BJ's - West Covina

BJ's Restaurant & Brewery
2917 E Eastland Ctr Dr
West Covina, CA 91791
(626) 858-0054
Type: Californian / restaurant / bar / pizza
Website
Map

Another chain restaurant. Yes. Indeed. BJ's in West Covina in the Eastland Center mall is one of many BJ's restaurants nationwide. This is the one my girlfriend and I went to. I would compare this place to a Yard House or TGI Friday's. I've been here many times before and I know I'll end up going here in the future.



BJ's has a little special place in my heart though. I was maybe about 22 or something. Ironically, I actually started drinking alcohol after it was legal for me, unlike 98 percent of my friends who started in high school. But in the beginning, I only liked the hard liquor shots, and--promise not to laugh.... Smirnoff Ice. Everybody clowned on me for drinking the "girly" stuff. I didn't care. I was kind of laughing to myself thinking you guys are the ones drinking that nasty ass beer. How can you like that stuff? I had my first sip of beer when I was probably in 1st grade. Stuff was nasty. And I thought so for about a decade and a half. I tried taking sips many times to see if it would grow on me, and I was still sticking to the Mike's Hard Lemonade. Then, I went to BJ's with some friends. They were all drinking their beers. I think I wanted to get buzzed that night, so I forced myself to drink it. I got their famous hefeweizen. Damn. It was all over from there. Their hef was just so light and smooth and tasty that it just pulled me to the dark side never to look back. I've probably tasted maybe 30 or so different types of beers since then, and I still try new ones whenever possible.

So getting back to the present, we ordered the BJ's beer tasters. We each got the 7 tasters for $8.95 each. It's just 7 of BJ's own beers in thin glasses. I don't remember what they had, but I know by the 2nd glass, we were a little tipsy. I'd get that again cuz I like the variety.

party line


When you drink, you gotta get something to snack on. In Tagalog, we call that pulutan. It's just a must. Onion strings were great. It's just a little too much just for two people who still ordered a pizza!

onion strings


We ordered the Great White Pizza for about $20 for a medium. Bad move. Not the pizza itself. That was good. It was deep dish. Fluffy but crispy on the outside. Had alfredo sauce and it's good with ranch (what isn't?). But we just let our buzzed hunger order for us. We only got like 1 or 2 slices each. Oh well. Leftovers.



I pretty much said what I needed to say about this place. Nothing really wrong with it in my opinion. Good place to go for an occasion. Loudish. Oh, it can get crowded during peak hours. And, uh... that's it.

Peruvian or Carribean Restaurants?

Does anybody have any suggestions on some good Peruvian or Carribean restaurants? They can be pretty much anywhere, but a 30 mile radius from West Covina would be helpful. I've only been to a few. My favorite Carribean place nearby is called Carribean Gardens in La Verne. It's a Guyanese place. Somebody, please help! I've been craving Peruvian/Carribean for a while now.

Alpenrose Sierra Grill - Mammoth Lakes

Alpenrose Sierra Grill
343 Old Mammoth Rd
Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546
(760) 934-3077
Type: "Pacific Rim - French Fusion" restaurant
Map



Took a trip to Mammoth Lakes in late January for some world-class snowboarding. Unfortunately, we didn't get to experience much of that world-classiness cuz the weather was so horrible. There were whiteout conditions and 50 or so mph winds. It was so bad the snow was blowing not only sideways, but going upwards! They received about 3 feet of snow in that short weekend which is good if you went riding right after the storm, but we were figuratively and literally knee-deep in it. So was there anything good that came out of that trip you ask? Sure. I got to spend quality time with my girlfriend and some of her family, we had fun playing in the snow in back of the condo, and we got lucky and stumbled upon a great restaurant in the middle of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

The place was Alpenrose located off the main street in Mammoth on Old Mammoth Road. There's a good amount of restaurants and bars surrounding it, and there's a pretty big plaza with a Vons just down the street. From one website we saw while we were looking for a place to eat, they said Alpenrose is a Swiss restaurant. I had no idea what kind of food that was. The menu though, reflected a lot of European/Asian fusion dishes. These dishes were also not on the cheaper side. If you spent all your money on the pricey cabin and the almost-as-pricey lift tickets, this might not be the best place for you. Expect to be shelling out about $20 - $40 per person here. Also, at the bottom of the menu, they mentioned something about turning off your cell phones. In other words, yuppies only. Just kidding.

So we got there on a Saturday night. The weather still wasn't great, and we had to put chains on the tires. The parking lot didn't seem that big to me, but I think there was another side besides the one adjacent to the main entrance. We got in and had to wait probably 5 minutes to get seated. Good thing too, cuz we were all starving. The place looked kind of like a cabin inside, but with not so much logs. It was kind of country-ish. I'm not the best at describing or even remembering the decor of any place. All I worry about is the food and if it tastes good, and how much it costs.

So after some browsing through their relatively small menu (only 2 pages worth of food), we decide what we're getting. So we started off with the 5 Mushroom Soup. That was good. They had lots of little mushroom pieces in it. I think one bowl is good enough for two people.

5 mushroom soup


My girl's sister ordered some soft shell crab cakes ($15). Did it only come with two? I think so. But it was really good. Not something I would order often cuz of quantity and price.



The main dishes took a while to arrive, but probably because it was busy. My girl ordered the Portabella Mushroom Pasta ($14). It had a goat cheese cream sauce with white truffle oil using farfalle pasta (obviously, I had to copy these descriptions). It was good too. Luckily there were some leftovers for the next day.

Portabella Mushroom Pasta


I ordered the salmon dish ($30). This one was sake glazed with wasabi mashed potatoes with assorted steamed veggies. Holy crap. This one was bomb. Everything about it was just quality eating. I don't like wasabi, but the mashed taters were mmm-mmm good. The salmon was cooked just right, and the sweet sauce it was served with was the perfect combination. My only complaint is that I wanted more sauce.

sake-glazed salmon. wow.


My girl's brother in-law ordered the ribeye meal which I think cost about $30. He said it was okay, but overpriced.

To make the meal even yuppier than it was already, we ordered a bottle of wine called Los Vascos or something. There's just two types of red wine for me: tastes okay, and tastes not so great. This one tasted okay. I haven't been accustomed to actually liking the taste of wine yet.

winin' and dinin'


Oh, but wait. The yuppie rituals aren't finished until you have your chocolate fondue with fruits. By this time, I was already full. Plus, the chocolate was dark chocolate, so I wasn't exactly excited about it. But I had to try it anyways. After dipping a strawberry in, I realized it wasn't that bad. I ended up eating quite a few fruits, with bananas being the best ones. I still prefer milk chocolate, but this was cool.

fond of fondue


In the end, we got the best surprise of all. My girl's sister and her husband paid for the whole bill! I felt bad getting the salmon cuz it was one of the most expensive dishes, but I didn't know. I thought I was paying for our meals. Thanks again Tina and Tamer!

I would definitely go back to Alpenrose when I take another trip up to Mammoth. Although, I wanna try the sushi restaurant first. Even if I had to pay for our meal, I would still go back. The food was really tasty. I'm sure there's better places; possibly for even less. But this is a mountain community a few thousand feet above sea level. This is as close to Heaven as you can get. Ok, maybe not really, but it was a witty thing to say.

Club N' Grub - late night blog

Club N' Grub

While posting all these other websites/blogs, I forgot that I haven't posted about my new blog. It's another restaurant blog, but for the late night crowd. Peep it out when you can't find a good midnight snack at home.