The CPK

Few mornings back, Amish- a friend from Chicago called and for next one hour, we remembered many great times we had last year in Atlanta. We were in Atlanta for a couple of months and despite deadlines with our project, we had very much fun too.
I remember our first meeting in Atlanta when I was in office and in a dire need of my daily dose of caffeine. Amish came in the office and a fellow friend told him about my craze for Starbuck's Java Chip and to my surprise, Amish too was Starbucks fan! Our quick trip to Starbucks that afternoon became a habit for next weeks to come.
In between, I had to go to New Jersey to receive Yogesh who was to join me for Atlanta and other projects. Amish came to drop me at the airport and he came to pick us up too. On our way back, he asked us about the dinner and if we were ok to eat outside. Well, I do not eat out but it was too late and the offer was appealing enough to break my rule! Amish introduced CPK - California Pizza Kitchen to me first time that evening.
One of the challenges I have for eating out is to find the food which is not only vegetarian but does not contain onion or garlic in any form. Amish has the similar food restrictions and so has Yogesh.
Amish assured us that we would get the food of our type in CPK. He suggested to order Tostada which listed as:
Tostada Pizza: "Southwestern black beans, sharp Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses topped with chilled shredded lettuce, fresh tomato salsa, green onions and crispy tortilla strips with our herb ranch dressing. Also available with grilled lime chicken."
He modified Tostada to minus Tomato salsa (contains garlic) and green onions (and no chicken of course) and replaced them with olives, broccoli and corn. Of course, Pepsi and bread accompanied this pizza. It was so yummy and I would recommend this pizza combination to you if you ever end up in CPK.
In coming time, we had many more visits to CPK and though it was 35 miles of drive one way, we were prepared to drive that far even if it was raining heavily!
After the project was over, Amish went back to his hometown Chicago and we traveled to few different cities for next two months. We were in Toronto and had a one night stop over in Chicago before flying to New Jersey. When Amish came to know about our coming to Chicago, he volunteered to pick us up from Airport and as our flight was delayed and we landed very late, only CPK would serve us some food!!!!! :)
So, we ended up one more time (and last time in this trip) to CPK.

We had one more great time and we enjoyed couple of Tostada that night. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the picture of Tostada Pizza. May be I can ask Amish to take one when he visits CPK next time...
Oh, this reminded me about another great pizza we had in "We Cook Pizza" at Grand Canyon.
Yogesh, Bhavesh and me went there from Las Vegas and after visiting Grand Canyon, we had our dinner at "We Cook Pizza" just opposite to our motel. We ensured that its sauce does not contain onion or garlic and there is no meat or any other non-veg product in "Cheese Pizza" it listed in the menu.
The cook promised us to make a pizza the way we needed and he indeed did!
While "Spicy Paneer Pizza" of (Indian) Pizza Hut is still my favorite one, my "no more outside food" restriction has forced me to convince my brain (and tongue) that cheese is no more good for my growing tummy. I have reached the mark of 70 and now my tummy enters the room two seconds before my nose does. Too bad too bad... Let there be summer soon so that I can go swimming and reduce this time difference!