I don’t often report on holiday festivities at restaurants because there are so many of them. The exception is usually something built around a very major holiday, or things like the annual November Beaujolais Nouveau wine release that brings an important part of European wine enjoyment to the U.S.
However, the Melting Pot restaurants in Brea, Irvine and San Clemente are offering a Halloween experience and fondue fright night that seems like a lot of fun.
The frightful night,without frightful prices, happens on Oct. 29 starting at 5 p.m. Halloween decor and servers dressed in their best Halloween attire set the stage.
Everyone might be a bit anxious as they eat their evening meal and await the hour of 8 p.m. That’s when a ghoulish costume advisory board will select two best costume winners.
The first-place winner will receive a certificate for dinner for four (worth $200), while a second-place winner will receive a certificate for a chocolate fondue party for eight guests (worth $100). Two winners will be selected at each of the Melting Pot’s three locations.
The Melting Pot menu will include an array of flavorful cheeses as well as a variety of savory seasoned bouillon broths for dipping a wide array of entrees such as fresh beef, lobster, shrimp, pork, poultry, tofu and seasonal vegetables.
Pricing is anything but scary. Children ages 2 to 11 years old eat free with the purchase of a regular priced entree. Have some teen wolves in the family? A special four-course teen plate is available for $15.
Melting Pot restaurants are an interactive dining experience. They have proven to be popular for large groups celebrating some special occasion.
Fondue cooking had been ultra cool a few decades ago and then slipped off the culinary landscape. But it’s made a trendy comeback.
Once again, foodies are enjoying the dip and dine theory with savory morsels to be eaten for the main part of the meal and sweets and fruits dipped in chocolate for the dessert course.
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Melting Pot: “dip and dine” cuisine, costume contest next week |
Melting Pot in Irvine is at 2646 Dupont Drive, (949) 955-3242.
The San Clemente restaurant is at 647 Camino de los Mares, (949) 661-1966.
Melting Pot in Brea is at 375 W. Birch St., (714) 671-6000. Reservations are suggested and should certainly be made for the Halloween fright night.
Taco Rosa
In the early 1980s, I met Rene Fuentes. He was working with Larry Cano in the heyday of Cano’s restaurant on the waterfront in Newport Beach, when Larry was making his El Torito chain a common household name.
Not long after I met Rene, brothers Ivan and Marco Calderon, who were also working in the Cano mini-empire, came to my attention.
I was a fledgling restaurant writer trying to gobble up any and all information about dining in this county, and it seemed to me that this trio was pretty forward thinking about getting real Mexican food with high integrity.
Take their Taco Mesa restaurant for example. They opened the wildly painted former taco hut on 19th Street in Costa Mesa to serve Mexican cuisine the way it was eaten in their homeland.
All this homespun philosophy was glued together more solidly in my mind when I was introduced to a former fast food taco place turned into a national culinary find in Santa Barbara. We were visiting that area several years ago and our first meal on that trip was at La Super Rica, one of Julia Child’s favorite off-beat places that had been written up in major papers, including the New York Times and food magazines.
As we sat on the plastic chairs in the ultra simple patio of a taco stand that looked like thousands of others,albeit with not only locals but a limo crowd of celebs who had driven from L.A. just to eat at La Super Rica,we found the same type of unexpected, truly delicious and ultimately healthy food that we had been eating at our own Taco Mesa. It immediately cemented the notion that we had a treasure of our own.
We still don’t go near Santa Barbara without eating at La Super Rica and we hang around the Taco Mesas here a lot. Taco Mesa has grown to four locations in OC and even though modernized versions of old favorites have crept in, we have learned that plump masa patties layered with lobster, tacos filled with crab, carnitas with Yucatan pibil sauce and even unique Mexican breakfast specialties are delights without pretense.
Rene took some time to help out at a resort in Mexico during the 1990s. With the Taco Mesas running smoothly, the Calderons embarked four years ago on the full-service, sit-down Taco Rosa, with Rene stepping in as a partner and several Calderon family members engaged in keeping both restaurants on a consistent platform.
The first Taco Rosa is in the low key shopping center at the corner of Ford Road and San Miguel in Newport Beach.
Just a few months ago, the second Taco Rosa emerged on the Irvine side of The Market Place. I personally like the energy of The Market Place with the restaurant being part of that, so we are inclined to pop in at that location.
