MEALS, TOO:
Hotel Restaurants Offer Superb Food in Elegant Settings
Exectutive Dining
By Fifi Chao
It’s been a long time since I made a grand round of the major hotel restaurants in Orange County.
Lately, I’ve been encouraging everyone who calls me for dining suggestions to go to a hotel restaurant. We have so many superb food opportunities in such gracious surroundings; it makes the dining experience all the more special.
Just taking into account the amount of foie gras being served in hotel restaurants,almost every one of them has it on the menu,and the exciting preparations of this delicacy, tells me that we are onto something big here.
Hotel dining has reached new culinary heights in the last few years. While some of these hotel restaurants do serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, many only serve dinner and I have focused on that.
You will no doubt notice that we still can’t decide whether to spell steakhouse as one word or two. But it doesn’t matter too much as long as the food is great. It’s like the blurry line in Italian dining; we think we’re eating Tuscan food somewhere and then a Sicilian dish sneaks in. It often doesn’t even register in our minds because we’re totally absorbed in finding the delicious flavors in the food, not their provenance. In fact, I’m finding that the countries skirting the Mediterranean Sea also are influencing most of our hotel menus, and those of freestanding restaurants, too. The moral to today’s story is: Some of your finest meals will be found in these hotel dining rooms, so start making your reservations.
Accents Dining Room
& Wine Cellar
Sutton Place Hotel
4500 MacArthur Blvd.
Newport Beach
(949) 476-2001
When this hotel opened years ago as the Le Meridien (of French parentage), its sophisticated bearing and the stellar main dining room were the talk of the county.
The love affair continued on and on. I ate there often. However, along the way, the hotel was sold, thankfully to an owner with a passion for food and wine that surpassed even the French influence we’d known before. Then, one day, under the Sutton Place label, the main dining room was closed and, while we still had fine dining, all meals were served in one restaurant with still-water views at the end of the galleried loggia.
But appreciation for the beautiful Accents Dining Room & Wine Cellar clung to the psyche of the new owner and his staff so tightly that it was reopened two years ago and we are again enthralled.
Plush is the word here. The best fabrics, fine artwork, gracefully mirrored walls, sparkling crystal, starched linens. Colors are serene and conducive to savoring the flavors of fine food and wine. Service is most professional.
The food is partly responsible for the great number of European travelers who stay at this hotel. An appetizer of goat cheese crusted in pine nuts sits on a tangle of dandelion greens, enhanced all the more with a lovely orange-pepper vinaigrette.
The chef has learned the charms of Szechwan peppercorns (milder and a bit like allspice in flavor) and uses them with sak & #233; as a marinade for shrimp that are combined with exotic mushrooms and pasta. A tender chunk of sea bass is clothed in scales made of delicate potato slices, baked and splashed with caviar sauce. Mascarpone cheese and freshly snipped basil mingle with saut & #233;ed rabbit and some crisply toasted capellini. Rack of lamb harmonizes with lavender jus.
I have always loved the pure French lemon tart for dessert, but stylishly stacked confections, just barely sweet, also make for memorable endings.
As for wines to enhance it all: the cellar holds one of Southern California’s most prestigious collections, more than $5 million worth. There are, naturally, many wines by the glass in all price ranges.
Aqua
St. Regis Hotel
One Monarch Beach Resort
Dana Point
(949) 234-3325
Getting this restaurant last year was a massive coup for Orange County.
There were already famous Aqua restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas, all the culinary children of investor Charles Condy and super chef Michael Mina. We were honored to get as our chef-in-residence, Chris L’Hommedieu, a kitchen partner of chef Mina whose vision of food gained him much acclaim before he came here. We’d never before seen a whole foie gras, oozing the richness of a controlled searing, brought to the table to be sliced among six to 10 friends. Add a bottle of Sauternes and it was hard to imagine culinary excellence beyond; but as it did then, it just keeps coming. This restaurant taught us to drink red wine with seafood cooked in it. It taught us why San Francisco is such a food town.
The dining room is serene and done in muted tones to make relaxation paramount. The decorator surmised that the distinguished food does not deserve chaotic and distracting energy. It’s a very low-key style made up of quality fabrics and wood, perfect table settings, stately pillars topped by massive bouquets of flowers and seamless service that keeps things gliding smoothly throughout the evening.
They’ve been serving the remarkable tartare of Ahi tuna from the beginning. A perfect mound of finely diced tuna is topped with a quail egg yolk.
