Restaurant of the Week: California Pizza Kitchen, Victoria Gardens

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California Pizza Kitchen, 12517 N. Mainstreet (in Victoria Gardens), Rancho Cucamonga

CPK was one of the original tenants at Victoria Gardens upon the center’s 2004 opening and more than a decade later, it’s still serving up barbecued chicken pizzas and more.

I’ve eaten there a few times, in part because it’s one of the most affordable sit-down restaurant at the VG. Recently I had dinner there and figured, well, why not take photos and write a Restaurant of the Week? CPK is pretty much the same everywhere, but we’ve only got two of them (the other one is at the Shoppes at Chino Hills) and the VG is a popular spot. Besides, I like CPK.

The menu has small plates, salads, soups, pastas and various pizzas, both usual and unusual, with gluten-free crust an option. And they have alcohol.

I got the wild mushroom pizza (price forgotten, but about $14), which has four types of mushrooms and two types of cheese, and I got it on whole wheat crust, which I’m not sure I’ve done before. That was a good move and made for a heartier crust. If you like mushrooms, this is a pretty good pie. Feeling flush, I spent $1.50 on a few drops of truffle oil; to be honest, any difference in taste to the pizza was negligible.

Service was friendly. It was a Monday evening, early, and the quiet was welcome. The faux rock wall, broad booths, focused lighting and open kitchen with a counter for solo diners add up to an ambience that could almost be described as swank.

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Restaurant of the Week: 5 Star Pizza

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5 Star Pizza, 951 N. Haven Ave. (at Concours), Ontario

A friend alerted me to the existence of 5 Star Pizza, which bills itself as the “best pizza in Ontario” and whose name pretty much promises the same thing. Their Yelp rating as of Feb. 9 is five stars.

Well, it’s near our office, and I was hungry, so I dropped in for a late lunch. It’s in the Concours Center on Haven just below Fourth, where it replaced Pizza Factory late in 2014. I’d been there once and hadn’t been impressed by the food, only by the comical dining room that reminds me of a high school gym with picnic tables: It’s got sports posters and pennants, a tile floor, giant TVs and one of those arcade games where you shoot baskets, all of which appear unchanged.

5 Star has an accommodating attitude. I’d missed the buffet, which had ended an hour before, but they still had a few slices out by the salad bar. The manager volunteered the buffet anyway and said they’d put out a fresh pizza. At $8, including soda, that was a good deal. (Officially it runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.) They started a pizza with pepperoni on half and asked what I’d like on the other half; I said sausage and mushrooms. Done.

The salad bar was standard, except with dressing in squeeze bottles, which is actually a decent idea. For one thing, unlike open containers, you won’t find croutons floating inside. I sat near the entrance rather than occupy a lonely mid-afternoon spot in the sports room.

The pizza had chewy crust, plenty of sauce and a decent amount of toppings. Not five stars by my book, but a solid three.

The menu has $1.50 slices all day, every day (see, they ARE accommodating), plus wings, fried chicken, submarine sandwiches and three pastas, plus Hangar 24 beer. Among their specialty pizzas, priced $13 for small to $20 for extra large: all meat, mucho pepperoni (double portion), Philly cheese steak, Latino (pepperoni, carne asada, onion, green peppers and mushrooms), burger (hamburger, pickle, onion, tomato, green pepper and mushrooms) and, most unusually, Indian (all veggie with ginger, garlic and cilantro). I think 5 Star is Indian-run; there are brochures on the counter for Koyla, an Indian restaurant up the street.

The owner was in and out making deliveries. Seems like a scrappy place that will bend its own rules to accommodate customers.

Is it the best pizza in Ontario? It’s not a big pizza town — if you know of a popular place, let me know — and the only pizza I can remember having here is a slice at Sbarro before a movie and a slice or two at Joey’s on Archibald a few years ago. 5 Star may very well be the best pizza in town, even though it was average to me. But they get an extra star for trying.