The food is described as a contemporary fusion of Mexican, southwestern and continental culinary influences with roots based in pre-Columbian cooking. That means Taco Rosa is happy to rely on tradition while being comfortably modern.
They are ambitious, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. For those who are serious about beginning the day with a good meal, the machaca beef (shredded and slightly dried) with eggs is the Latin equivalent of beef hash, but more interesting.
There are burritos, pancakes and various other egg specialties, all with a Mexican flare.
Two or three aguas frescas (water flavored with fresh fruit) are on the menu and worthy of your consideration. Since they are so refreshing, I always order one of them first and enjoy the cool sips while deciding on my meal.
The lunch and dinner menus feature many identical items. Two appetizers to consider are the zippy jalape & #324;o peppers stuffed with shrimp and crisped on the outside and the tamalitos (small scoops of corn masa) that come four to the order,two filled with chicken and a fine mole sauce and two with lobster.
Market price for lobster determines what you’ll pay, but they are certainly fine beginnings.
Entrees midday or evening include a good selection of tacos. Fillings of blackened calamari steak, carnitas pork, lump crab meat, salmon with papaya relish and even Portobello mushrooms take us down an appealing path.
A variety of tostadas also beckons with the flor de calabaza holding the most interest for me. It’s a seasonal item comprising the traditional tostada base topped with flavorful zucchini blossoms. Shrimp, lobster, chicken and fish are other tostada ingredients.
Burritos are plump and stuffed with several combinations of meats or seafood and vegetables.
Things like enchiladas and chile rellenos benefit from the use of good ingredients and are plated in an attractive manner.
There are three desserts on the lunch and dinner menus that have my name on them.
Churros coloniales are fritter type pastries dusted with cinnamon and piloncillo (dark brown sugar) and sauced with chocolate. Flan de queso is a baked cream cheese flan over a framboise vanilla sauce that’s a nice segue from the classic custard version.
And those sopapillas traditional are terrific. They are the doughnuts of the Latin world and come drizzled with both agave nectar and chocolate sauce. Vanilla bean ice cream on the plate adds a few more calories. There are also chocolate covered strawberries.
The latest dining addition at Taco Rosa at The Market Place is the Sangria Sunday brunch that is a four-course meal based on their signature cuisine (the Newport Beach restaurant already has a buffet style brunch).
A basket of Mexican breads and pastries and a goblet of Spanish wine sangria with freshly sliced fruits and hand-squeezed juices is the first temptation. The next course is a choice of the rich lobster bisque or the pozole, the classic stew whose base ingredient is hominy. The pozole is served with a different protein each week with a rotation of seafood, chicken, duck and pork.
Then, it’s time for serious entree choices. I leave it to you to choose huevos rancheros or carne asada with eggs. Or the alcachofa Mexicana that is a steamed artichoke and two poached eggs topped with tangy chipotle-hollandaise sauce. The crepas de pollo Veronica is a duo of tender crepes filled with chicken and topped with a Veronique sauce given a Mexican twist. Costillitas de cordero are tender-roasted rib chops of lamb with a cilantro-pesto sauce. The omelet de mariscos features shrimp and crab beneath a blanket of fluffy eggs. Hard choices because there’s a lot of taste temptation in that lineup.
The last course of the Sangria Sunday Brunch is a chubby, chocolate-covered strawberry dipped in a creamy cajeta-Kahlua mousse. Linger and enjoy the meal and the music from the strolling mariachi band and then reflect on the flavorful and unique food that’s getting raves for Taco Rosa.
AT A GLANCE – Taco Rosa
Address: 13792 Jamboree Road
Irvine
Phone: (714) 505-6080
2632 San Miguel Road
Newport Beach
Phone: (949) 720-0980
Hours: Breakfast: 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. (Irvine only); lunch: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner: from 3 p.m.; Sunday brunch: 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Prices: Breakfast entrees: $5 to $9; lunch entrees: $7 to $23, lobster at market price; dinner entrees: $9 to $25, lobster at market price; Sunday Sangria brunch, Irvine: $18 for adults, $5 for kids under 12; Sunday buffet brunch, Newport Beach: $15 for adults, $7 for kids under 11
