Crazy Bowls and Wraps (CBW) – San Diego, CA

Crazy Bowls and Wraps (CBW for short) is technically a chain restaurant with the majority of their restaurants residing in Missouri and one location in San Diego. The idea behind the restaurant is that you can get healthy food fast and forgo the fast food options for a smarter, better-for-you meal. You get to also customize things as you please, picking from one of the three main feasts: a wrap, a bowl, or a salad (I guess “Crazy Bowls, Wraps and Salads” would have been too long of a name). From there you can choose a kind of rice or noodle and what kind of protein you want (you can easily go vegetarian with tofu as your choice of protein). It can get a little complicated and you can stare at the menu for awhile trying to figure out what you want, or you can take the easy way like I did and get a “Superbowl”.

This is a Teriyaki Chicken Bowl with dark meat, steamed veggies, and brown rice ($6.50). It is a lot of food. The nice thing about it is the variety of steamed veggies that you get with the bowl. It’s not just “cabbage and carrots” like it seems to be at other places, but a healthy mix of cabbage, carrots (ha!), red peppers, zucchini, red cabbage, edamame, and other tidbits. The veggies tasted fresh. The sauce was sweet and covered the bowl of food well (I hate when there’s not a lot of sauce on these bowls). My only complaint is that I wished there was more chicken. It was definitely more veggies and rice than meat in this dish. You can double your meat for an extra $2 though. I had this for dinner one night and it lasted me 2 meals – I was able to take the leftovers home and enjoy it again for lunch at work the next day.

Another item I tried was their Lobster Rangoon ($2.50). It’s like Crab Rangoon… but you know, with lobster instead. I didn’t actually really care for these too much. The lobster was a bit more prevalent that I would have liked it to be. It was crispy and had cream cheese, but it had more a fishy taste than anything else which didn’t make me too happy.

Their other offerings include such things as noodle bowls (such as Italian basil-pesto noodle or a Thai noodle bowl), to wraps (the grilled spicy buffalo wrap, Thai wrap, and Mediterranean wrap all sounded pretty delicious) or bowls (fajita bowls and hot & spicy bowls top the list). There are a lot of options here and the lower fat items have their calories and fat content listed (not sure why the don’t list it for every option). They have food from lots of different regions so this can really be a place that caters to a variety of tastes with lots of choices, including vegetarians (there’s a place on the menu listing all of the vegetarian options as well).  They also have smoothies and kid’s meals for the discerning little ones with kid friendly options such as mac n cheese, chicken strips, and grilled chicken bowls.

If you’re looking for a healthier alternative to fast food and want to pick just want you want, then Crazy Bowls and Wraps might need to be a new stop for you to visit for lunch or dinner.

Crazy Bowls and Wraps
5665 Mission Center (Ralph’s Center in Mission Valley)
San Diego, CA
(619) 291-WRAP (9727)