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Restaurant of the Week: Seventh Heaven Cafe

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Seventh Heaven Cafe, 1042 N. Mountain Ave. (at Foothill), Upland; closed Monday

This Italian-influenced cafe, which bills itself as “gourmet casual dining, pizza and art,” opened in July 2014 in the old Albertsons center on the northeast corner of Foothill and Mountain. Reader Rick Cuevas tipped me off that it was good, and people on Yelp agree. I scheduled dinner there with a friend.

A wood-fired pizza oven is the big draw; supposedly it’s the only such pizzeria in the area. For more authenticity, the kitchen uses only organic flour from Naples. This isn’t the place to get your pepperoni pizza for the big game; while they do have pepperoni, toppings run more to organic roasted pork, peso, artichoke hearts and grilled eggplant.

The pizzas themselves come in 10- and 14-inch sizes and the 14-inch one we got, with mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and provolone ($15), was in the charred Italian style, not the chewy, heavily sauced American style. We liked it a lot.

The interior is minimalist but stylish: blond wood tables and chairs, drop-down pendant lights, interesting art on the walls, even a few jars of jam and handmade jewelry for sale. That weeknight, the dining room filled up with actual adults. “This place is really popular with people who aren’t teenagers,” my friend said approvingly.

Most items are made from scratch, including the sauces and dressings, and customer favorites from the menu are said to be salads, chili and the pizza. They have craft beers and wine by the glass.

Dinner wasn’t perfect: They delivered the pizza to our table but we had to remind them we’d ordered two sides and that I’d ordered a drink. My friend didn’t like the side, a kind of rice pilaf (it was a special and I can’t remember what they called it); I ate mine.

I’d have written this post back in December but I wanted to go back for a second meal. I did go back the next week, but it was a Monday, which turns out to be the one day they’re closed. The year ended and my column item on my favorite restaurants of 2014 appeared, and a woman phoned to ask, didn’t I know about Seventh Heaven? I was impressed and told her I did know about it and that I’d have the post done this week.

So, on Tuesday I went in for a late lunch. I was going to try one of the panini sandwiches, but a daily special, gnocchi with homemade sauce ($9), was tempting. Well, I liked that too. It was a light lunch, and probably I should have ordered a side of some sort, but they don’t seem to have a small salad.

I expect I’ll go back for a salad or panini, and maybe dessert: They have biscotti, lemon bars, cookies, semi-freddo and granita. Nice to see a restaurant trying to achieve a higher level. Seventh Heaven is a blissful addition to Upland.

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Restaurant of the Week: Original Red Devil Pizza

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Red Devil Pizzeria, 907 W. Foothill Blvd. (at San Antonio), Upland

Sometimes these Restaurant of the Week posts come about by happenstance. I drove one lunch hour to the Upland Town Square shopping center, the one with a Sprouts market, to try out Tao Thai. But this was the day after Thanksgiving and neither Tao Thai nor Loving Hut a few doors down were open.

I almost left the center to look elsewhere but decided to try Red Devil, just paces from where I parked.

Red Devil is almost cavernous in size, with Coors streamers, pennants of NFL teams and picnic-style tables. It’s designed for Little League teams and football watching. But it turns out they have some great lunch specials, all priced at $5. Five dollars!

I got a slice of pizza, salad and soda, $5.40 with tax. The salad was decent: iceberg, cheese, tomatoes and black olives. The slice was wide, soft and thick. I got mushrooms as my topping. It’s not my new favorite pizza in town, but it was acceptable. And the price was outstanding.

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A few days later I returned for another $5 lunch special. This time I got baked ziti, garlic bread and soda. Tasty and filling.

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My only complaint is that all three TVs, spread around the room, were tuned to “Days of Our Lives”; seated in the middle of the restaurant, with the same dialogue coming from three corners of the room, seemingly a split-second apart, I had to move closer to one TV or risk my brain exploding.

(Note: This is not a real complaint, although it’s true that the effect was annoying.)

I don’t know how long they’ll keep the $5 price, but right now it’s one of the best deals around.

How does Red Devil relate to Sal’s Red Devil in La Verne, there since 1973? Not at all, apparently. Covina’s Red Devil opened in 1966. Two brothers split off to open Barros and Lamppost. This Upland location was a Lamppost until 2010, when the family took it back and opened the second Red Devil. They call themselves The Original Red Devil Pizza.