At strategic points around the plate are little piles of pine nuts, tiny cubes of Bosc pear and droplets of Scotch Bonnet sesame oil. The server places the yolk on the pears, scoops in the pine nuts and oil and mixes it all with the tuna. Every mouthful is awesome.
The caviar parfait is equally impressive, with each of five layers revealing a different texture. It has a base of potato galette topped with a layer of herbed cream, then silky smoked salmon, a layer of cr & #269;me fra & #238;che, and finally a topping of osetra caviar.
For entr & #233;es, I’m taken by the miso-glazed sea bass, roasted to browned perfection and with a fine mushroom consomm & #233; on the side. Dorade has petite black mussels and ratatouille offering contrast. There’s also a swell tenderloin of beef with braised escarole.
Every course is a true dining experience, from amuse-gueule to bittersweet chocolate cake with blackberry coulis or cardamom pot de cr & #269;me. One of the best ways to enjoy Aqua is to have a prix-fix dinner with matching wines for each course.
Ciao Mein
Hyatt Regency Hotel
17900 Jamboree Road
Irvine
(949) 975-1234
Ciao Mein had to convince OC that having a menu featuring both Italianesque and Chinese leanings was more about providing variety than shocking with innovation. After many years, we don’t give it a thought anymore.
We know that it works because food that belongs in a wok has its share of kitchen space and the rest of the menu comes from the saut & #233; and sauce pans, just as good Italian food should.
The menu is more enhanced now on the Oriental side. Added to the menu are a few Thai dishes and a hint of Japanese has crept in.
I must caution that the hotel is undergoing some renovation for the next few weeks and construction walls detract the eye before you enter the restaurant. But get beyond Ciao Mein’s doors and you are safely ensconced in a clean-lined room with gracious counterpoints of light-colored wood, good art, comfortable banquette seating (and some freestanding tables). I always have been so comfortable in this pretty but totally unpretentious dining room.
My meals often begin with the Mein Platter: Thai-style spring rolls, some potstickers, a mound of fried calamari, nice wedges of melon wrapped with prosciutto, a few fat grilled prawns and some slices of tomato and fresh mozzarella cheese. This really needs to be shared with four people to do it justice. The tempura shrimp (in a crisp coat of rice flour batter) is amusing sitting atop its bed of Asian slaw inside a martini glass.
Colorado lamb chops are grilled and gain spirit from the white truffles and veal jus. Chinese entr & #233;es like Mongolian beef (sirloin with hoisin flavor), chicken lo mein, and shrimp kung pao do just fine with my tastebuds. I haven’t had the seared Alaskan halibut on lemon grass-flavored buckwheat soba noodles, but it sounds very good.
On the very Italian side, I’m enticed by the oak-smoked scallops, prawns and mussels with fettuccine and roasted tomatoes. Ravioli stuffed with roasted eggplant is an intrigue when the flavors of the saut & #233;ed wild mushrooms, Ni & #231;oise olives and toasted pinenuts kick in. There’s plenty of good food on this menu and preparations that take it out of the ordinary.
The Dining Room
Ritz-Carlton Hotel
One Ritz-Carlton Drive
Dana Point
(949) 240-2000
When this hotel first opened on its clifftop perch several years ago, it seemed OC’s validation as a destination of importance was sealed.
It was the formal tophat of hotels. Surely the rest of the world looked upon it as we did, because soon international travel magazines and national food magazines dubbed it as one of the most luxurious properties having some of the best food anywhere. It hasn’t wavered. The accolades and public polls in the same publications still hold.
I was just in the hotel again a few days ago to have high tea, the epitome of relaxation.
Of course, I have often used the stately beauty of the hotel as a backdrop for a business meeting. Nothing jars the senses here. Marble and artwork, ocean waves and genteel interiors work together in making this a cosseting world.
The Dining Room is an extension of this good living in every aspect. It is elegant and formal, but never arrogant. Private banquette niches are covered in brocade, soft-light filters from crystal chandeliers. Damask upholsters the walls and a marble fireplace is so at home.
Yvon Goetz, the young Alsatian chef, has brought acclaim to the food. He has access to the finest products and turns them into works of art on a plate.
While I can have caviar service here, I always seem anxious to get right to the heart of Yvon’s personal dishes that never lose site of the star ingredient. For instance, the delicious quail that sits regally on a bed of Belgian endive and baby greens.
