I just spent the most beautiful afternoon at the Century City Mall. I’m not even kidding. I do live in LA, so it’s kind of about time I was hanging out, browsing Zara, and picking up lunch at the food court. Of course the malls of today are not the malls of my youth, so thank god I wasn’t tempted by a Corn-Dog-on-a-Stick. (Can I get a hey-hey for the cheese-on-a-stick? RAD.) Instead, I wandered into BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, where they’ve been tuned into the gluten-free thing for as long as I’ve been on the gf wagon train.

This is the first time I’ve actually spent some time hanging out there, and ordering a variety of gluten-free options. I was pretending I was a real food critic, and thusly, ordered more than one lady hanging out at the mall on a Saturday afternoon would actually consume. It was awesome, yet I will recommend this: Do not order your dessert alongside your entree in hopes of a good photo, because you will eat your dessert, and forget that you even had an entree. Especially if that entree includes broccoli.

So here’s what went down.

I had the best cider I’ve ever had — a berry burst cider. It was incredibly refreshing after a mall walk. I’m so totally for that. There were a number of lunchtime options including gluten-free pizza, but I’d just wandered by the Potato Barn or whatnot, and was like, “I need potatoes!!!!” So I had a chicken, cheese, and broccoli baked potato and this really insane gluten-free chocolate chip pizookie, which looks like this-

Guys, I don’t even know what a pizookie is, but what it tastes like is a chocolate chip cookie baked in butter in a pan, topped with ice cream. Yeah, that’s a reason to abandon your giant stuffed potato. Pizookie!!!

Sure there are tons of mall options, and most of them aren’t of the sit-down restaurant variety, but I’d forgo the Jamba Juice and take a load off the next time you’re mall walking and enjoy cider and a pizookie. Just don’t go shopping after, ‘cuz you’ll be so happy that you’ll find yourself at home with an Ed Hardy t-shirt impulse buy, or worse.