Now I still have to try Tao Thai, if I can keep myself from veering back into Red Devil for a cheaper lunch…

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Restaurant of the Week: Petrilli’s Pizza

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Petrilli’s Pizza, 110 S. Mountain Ave. (at 9th), Upland

One letter can make a lot of difference. Petrilli’s isn’t Petrillo’s, which is a San Gabriel Valley institution, with locations in San Gabriel and Glendora. But it used to be. The Upland storefront opened as a Petrillo’s circa 2004 but changed a letter the following year. (A close look at the sign hints that the “o” may have been cut in half.) Someone who knows more about Petrillo’s could probably explain, and if so, please account for Mama Petrillo’s in La Verne, Rosemead and Temple City, whose connection to the main operation is nebulous.

Located at the north end of the Dollar Tree and Fresh & Easy center, Petrilli’s is takeout only, except for a lone table. That, a soda case and a TV are about the only adornment. A friend who produces the New Diner blog, and one of his friends, met up with me there recently for dinner and snagged the table.

We ended up getting two pizzas: a medium specialty ($23.75) and a small three-topping veggie with mushrooms, onions and jalapenos ($14), because a small pizza was half-off that night with purchase of a medium or large. The menu has a few sandwiches and salads, and lasagna, but it’s mostly pizza.

The specialty had sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, salami, onions and green peppers and was enormous. So were the toppings. As my friend said, “Those are some of the biggest pieces of sausage I’ve ever seen,” and I agreed. The medium was cut in squares, not triangles, and encompassed 16 pieces. Two of us ate less than half.

We liked our pizzas, but we weren’t totally sold. The crust was crunchy and a little boring; my friend left all the edges on his plate, piled like chicken bones. It was a heavy pizza, probably double the usual amount of cheese, loaded with toppings, a little hard to pick up and eat, the opposite of the type of pizza I usually get. It was extreme, even a little freakish, like the giant horse at the county fair.

I took home seven pieces and got four more meals out of them. I’ve never had anything quite like Petrilli’s — well, except for my single Petrillo’s experience — and it’s hard to imagine returning. But it’s some people’s favorite pizza, and I won’t fault them for it.

* The New Diner’s post can be read here.

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Restaurant of the Week: Pizza Barn

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Pizza Barn, 2021 Foothill Blvd. (at D), La Verne; open daily

It’s not in a barn, unfortunately — how cool would that be? — but rather in an older, oak-shaded strip center. I’ve seen Pizza Barn for years, especially as a regular at Taste of Asia in the same building, and remember a positive New Diner review of the place, but I had never stepped inside until one recent Monday evening. There is only one window and the door is wood, so you don’t really know what you’re stepping into.

Well, it is kind of barn-like inside: The ceiling is exposed and peaked. It’s also kind of bar-like: There’s a bar, a small one, with maybe nine beers on tap, and posters for Miller and Coors. They also have small tables and one long table for communal dining or large groups.

You order at the counter. I got a small sausage and mushroom pizza ($10) and a Coke from a very personable employee and took a seat. The Home Run Derby contest was on the TV. A few guys were seated at the bar, a small group at the big table and a few other patrons scattered around, and a couple of people came in for to-go orders. For that night, at least, it was basically a middle-aged crowd.

Besides pizza, the menu has calzones and stromboli, hot and cold sandwiches (including one called Mario’s Ultimate, which sounds like a Dagwood, a little of everything), a few pastas and salads, burgers, wings, and fish and chips. (Yes, fish and chips.) They serve all you can eat spaghetti on Wednesdays for $4 and tacos (yes, tacos) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

My pizza had generous toppings, lots of cheese and a thick and crispy crust. The slices were dense and chewy. I ate half and took the other half home; when ordering, I’d thought about getting a 12-inch medium to ensure I had leftovers, but that didn’t prove to be an issue even with a 10-inch small. It was what I would call a good bar pizza.

The decor is as eclectic as the menu. I saw sports trophies, a shelf of kerosene lamps, a couple of random framed pieces of art, a Lotto machine, video games, paneling and ceiling fans. Pizza Barn probably hasn’t been remodeled since it opened in 1992, nor should it be. It’s got character.

