Fifi Says Goodbye to Koto, Other Unique Restaurants

In case you’ve haven’t heard, a trio of restaurants recently closed.

In San Clemente, West of the Five is gone. It was a smallish, cute place tucked in an inarticulate shopping center where the chef and owner served cleverly conceived modern cuisine that gave us interesting takes on fresh fish, duck and such.

West of the Five lasted almost eight years and filled that hands-on, single location niche that’s quickly disappearing in the chain gang wars.

I hate having lost the 60-year-old Walnut Grove in San Juan Capistrano this month. It was a coffee shop that still harked back decades in looks. But we loved going there for the real Southern-style fried chicken (which has not been on the menu for the past few years but they’d always make it for you if you were willing to wait an extra half hour or so for your entree).

For many of us, it was our comfort food fix several times a year. It was one of those places where freshly baked pies and cakes were under their see-through plastic cloches on the counter, where the homemade cinnamon rolls were fluffy as clouds and big enough to feed four, where the food, casual and coffee shoppish though it was, had enough quality (the freshest of greens for salads, real mashed potatoes) to make us remember our friendly encounters there. And the cup of coffee always was on a higher road than diner coffee has a right to be.

And there’s the shuttering of Koto in Newport Beach. I’m not sure, but perhaps this restaurant offered so much authenticity in Japanese cuisine (excellent ways with fish, Asian-inspired casseroles and even sushi bar specialties conceived as they only are in Japan) that the larger dining public never quite got it.

It’s a great loss in our culinary cultural wars because the quality was so high, the presentations so impressive that we took many out-of-towners there over the years and were constantly rewarded with great thanks for giving our visitors such an interesting and delicious experience.

Last week, a few of us were looking back on Orange County dining through the decades and nostalgia was running rampant. Things cannot remain the same, and yet we will always miss certain restaurants that engendered nice memories along the way.

Fifi Fav

By now, you probably know I think Panera Bakery-Cafes,Ted and Sheri Hoover have opened three of them so far in OC and are moving forward with more locations,are onto something most worthwhile.

We have lots of friends who agree. And the Wall Street Journal described Panera as the “hottest concept in food.”

Hefty praise.

It’s so nice to walk in early in the day for breakfast. The just out-of-the-oven muffins, pastries and bagels always are luscious and that cup or two of freshly brewed coffee, tea or fruit juice gives our morning another level of brightness too.

As of this week, starting on Wednesday, there even are more reasons to start your day at Panera, those being two new breakfast souffl & #233;s.

Doctors recommend a power breakfast without heaviness on the tummy. And here you have it in light and flaky croissant dough serving as the base for two souffl & #233; fillings. One is the spinach and artichoke souffl & #233;. This is comprised of a round encasement of the airy dough forming a small type “bowl” in which a mixture of eggs, milk, spinach, parmesan, romano and asiago cheeses, artichoke hearts, red peppers and onions is baked into a delicately domed, steaming hot breakfast.

The other filling consists of eggs, milk, spinach, cheddar cheese, bacon and onions, topped with a rasher of bacon. The new breakfast souffl & #233;s will be available from opening (6 a.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday) until 10:30 a.m. They cost $3.50.

I occasionally make an egg souffl & #233; dish for us at home. But I’m in the process of cleaning time-consuming cobwebs out of my life anyway. So I’ve now allowed myself one more way to save some time and effort. I can’t even gather enough ingredients together at one time to make my egg souffl & #233;s this interesting, so we’re going to eat them at Panera from now on.

Time saved shopping, cooking and cleaning up will allow us more than enough time to drive to our nearest Panera to souffl & #233; it early in the mornings.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also jog your memory about all those healthy and wildly delicious soups and salads and not-very-high-in-carbs sandwiches made with their multigrain fresh breads for lunch and dinner, plus several house entr & #233;e specialties. Really good stuff that’s an eye-opener from the start.

There are many healthy kinds of bread to take home too and some real comfort food sweets. And, it will make you wonder why you are hassling making dressings for your salads at home once you purchase the Panera bottled aged balsamic vinaigrette dressing or the Greek dressing. I am currently intent on tasting bread dipping sauces wherever I go and Panera bottles two of their signature dips that carry good essences across the palate too. You can even take home some of the coffee beans custom selected from Costa Rican plantations that afford the just right cup of coffee at the restaurants.

There are many reasons to visit Panera, but those new “gotcha” breakfast souffl & #233;s are strutting their stuff starting this week, so that’s my focus.

Panera Bakery-Caf & #233;s: Crossroads Center, Culver and Barranca Parkway, Irvine, (949) 786-8800; The Village at Orange, 2214 N. Tustin, Orange, (714) 685-0505; The Bluffs Shopping Center, 1348 Bison (at MacArthur), Newport Beach, (949) 721-8800. All are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Tutto Mare Happy Hour

Are you a happy hour person?

If so, Tutto Mare in Newport Beach has a new bar menu and happy hour drink specials. Time frame is 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The menu items represent various regions of Italy. Nice way to nibble when you can do it for $4.95 per plate, with well drinks and house wines priced at $4.50, domestic beers at $3. Note: this is a very convivial and inviting bar setting in which I always feel comfortable.

Here are some of the bar menu dishes:

Lombardy is characterized in the lobster ravioli in a creamy sauce, a dish I know well from this restaurant. Rich and thoroughly delicious.

There’s Tuscan bruschetta with cannellini beans and shrimp, Venetian crab cakes in saffron sauce, lamb chops with wasabi whipped potatoes from Sardinia, pizzetta with cheese, tomato and clams from the Campania region.

We’re not done yet.

The new bar menu also has saut & #233;ed calamari in spicy sauce representing Sicily (another dish I know and love), grilled polenta with mushrooms and goat cheese from Piemonte (yet another tasty offering) and Emilia Romagna beef carpaccio with mustard and grana cheese.

At their bargain price, it’s a great way to taste your way through a few dishes and regions of Italy itself. Of course, if you happen to stay on for dinner, you will find lots of Tuscan specialties on the menu. They do an outstanding job with fresh fish and risotto dishes.

Tutto Mare is in Fashion Island, 545 Newport Center Drive, (949) 759-5508.