Famous Pizza: BJ's of Los Angeles Edition

"So let me get this straight...you guys all came from Chicago to get LA deep dish pizza?

We're pretty fortunate to have an adjacent team from the Chicago office working just 10 miles from us in California. Occasionally we get together for cross-team dinners. Monday was such an event. We chose BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse, known for their deep dish pizza.

"Really? You got that? It's a brewhouse for crying out loud!"

Monday also saw the addition of another member to our team. Five weeks in and we welcomed our first person in the QA role, Kurman. It wasn't long until a drinking competition broke out between he and I.

In addition to the locally-famous pizza, BJ's is also known for its micro-brewed beer. My interest was piqued by a sold-out micro-brew root beer initially, but I ended up following Kurman's lead with a series of lemonades. Strawberry Lemonades, of course.

After just four, I was declared the winner.

LA Lesson #1 Never hesitate on freshly-squeezed strawberry lemonade.

Bangalore's Junk Food

The majority of what I'm eating here has been paid for by the company. For the most part, we're talking about quite delicious food that is very fresh. This post is instead about the junk food. If Coke and Pepsi are a good barometer, and in my opinion they absolutely are, preservatives don't seem to exist here.

The prices are ridiculously cheap on their own. Couple that with the exchange rate I got upon arrival was $1 = Rs. 46.4, and these prices are shockingly low. Junk food felt like a good vehicle for comparison to the American market.

12 Tiger Gluclose Biscuits | (Rs. 4 = $0.0862)

Kinley 1L Bottled Water by Coca-Cola | (Rs. 15 = $0.323)

Thums Up 1L Cola by Coca-Cola | (Rs. 22 = $0.474)

Lay's "American Style" Cream & Onion Chips | (Rs. 20 = $0.431)

Note these prices hold for similar products, so a 1L Coke, Pepsi, or Sprite all cost about $0.47 in every place I've been. They taste a bit different too, actually using real sugar. In the first week, I've actually spent less than $3