He makes an elegant version of velout & #233; sauce that includes English peas, adds dash to the plate with white truffle Mascarpone cheese and then lets sweet Santa Barbara prawns strut their stuff. Foie gras dappled with Gewurztraminer gel & #233;e is quite special. Finesse rules sauces that accompany Dover Sole, a combination seafood plate of salmon and turbot encased in Yukon Gold potato crust, a veal tenderloin with prosciutto and black olive polenta.
I highly respect his multi-course vegetarian prix-fixe menu and the chef’s meal of favorite dishes accompanied by fine wines.
Including the sensibility of a top-notch cheese tray to a parade of elegant desserts and a wine cellar decked with delicious worldwide wines,this is pampering dining all the way.
Granville’s Steak House
Disneyland Hotel
1150 W. Magic Way
Anaheim
(714) 778-6600
When Granville’s was invented in the heyday of the resort, it was talked about more because it was named after Bonita Granville Wrather, the movie actress wife of Jack Wrather, then-owner of the hotel.
After dining there, I found the food to be straightforward but very good. Those were the days when we did not take destination dining in Anaheim seriously. It was just nice to have it there in case we were around for something other than a tiring day of traipsing through the theme park.
Boy, have things changed.
Disneyland is making the county proud when it comes to food and wine. About five years ago it started an all-out dedication to have fine dining in the three resort hotels so it wouldn’t need a theme park to prop them up. Now we’re gladly driving to the resort’s various dining rooms, just as we go to Laguna Beach or Newport to eat.
Good use was made in this room of fine woodworking, quality fabrics and art. Spaces are semi-private via booths and half walls that surround some tables and keep the whole world of dining from intruding on your evening. Dense upholstery makes for comfy seating. Gentle colors soothe.
We have a menu of recognizable items and a few trendy touches. Tender steaks and familiar appetizers join fresh shellfish and fish and a bit of poultry.
Begin with the big mushroom caps stuffed with Dungeness crab. A jumbo prawn cocktail has a Bloody Mary sauce that modernizes the old version of cocktail sauce. Please order the delicious beer-battered fried green beans with lemon mousseline sauce or the lovely Connecticut corn chowder. Caesar salad is classic.
The 14-ounce rib-eye steak is fork tender, my favorite. However, grilled lamb porterhouse also has my name on it. Can’t make up your mind what to eat? Have the mixed grill of filet, lamb chop and duck sausage.
I love the banana-guava ketchup with my double-cut pork chop. Prime rib is nice anytime. Lobster, crab and John Dory stuffed with crabmeat served on a cedar plank have all been tasted during my recent forays. As is the wont of the steakhouse, half a dozen vegetable and potato side dishes beckon.
A good wine list and impressive desserts hold their own.
Hook’s Pointe & Wine Cellar
Disneyland Hotel
1150 W. Magic Way
Anaheim
(714) 778-6600
This restaurant totally delights me when I don’t want to go as upscale as Granville’s or Napa Rose.
It’s the food. It’s the quality. It’s the surprise of that beautiful wine cellar beneath the restaurant that shocks everyone who discovers it. Now that might be a destination place.
This is a nautically themed, gaily colored, happy place where you can’t help but relax and smile, especially when you discover they’re not fooling around with the food. Plenty of favorite homestyle dishes, yes; updated dishes befitting this decade, you bet; the dedication to doing things well is ringing big bells here.
I must admit up front that I never seem to manage a meal here without first having a glass of wine in the wine cellar. It’s an enclave with wood walls centered by a wine bar. Cushy little tables and chairs are gathered around. The most unexpected touch is the glorious array of hand-blown Italian chandeliers and wall sconces. Absolutely beautiful.
One of the nice things about the upstairs menu is that wines by the glass are suggested for each food item.
The menu doesn’t jar my senses, but it sure beckons me to order many things. Bruschetta (the chopped tomatoes, basil, Parmesan and balsamic combo piled on crispy toast) was never better. Great balance of flavors. Buttermilk batter makes the fried calamari better than we expect.
My husband Patrick always orders the wild mushroom soup, a mainstay of the menu for a very long time. The firecracker fettuccine features fresh, hand-cut pasta tossed with spicy Italian sausage, shaved garlic, bell pepper and Parmesan cheese shavings, while a creamy mushroom risotto accompanies a grilled chicken breast. Who needs an Italian restaurant to eat Tuscan style?
A thick Kansas City pork chop sits on braised red cabbage and is dappled with a sweet balsamic glaze. A chunk of sea bass sits in a moat of spicy shrimp broth. Hand-gathered scallops come with refreshing lemon basmati rice and saffron cream sauce.
