By Vanessa VanderZanden
Daily Bruin Contributor
Take into consideration that BJ’s Chicago Style Pizza and Grill
caters to a college crowd. Accept that the restaurant’s Westwood
fame relies on its large assortment of domestic, microbrewed and
imported beers, not its menu. Allow that BJ’s is a pizza joint and
a happening college hangout. Realize, however, that its food
sucks.
Beginning with the appetizer list, a fine cuisine doesn’t appear
to be the emphasis of this loud establishment. Passing over the
onion rings and fried mozzarella, the best choice is the
Bruschetta. Though the garlic toast stays crisp, the tomatoes,
onion, olive oil and Parmesan cheese dip in the center turn this
gourmet snack into the equivalent of an Italian style chips and
salsa. However, for the hungry of heart and guzzler of beer, the
hastily prepared cuisine proves not to be so serious a problem.
However, for a specialty pizza cafe, BJ’s fails miserably. Good
deep dish pizza can be thick, rich and more hearty than the
choicest steak. Yet, BJ’s cheese and tomato variety ranks in
quality right up there with microwaveable schlock from Safeway at
double the price. The crust basks in a soggy layer of grease while
the drippy cheese fills in the bulk of the hollowed middle,
overpowering any hint of sauce if indeed any ever existed. About
five or six rubbery chunks of tomato rest on top, totally out of
place in the mozzarella sea.
As for the artichoke heart and roasted pepper calzone, though
the price increases by two dollars from the pizza, the food’s
blandness remains the same. Again, cheese swamps the dish – but at
least the marinara sauce makes an appearance. Ricotta, mozzarella,
provolone and Parmesan cheeses climb all over two pieces of what
looked like focaccia bread. The taste of salt and sugar bring back
memories of dorm food.
Dessert, too, can only be enjoyed as an amusing joke. For four
dollars you receive a large cookie with ice cream on top. They call
it the "BJ’s Famous Pizookie," as though this little number
involves the use of a complex recipe locked up in the secret family
vault. It does require two people for proper consumption and is an
enjoyable treat, yet a short trip to Diddy Riese would garner the
same gastronomic pleasure at a quarter the price.
But, while the heavy food begins to attach and detach itself in
tumultuous succession to the sides of your stomach, you begin to
notice the familiar sound of giddy college kids. Boisterously
carousing in sprawling clusters atop the high-ceilinged loft, they
drown out the noise from the two TV monitors tuned to a women’s
body building contest, and later, a billiard’s match. People seated
at window level in huge, round corrugated aluminum sided booths
chuckle pleasantly with fries in hand as they await the bill. The
wood motif reminds you of the log ride at Disneyland and it seems
brawny college men could begin to chant drinking songs at any
moment. In essence, BJ’s proves that every campus needs a hangout,
but not everyone needs to eat there.