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Restaurant of the Week: Sal’s Pizza

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Sal’s Pizza, 6773 Carnelian St. (at 19th), Rancho Cucamonga; open daily at 4 p.m.

Someone mentioned the takeout-only Sal’s in Rancho Cucamonga here when I wrote about the unrelated Sal’s in La Verne. I’d never been, and still hadn’t until recently, when the New Diner blogger brought the place up to me. We arranged to meet for dinner.

Sal’s is in the Island Pacific center just below the 210. It’s been in business at various addresses since 1979, not long after Rancho Cucamonga incorporated as a city. We ordered a medium Sal’s Special ($16.25), which has pepperoni, sausage, ham, bacon, mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Wait time was 15 minutes. But what to do next, as neither of us lives nearby?

If it was warmer, I’d have suggested Beryl Park just above the 210, but it wasn’t. The New Diner said we should walk a few paces across the parking lot to eat inside a fast-food restaurant. Daringly, we did, ordering drinks and then keeping a low profile. Nobody said anything about the two guys sharing pizza inside a place known to make a swell taco. (I say that only as a rhyme with its name.)

We were impressed by the pizza. Toppings were plentiful, tasty and fresh. Cheese was generous, the sauce a good complement. The crust was crunchy and didn’t wilt under the load of toppings. It was a solid, well-made pizza, among the best in town.

Other than pizza, all they have is spaghetti, ravioli, garlic bread, salad and wings. On Yelp, where Sal’s currently has 4 1/2 stars, one commenter says they have a secret pizza menu that includes one called “The Roadkill” that is all meat. Anyone know of others?

The New Diner’s review is here.

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Restaurant of the Week: Pieology

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Pieology, 8158 Day Creek Blvd. (at Foothill), Rancho Cucamonga; open daily.

The Inland Valley’s first fast-fired pizza parlor, Pieology, opened last week south of Victoria Gardens in the Sears Grand center below Foothill Boulevard. The Fullerton-based chain is expanding quickly; with 10 locations open as I write this, including Walnut; one is due to open in Chino on Sept. 11 at 3908 Grand Ave.

I had lunch there Wednesday. This was my first Pieology visit, but I’d eaten at Blaze in Pasadena and 800 Degrees in Westwood, which have similar concepts. You line up like at Chipotle or Subway and your pizza is assembled in front of you by a line of workers to your specifications (within reason). They pop it in the oven, you pay, get your drink and sit down, and within a couple of minutes they’re bringing out your pizza.

There are pre-selected combinations you can order, or you can customize. I customized, going with the standard marinara and mozzarella with sausage and mushrooms ($7.50). (Disappointingly, if understandably, anchovies aren’t offered.) Because I’m soft-spoken, ordering involved my repeating most of these items to the staff on the other side of the sneeze shield. Also, I looked away at one point after answering the question “is that all?”, and when I looked back, “yes” had translated into ham being added. Well, all toppings seem to be free, so I let it go. As a friend put it, without some restraint you can end up with a pizza resembling a bas-relief map of the Sierra Nevadas.

I also picked up a prepackaged salad of spinach, cranberries, bleu cheese and walnuts ($3.50), which I liked. The pizza is very thin crust, crisp and almost cracker-like, with some char. The toppings were less generous than your typical pizza parlor.

Pieology was very much like Blaze (I think I had essentially the same salad both places), but less foodie than 800 Degrees and its Neopolitan-style pies and menu. I can see the appeal: You can get a decent pizza quickly on a lunch or dinner break, and it’s all yours; in a group, everyone can get exactly what they want without compromising and having to accept, say, black olives or another objectionable topping. Vegetarians can do their own thing.

Purely for taste, it’s not great pizza, but it’s all right, and the whole thing is kind of fun. I mean, Chipotle doesn’t make the best burritos either, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to go there anyway once in a while.

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Restaurant of the Week: Dalia’s Pizza Buffet

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Dalia’s Pizza Buffet, 9558 Base Line Road (at Klusman), Rancho Cucamonga

The former Sizzler on Base Line Road has been converted into something almost unique to the area: a pizza buffet. No, not just like Shakey’s or someplace where they have a buffet at lunchtime. I mean it’s all-you-can-eat all the time, like HomeTown Buffet. There is no menu to order from.