A nice combo is formed by the flat-iron steak sitting on braised baby onions and sided with grilled tiger prawns in a Cabernet wine sauce. Ahi and salmon join the seafood ranks. Really good food and fun atmosphere all around.
JW’s Steakhouse
Anaheim Marriott Hotel
700 W. Convention Way
Anaheim
(714) 750-8000
The utilitarian look of this hotel disappeared in 2001 with a massive renovation. That project turned the entry into a fountained, gardenesque area that leads to a wall of glass fronting the classy lobby. Great expanses of marble, lush carpeting and a grand piano now greet us.
JW’s always has been the gourmet restaurant of this hotel and it must like the new surroundings.
The restaurant is well known by now for its intimacy, built with privacy in mind. Tables are in niches, library corners and small enclaves or cuddled in front of a fireplace. Polished wood is everywhere and tapestry-like upholstery fits the sedate theme and muted color scheme.
Service is professional and friendly in helping you choose appropriate wines and in offering knowledgeable descriptions of the menu food and nightly specials.
The food is a fairly classic parade of premium steaks, chops and seafood, but they are not averse to creative touches with all-American food.
Some appetizers are like old friends. There are sufficiently lumpy Maryland-style crabcakes, a jumbo shrimp cocktail and smoked salmon is served with all the traditional garnishes. A lettuce wedge, an old classic that’s back again, comes with gorgonzola dressing. The baked onion soup is nice, but the creamy lobster bisque is rich and wonderful.
Mindful of the quality that has formed the foundation of JW’s, the cantaloupe is sweet and juicy and the prosciutto enveloping it is a veil of salty counterpoint in this traditional appetizer. The more nouveau stuffed mushroom caps may be rich, but I certainly enjoy them. They are heaped with spinach and boursin cheese and then napped in mornay sauce.
Leaning to Italiente, a shrimp entr & #233;e is saut & #233;ed with garlic. Tender Dover sole is given a nice tableside presentation. Salmon is grilled with a perfume of fil & #233; powder drifting over it. Rack of lamb is encased in a crackly herb crust. The filet is topped with roasted garlic cloves, prime rib comes in several cuts and the pork chops with lemon-sage sauce are really good. Veal lovers’ alert: this 14-ounce specimen is your thing.
This restaurant also has a reputation for lovely desserts, so I suspect you should save a little space for that.
Napa Rose
Grand Californian Hotel
1600 S. Disneyland Drive
(Downtown Disney)
Anaheim
(714) 956-6755
The Disneyland Resorts should have gotten a special award last year for doing the best pre-opening publicity on a major restaurant.
The whole county was buzzing with what was about to happen. A restaurant that would have one of the finest wine cellars in Southern California. A famous chef that had been spirited away from the perfectionist Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley. A general manager and sommelier of high repute from OC. They even told us a lot about the special open kitchen that was being built to enhance these very coups.
They didn’t exaggerate. Super chef Andrew Sutton arrived on the scene and set about making a menu that would brand Napa Rose his own. Michael Jordan brought his wine expertise and people skills to the front of the house and has added accolade upon accolade to the happenings.
In this room that feels very friendly and sophisticated at the same time,open floor plan so you can see the impeccably clad cooks and Sutton cooking away, but with starched linens on your table and glistening stemware speaking of elegance,we discover a new style of enticing dining.
Napa Rose has become a destination to everyone who knows how to eat. One of the most impressive statistics: the restaurant has more servers who also are trained sommeliers than any other restaurant west of the Mississippi.
Rock scallops from the Sea of Cort & #233;z are drizzled with a signature sauce of lemon, lobster and vanilla. Great beginning. Ditto for the veal sweetbreads with chanterelle rago & #369;t. Awesome is the pan-seared foie gras with grilled figs.
A four-course prix-fixe dinner is available and that’s a nice way to discover the chef’s personal favorites. But I usually & #341; la carte it. Roasted saddle of Sonoma rabbit snuggles with sage-flavored pappardelle pasta. Patrick is crazy for the ragout of Mediterranean mussels topped with a fine piece of saut & #233;ed halibut and some shreds of leek.
In a bit of retro dining meets modern thoughts, crepes are stuffed with exotic mushrooms, roasted peppers and Swiss Chard (two different and sleek sauces are enhancements). Pork is served prime rib style. Duck breast benefits from Zinfandel-chipotle pepper glaze. Rack of lamb duets with braised lamb shoulder perfumed with Merlot. It’s not far out cuisine, but it’s pretty and it’s very good.
