[REVIEW] Pizza & Chicken Love Letter (Irvine)

Pizza & Chicken Love Letter (Irvine Branch)

Diamond Jamboree Plaza (Located Inside H-Mart)
2600 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92606
Phone: (949) 852-2900

Hours: 
Monday - Thursday: 11 am - 10 pm
Friday - Sunday: 11am - 11 pm

Quick Tips
- Sweet Potato (Gold) + Bulgogi Pizza
- KFC (Korean Fried Chicken)
- Late night
- Medium budget

Menu

 

Review

(My first restaurant review, yay!)

I've been wanting to try P&CLL for a loooong time due to my obsession with all things Korean and my newly acquired taste for sweet potatoes, so Kennef finally agreed to come with me on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Bulgogi (korean marinated beef) on pizza? Yes please. 

Taste: They have a pretty extensive menu, with family meal deals for $25-$30 that includes pizza, a whole fried chicken, and a 2-liter soft drink of your choice. There are also specials on the meal deals on specific days of the week. First of all, we didn't really understand that the "gold" pizza (an additional $4) was the one with the sweet potato baked into the crust so we didn't get it...fail. We opted for the regular bulgogi potato pizza (which we upgraded to a large for $3), a whole sweet garlic fried chicken, and Sprite (Family Combo #3). 

The pizza was excellent, with excellent umami flavor from the generous amount of bulgogi in every bite, a nice balance of veggies including  onions/corn/green bell peppers, and definitely not dry with the red and white sauces. I did find the actual potatoes on the pizza a little dry, but nothing a little sauce and saliva can't help. I didn't initially know that this pizza contains ham so I spent a lot of time carefully picking it out. Hands got sufficiently messy due to the oil from bulgogi...but YUM. Pizza was served inside a to-go pizza box for easy to-goness. Grr...can't forget the sweet potato crust next time!

I'm no fan of chicken with bones...I dislike wings and drumsticks because it's too much work (lol) so I really wanted the popcorn chicken, but it wasn't part of the meal deal. I was pleasantly surprised with the taste of the sweet garlic chicken that I was able to ignore the bones. Chicken itself is tender (breast parts a bit dry), but the sauce is absolutely bombtastic with a nice crispy skin. Very generous portions. 

A salad of cabbage with thousand island was included but neither of us were big fans and we kind've took one bite only to ignore it for the rest of the meal. 

Water is self serve.

Price: I wanted to pay with debit card due to my constant lack of cash (T____T) but the cashier kindly notified us that we would save 10% if we paid with cash. So Kennef paid and the total cost came out to about $27...quite pricey for pizza and chicken but since it lasted the both of us for two meals, not too bad. 

Getting the pizza by itself comes out to ~$15 or the wings alone are ~$10. For single diners, they had this deal for $7 with a personal sized pizza, chicken (I forgot the size), with a soft drink so I'd totally get that if I had dined on my own. 

Service: The cashier/waiter was super nice and very patient with us as we were deciding what to get. The wait was about 10-15 minutes, so you can actually walk around H Mart to get hungrier. 

Location/Ambiance: P&CLL is located inside the food court of H Mart, located inside the Diamond Jamboree Plaza. Parking wasn't too bad; we were able to find a spot relatively quickly. We went in the afternoon so the food court was neither too crowded nor noisy. 

Returnability: Definitely...to try the sweet potato Gold Pizza! Chicken is yumsters too, def one with bones that I can tolerate.

More Tips:
-They don't do substitutions. Originally we wanted a different pizza with the sausage, ham, and pepperoni substituted with bulgogi or chicken. The cashier apologetically told us that they couldn't do it. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 slices of yum yum bulgogi pizza without sweet potatoes :(

Check out my friend Michael's review of P&CLL in Rowland Heights here!

3/7/2013 Update

 I came back here super excited for some awesome food again and was disappointed :( We chose a different type of pizza and we got the bulgogi combo (not beef + potato) while I asked for no ham, there was lots and lots of bacon which made the eating experience not-so-fun. We did try the sweet potato crush (+$4) and I was absolutely crushed. I thought the crust would be made of sweet potato but it's actually just a crust stuffed with sweet potato puree. I actually didn't taste the sweet potato-ness until the pizza was cold so was overall very disappointing for me. 

Boo, docked to 3 out of 5 Korean fried chicken drumsticks :(