BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, Folsom, CA
As a rule I try to avoid big restaurant chains, which to me always feel impersonal and corporate, overseen by unseen pencil-pushers living thousands of miles away. The logo and decor and menu seem to have been focus-grouped to within an inch of their lives. If you’ve been to an Applebees or Olive Garden, you know what I mean.
I’ve generally placed BJ’s Brewhouse into this same category. They have 217 restaurants across 30 states. Surely to satisfy customers in that many regions, you have to sand off any interesting or unusual aspects to your business model. But here it is, the 22nd day of October, and I’m getting desperate to find nine more pretzels. So off to BJ’s I went.
I ordered their “Big Twist Pretzel with Beer Dip.” See what I mean? Even the pretzel’s name screams recent-graduate-with-a-bachelors-in-marketing-from-Ohio-State.
When the pretzel showed up, it looked perfect…maybe too perfect.
Look at that superb shape–impeccably symmetrical, golden brown, with a lovely sheen and gracefully knotted in the middle. There’s not the slightest surface crack or width irregularity or other evidence that this wasn’t extruded by a soulless machine. It was simply too perfect.
But I had a job to do, so I took a bite. It was piping hot, slightly salty, and pleasantly chewy. It had evidently been brushed with butter, which complemented the salt nicely, and through it all came a genuine, comforting pretzel taste. I tried another bite. This was a damn good pretzel.
I then dipped a piece in the beer cheese, which, I learned, is house-made. It tasted delicious and was definitely of high quality, though I could detect no beer flavor. (The server said they make it with their Brewhouse Blonde ale, which is a German Kölsch-style pale ale. I’m guessing the beer is perhaps too light to stand up to the cheddar, which was prominent.)
The server also told me that they source their pretzels from US Foods®. Before I started this project I would have frowned on that revelation. But as we’ve learned after three weeks of pretzel reviews, almost no one makes their pretzels in-house. So I’m not going to hold that against them.
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this pretzel. I was prepared to lambaste it as low-quality schlock from a budget-constrained recipe imposed by the corporate office in Huntington Beach. But this was seriously one of the best pretzel experiences I’ve had this month. It’s definitely worth 4.5 stars. The only minor flaws holding back a full five stars are the androgenous, characterless appearance, and lack of beer taste in the beer cheese. Fix that, and you’ve got the coveted Apotheosis Pretzel.
PRETZEL TRIVIA
OK, all you baseball fans: Who’s this?
I’ll give you a hint: He played the 1935 and 1936 seasons for the Phillies. He also had an earned-run average of 6.36, which I’m told ain’t that great.
His name at birth was John Pezzullo. But his odd, twisting pitching windup earned him the nickname “Pretzel” Pezzullo. According to Philly Baseball News, “He began the motion with a high leg kick, then dropped down to a sidearm release — a contorted sequence that left hitters thoroughly confused.”
After his two unremarkable seasons with the Phillies, “Pretzel” Pezzullo spent a few years paying in the minor leagues. He retired from professional baseball in 1941, after which he “designed aircraft missile models,” whatever that means.
We’re getting closer to five stars. Yay! Halloween is coming. Let’s hope it works its magic on pretzels and beer cheese.
And let’s hope that Pretzel Pezzullo’s “missile models” weren’t as twisted as his pitch.
LikeLike