Restaurant Review: California Crisp

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Kelly

Full Disclosure: I paid for this meal with my own money and I was in no way reimbursed for this blog post. The opinions are completely my own.

Often times I find myself in the area of a mall or shopping center while I am here in California. Mostly because there is usually pretty convenient parking, and generally at least some type of entertainment. Even if I don’t feel like spending all of my time at the mall, there is usually some other food or coffee options in the area where I eat lunch. This time, while I was spending time at the Beverly Center mall, for whatever reason, I decided to eat at the food court. Yes, I’m sure that there are other food options in the area, but basically I got lazy.

I chose California Crisp because even if it was a chain it looked like unique food local to California, and I was in the mood for a sandwich.

I should have known when there wasn’t really a line at this place and it was in the middle of lunch time. I ordered a grilled chicken breast panini without tomato.

I also ordered a soda…but when I tasted my Sprite it tasted pretty bad. Like it was missing the soda syrup. I then asked them if I could have another kind (this took a minute because there was clearly a language barrier) and I chose lemonade. When he tried to fill up the cup with lemonade, he realized that the whole machine was having a problem and told me the machine wasn’t working. But he didn’t offer me a refund……I had to ask him for one….and then wait for about 5 minutes before he and the other associate figured out how to refund my money. So, I ended up without a drink – which was not too big of a deal because I had some bottled water in my purse.

After this situation, my hope that my sandwich would taste delicious had fallen. I sat down and tasted my sandwich. As I suspected, not very good. The bread was probably the best part, but the only other thing that I could taste was whatever the spread that was on it (which as definitely NOT pesto like it said it was) and the chicken. I had to search for the mozzarella that was supposedly on it and I did find two thin slices. Needless to say, I will not be eating here again.

Taste: C-, the bread was really the only slightly redeeming factor. It was really not good.
Cost: D, the poor quality in combination with the poor service does not make for worthwhile food.

Would I go there again? Definitely not. Well, maybe if it was my only option. Maybe.