BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse is an immensely popular chain with restaurants in California, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Hawaii. I visited the Brea Mall location with two friends for dinner. The Brea Mall location is off of Imperial Highway just west of the 57 Freeway. It's in the same parking lot as the Cheesecake Factory.

It's always busy at BJ's, and there's always a wait. We only waited 10 minutes or so and were seated in a nice comfy booth. The atmosphere is lively, bustling, and busy! This BJ's location includes a brewery. My friend ordered the Jeremiah Red, BJ's own brew. He said it was nice and hearty, but not too overwhelming or bitter.

We ordered the Together At Last appetizer, which is their spinach and artichoke dip and bruschetta appetizers in one. I ordered a medium pizza with half BJ's Favorite and the other half blackened chicken. My friends ordered the jambalaya and pot roast sandwich with steamed veggies for the side.

The Together At Last appetizer arrived shortly. The spinach artichoke dip was nice and creamy with chunks of artichoke. The bruschetta is very savory. The topping of tomatoes and herbs is very good and tangy, due to the balsamic vinegar in it. We ran out of chips and bread, but our server brought us more (free of charge according to the bill!).

About 15 minutes later (time passes by fast in there), our entrees came out. The pot roast sandwich has tender slices of Angus pot roast slices on a garlic cheese roll with a scoop of cheddar mashed potatoes and gravy on top. My friend really liked it and said it was very juicy. The jambalaya is blackened chicken, shrimp, and chicken sausage; veggies; and a spicy sauce on top of a fluffy bed of rice pilaf. He totally loved the dish and said it was really savory.

My medium deep dish pizza was a half-half BJ's Favorite, which has meatballs, pepperoni, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, olives, and onions. The other half was the blackened chicken, which has blackened chicken breast, corn, creamy Alfredo sauce, green onions, and roasted red peppers. it was totally delicious.

Our entrees were quite big and we didn't finish them, so we had our server box up the remains for lunch the next day. But we did make sure to save room for dessert. We already knew we wanted the Pizookie, which is their famous warm cookie with ice-cream dessert. They had choices of chocolate chunk, white chocolate macadamia nut, peanut butter, or oatmeal raisin walnut. After much debate, the three of us chose to share the white chocolate macadamia nut.

About 10 minutes later, our Pizookie arrived. It's served in the aluminum miniature deep-dish pizza pan it's baked in. It was topped with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was totally delicious and decadent, yet simple.

Our total bill, including tax and tip, was $72. It's one of our favorite restaurants!