Some places you go in knowing it is probably not going to be the best dish you have ever had. This was one of those nights. But we had a gift card and in the pursuit of all that is Mac N Cheese, we trudged on. They offered mac n cheese bites AND mac n cheese on the kids menu (with edamame even) so we ordered a couple of the bites and an adult portion of mac n cheese to share. We happened to spot some sort of pork and jalapeno pizza and decided that we should get that too. Good thing we did cause the mac n cheese sucked and the pizza saved our dinner. Things started out well with some fresh bread and herb oil to dip it in. Then the bites came out. The breading had more flavor than the mac n cheese inside them but it was that all-in-one Italian flavor that you use when you don't know how to cook as a teenager. If they had some jalapenos and bacon in them, they would have been so much better. Then the pasta came out. It looked like something I made in college when I was out of money. Noodles, hardly any sauce and whatever remnants of frozen veggies I had in the freezer. I did like the noodles because they are the kind that hold a lot of cheese sauce, if it's available. The flavor was bland. I did like the edamame in the dish because it provided a nice crunch and texture change. They looked like peas, but tasted better. Keeping it classy. I added a buttload of Parmesan and some peppers to my portion and it was much edible. The cheese was probably some sort of generic Velveeta type. I also found that if you put the habanero salsa they gave us with our pizza, it tasted way better. Speaking of pizza. The habanero carnitas pizza is delicious. Super thin crust and full of flavor. I thought maybe I could put some of the bland mac n cheese on the pizza to make an epic concoction, but it was not a successful pairing. The pizza was just fucking good. It tasted like a Mexican taco truck fiesta in my mouth on some crust sprinkled with cilantro and drizzled with habanero salsa. To give CPK credit, they are a pizza place, not a mac n cheese place.
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| Crispy Mac 'N' Cheese $4.89 - classic mac n cheese lightly fried with panko, served on creamy cheese sauce |
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| Curly mac n cheese w/edamame $10 |
