A different BJ's Restaurant Brewhouse

You are probably familiar with the restaurant chain called BJ's Brewhouse which has many locations with almost all of them with the same cookie-cutter appearance and menu featuring various specialty micro brew beers. I've been in a few of the BJ's Restaurants around Southern Cal but last night for New Year's Eve we went to a different kind of BJ's.

This BJ's has the regular menu and the regular variety of beers but except for the sign outside you wouldn't know you were in BJ's because this restaurant was where a high priced French restaurant inside the Century City Mall in West LA, near Beverly Hills, used to be.

We happened to choose this place for an early dinner because we were seeing a movie for NYE.

What really makes this place different is the high class, modern and elegant decor. There is an outside fireside dining area, a dining patio, plus a very spacious modern dining area with a spectacular bar that you would find in the finest clubs and restaurants. Plenty of big screen TVs and overhead TVs in the restaurant as well.

Our dinners were excellent. The appetizer was some kind of grilled vegetable finger good -- artichoke or something. I wanted to get the stuffed mushrooms or avocado rolls but the wife doesn't eat onions that come with them.

I had the rib eye steak and it was charcoal grilled just as I like it. The wife had a grilled pork chop, and one of their beers... which turned into a second beer. I stuck with diet coke because I don't drink but it was a large glass and the waiter offered refills along with other prompt attention.

What we especially liked was that there were lots of booths and we prefer booth seating over table seating. Booths are just more private, more comfortable. And except for the patio dining, it looked to us that most of the seating at this Century City BJ's was mostly booth seating.

Dessert? of course I had the triple chocolate dessert which was two scoops of rich chocolate ice cream, one a large hot chocolate cookie/cake with chocolate fudge and to add calories some chocolate candy... it was a Ghirardelli chocolate square.

Next time, I could probably do without the dessert, but it was absolutely the best.

Price was moderate: total check with tax was about $56 plus tip. It's still a family restaurant but this one in Century City certainly has an upscale look.