Stacked: Food Well Built

We were at the newly renovated Del Amo Mall in Torrance the other day. We entered through the new Nordstroms. We were in awe as the mall was truly beautiful and spacious. We were there on a weekday at 4 p.m.  We did a quick tour to see what stores were open; a lot of the spaces had signs: "opening soon".  Lee and I were starving so we went to the directory to find a restaurant. We started having heart palpitations when we saw the restaurant listed, Din Tai Fung. We made a dash to the 2nd floor to see a big space marked Din Tai Fung with a sign: Opening September 2016! What a let down!

We then strolled along the mall and ended up at a restaurant called Stacked: Food Well Built. As we walked in, I asked the man how long they have been open and it turns out, they have been there for several years. They have locations at Cerritos,Thousand Oaks and San Diego. We were seated at a corner booth. The had tablets on each table. The man who seated us explained to us how to use the tablet. Of course if you're below a "certain age", no explanations would be necessary. It looked like a lot of fun. You pick something you like and you could add whatever you desire to your item. So essentially, you build it up.

Lee and I ordered a diet coke but shortly after I ordered my coke, I realized that it was still Happy Hour, so I could have gotten a Margarita for $5.00. When our server came with the coke, I asked her if it was too late to order one and she was nice enough to take the coke back and bring me a margarita. From the tablet, we ordered the Lobster Mac N' Cheese. We did not add anything to it. It was quite delicious. It had chunks of juicy (not rubbery) lobster with a hint of garlic and basil. Man cannot live on Mac N' Cheese alone so we split a Stack N' Bleu which was an Angus beef on a brioche bun with roasted shallot mayo topped with bleu cheese, Applewood smoked bacon and crispy onion strings drizzled with balsamic glaze.  The burger was a winner! We both liked the brioche bun. They cooked it to our liking which was medium. It was not rare nor was it well done, it was perfect.

I think we will be returning to this restaurant soon to experiment and play with their tablet. It was nice to be able to put your order in and be able to "check out" when you were ready to pay the bill.
Stacked is at 3525 W. Carson St. at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance, across P.F. Chang's.