Curious, I went there for lunch one day last week. I paid my $7.49 at the cashier for a buffet and $2.39 for a soda (“all you can drink”) and then checked out the offerings.

There is pizza, obviously, seven or more at a time, even at 1:30 p.m. when I arrived. And there is salad, soup, pasta and garlic knots. They also have fried chicken, french fries and onion rings. And there is soft-serve ice cream, cookies and even chocolate-covered strawberries.

The salad was fine, the Italian wedding soup not bad, and a ravioli was unexpectedly meaty. The pizza, oddly enough, was the weak link, blandly sauced, bready and unmemorable. I ate six slices anyway. It seemed like the thing to do.

(I didn’t take pictures of my plates of food. With a buffet, photos seemed kind of beside the point.)

When I left, after 2:30, the buffet had eight pizzas out, and there were still a handful of customers. A manager told me that during the afternoon lull, customers can request a pizza, saving the kitchen from putting out a lot of food no one is there to eat. But by 5 p.m., he said, people start coming in for dinner ($9). Putting out individual-serving submarine sandwiches is under consideration, and customers can place to-go orders.

Dalia’s has six other locations in the area, most of them take-out or delivery only. I thought Dalia’s pizza buffet might be unique, but CiCi’s Pizza, a Texas-based buffet chain, now has a location in Chino Hills (4200 Chino Hills Parkway).

It’s an interesting concept and Dalia’s does seem to be trying. I might even go back for the novelty factor. I wish the pizza were better, though.

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Restaurant of the Week: New York Pizzeria

New York Pizzeria, 12431 Central Ave. (at the 60), Chino

You can’t find Chicago pizza in the Inland Valley, so far as I know, but people who like New York pizza have a handful of places to choose from. No spot is more established than New York Pizzeria, which opened in Chino in 1984.

After a recommendation from reader Ron Scott, I met a couple of friends there for lunch. Not much to look at from the outside, as it’s housed in a stucco cube on the outskirts of the Superior Market center just below the 60 Freeway, but New York Pizzeria becomes interesting the moment you step inside. There’s NYC photos, posters and memorabilia in the entryway, as well as a few seats from the original (1923-2006) Yankee Stadium, in which you can wait for takeout and think about Phil Rizzuto.

Closer to home, the arch-shaped windows into the kitchen for ordering remind me of Pizza Royale in Rancho Cucamonga. NYP has grinders, a few pastas and a couple of salads, but clearly the main event is the pizza. They make the dough fresh daily, make their own sauces, grate their own cheese and bake their pizzas in a stone oven.

We got two medium pizzas, one with sausage and mushroom, the other cheeseless with vegetables (accommodating the table’s wannabe vegan). This would have cost us $30, but they have a deal, two medium pizzas, two toppings each, for $19, so we went for it. (I had suggested we get a straight cheese pizza, but if the toppings are free…)

We liked the results. I appreciated the chunks of sausage and fresh mushrooms but thought the crust, which kept collapsing, was too thin to support two toppings. Still, it was a good pizza and my meat-eating friend thought so too. As for the cheeseless pizza, “the veggies were plentiful and fresh,” said the wannabe vegan. The meat-eating friend said agreeably, “It turned out not to be a mockery of what a pizza is supposed to be.” I’ll second that. The crust was thicker on the veggie pizza.

Although we gave the edge to San Biagio’s NY Pizza in Upland for its sauce, we all said we’d be willing to return here. In fact, a couple of weeks later, I did, going there for a solo weekday lunch. You can get an 8-inch pizza with two toppings, a salad and a soda for $6.49. I did that but skipped the toppings because I wanted to try a straight cheese pizza. Pretty good, and the salad beats San Biagio’s.

The dining room at New York Pizzeria is wallpapered in youth sports plaques, and the day of our Saturday lunch several of the picnic-style tables were reserved for young players, who showed up in force, and hungry. Not a place for an intimate evening, but fun. Service was exceedingly friendly at this family-owned restaurant. Probably friendlier than you’d get in New York.

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