My family was trying to decide where to go for lunch today. I suggested a new pizza place near Carefree and Academy, but my wife told me she wasn't in the mood for pizza. A few moments later, she suggested California Pizza Kitchen. Sometimes its just pointless to argue.

If you are a lover of traditional pizza, you may not like this place too much. It is a bit overpriced, and feels.. I dunno.. foo foo (for lack of a better term). They have about a zillion different types of pizzas, including such horrid sounding delights like "pear & gorgonzola".

This is the kind of place that I really want to dislike, primarily because it feels like it is designed by and for yuppies. The problem is... their pizza's are pretty good. The atmosphere is pretty good. Usually the service is decent, but this time we weren't so lucky.

Our waitress was quick to take our order and bring us our drinks, then she vanished for quite a while. Three of us had ordered iced tea, and we needed some sweetener, but there wasn't any on our table. After waiting a few minutes, we ended up flagging down another waiter and asked him for some. He seemed a bit annoyed, but brought some for us anyways. Drink refills were also few and far between (and often didn't include ice) during our visit.

I ordered the chipotle chicken pizza. It had a nice mix of chilies, corn salsa, cilantro and cheese piled in the center of the pizza. I spread it out, and dug in.

I really liked the pizza. The menu said it was "HOT & SPICY", and while I agree it was a little spicy, I didn't think it warranted the caps. I would rate it medium spicy, personally. The taste was great, however.

This place is definitely geared for the yuppie crowd, and it is priced accordingly. If you have small appetites and can share a pizza with someone, your price per person will be pretty cheap. The pizza's aren't very big though, so I need one all to myself, and they run about 12 bucks each. That can add up fast when you throw on a drink, tax, and tip. The total for our family was over 50 bucks, which ain't cheap.