Global Restaurant Concepts, Inc. and currently operates 6 branches located in: Glorietta 3, Alabang Town Center, Shangri-la Plaza Mall, Trinoma Mall, Greenhills Shopping Center, Powerplant Mall.  In California Pizza Kitchen, abandon normalcy and embark on a gastronomic adventure –order a pizza you’ve never tried before, and enjoy the thrill of traveling the world through its premium slices.

For inquiries on reservation or delivery, call California Pizza Kitchen at 867-2115 to 16 (Glorietta 3), 850-5771 (Cortes de las Palmas, Alabang Town Center), 687-7841 to 42 (Shangri-La Plaza Mall), 725-7377 (Greenhills Promenade), 901-3881 to 82 (Trinoma) and 895-3447 (Power Plant Mall, Rockwell).

Global website: http://www.cpk.com/menu/ Philippine website: http://globalresto.com

CPK Album

Singapore celebrity chef Lisa Leong educates us Thursday night that great tasting food can also be healthy.  As a primer to August 8-9 cooking course, Chef Leong taught the media participants clustered at Tang City Glorietta 3 branch the healthy way of preparing delectable dishes.  To those who are not familiar with the name, Lisa Leong is one of the most popular chefs in Southeast Asia.  At age 55, she is currently a food and travel writer for Gourmet Living and a TV chef.  25 years of culinary experience paved the way for her endorsements, highlighting New Asian health cuisines that nutritional She also contributes to different food magazines across Asia and is the spokesperson for leading branded food and Philips products. 

Very much the talker and comic, Lisa Leong tells us that not all healthy food are bland, colorless or boring.  She reintroduces Coconut Oil as the new Asian key ingredient in Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Singaporean cuisine. 

“Coconut oil is a healthy and great-tasting cooking ingredient,” explains Leong. “It suits my gourmet style and appeals to millions of people in the region, as well, who use it in their daily meals.” But more important than its prominence as an ingredient in Asian cooking traditions, coconut oil is a naturally occurring oil that contains beneficial medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs).

Beneficial MCTs are fatty acids aid in the metabolic processes of the body including fat regulation, weight control and anti-infection activity. Basically, MCTs in coconut oil contribute to a holistic diet and help combat the excessive intake of harmful trans fatty acids. Recognizing the valuable contribution of MCTs to staying fit, Chef Leong chose coconut oil products from Team Asia Corporation, the leading provider of consumer health products, for her New Asian style cuisines.  

Album: http://cushee.multiply.com/photos/album/539/08_0807-_Chef_Lisa_Leong