Desserts border on decadent.
Pavia
Anaheim Hilton and Towers Hotel
777 W. Convention Way
Anaheim
(714) 740-4419
I never expected to walk into a hotel restaurant in Anaheim and find a baby grand piano and a guy singing Sinatra-era ballads while I dined.
I also did not expect to find food this good, or d & #233;cor so prescient. That was a long time ago and I am still going back for more. The latest coup that has me scrambling for more meals is the recent addition of Hermann Schaefer as executive sous chef. Hermann has long manned the kitchen at Irvine’s Bistango (and he is still their executive consulting chef), but he decided to give this hotel the benefit of his awesome talents.
Like all of the hotels that hover near the dramatic Anaheim Convention Center, one of the busiest in the nation, locals sometimes regard the Hilton as just convention lodging. How sad that county residents are missing great dining treats; well, not me, but maybe you.
This room is decked out in marble finery with stately columns and a Roman archway beckoning us to come and sit for a while. It’s replete with etched glass windows, walls of beautiful hand-painted murals and a striking seashell chandelier. Its serene color scheme ranging from terra-cotta to pastels and variations of eggshell is most relaxing. You would feel perfectly comfortable here in your neat, casual clothes or in your theater attire.
The food is Northern Italian. Here the bruschetta is an uptown version. Roasted portobello mushrooms, eggplant and artichoke hearts mingle with cluster tomatoes to dollop on the crispy bread. Carpaccio comes from thinly sliced prime beef tenderloin (fine micro greens, capers and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese center it).
Prosciutto is imported from Parma and the thin slices are dressed up with Asian pear, asiago cheese and arugula mix with strands of roasted pumpkinseed oil wiggling across the plate.
Spaghettini comes in a bowl of shellfish bathed in a terrific creamy white wine sauce (or in a marinara). Classic manicotti is packaged with veal and chicken and topped with b & #233;chamel sauce. Veal is done parmigiana style and as scaloppine. Swordfish rests on a carpet of black tagliatelle. A lamb chops and tiger shrimp duo balances with artichoke hearts. Barbary duck breast has a gossamer sheen of jus.
Grilled Maine lobster reaches sweet intensity in a nage made from the shells, broth and spices. Cioppino is well stocked with shellfish. This is a dining find, and you’d best discover it.
Pavilion
Four Seasons Hotel
690 Newport Center Drive
Newport Beach
(949) 759-0808
The Four Seasons has undergone a multi-million dollar renovation with upgrades of the already plush property visible everywhere.
I’ve been known to have business meetings in their lobby for no other reason than that it’s just a gorgeous space on its own to hang out. Servers graciously bring us cocktails or coffee.
But we’re discussing dining so off to Pavilion restaurant we go. I’ve known the French executive chef and chef de cuisine for a very long time, so I am well versed in the food. Together, Michel Pieton and Laurent Mechin maintain a menu dotted with Mediterranean-influenced California cuisine.
The restaurant overlooks the gardens through a wall of glass. The room is softly colored in mostly peach tones with botanically themed murals,elegant like a fine strand of pearls. Huge columns centering the room are attention-getters, but it always maintains its dignity. The chairs are plushly upholstered in the finest fabrics, while tables are double-draped in starched linen. Soft light flickers on the stemware and custom plates. Big bouquets of flowers add fragrance.
Appetizers are not to be ignored. Peekytoe crabcakes are briny sweet and moist inside, crisp outside. Duck confit, now a beloved French dish on our shores, is terrific here with a sweet fresh corn cake and fresh fig reduction sauce. Of course, there’s nothing new in the use of stellar seasonal ingredients, which have been the passion of this kitchen since the hotel opened in 1986.
Venison, a perfect cool-weather food, is cut into medallions and engaged with another fall favorite that hails from Austria, chestnut spaetzle. Might I mention that it has a foie gras sauce? Maine lobster is steamed to maintain its sweet flavor and coupled with creamy saffron risotto.
Caramelized apple slices, sprinkled with Calvados, are an affinity touch for duck cooked two ways: skillet-roasted breast plated with leg and thigh that have been richly roasted confit-fashion.
All of the above are new on the fall menu. There are other favorites that must stay. Broiled sea bass with an herb crust comes to mind. The corn chowder with smoked shrimp recipe even has been requested by a national food magazine. One taste and you know why.
I never pass up dessert here: pear gratin in phyllo pastry, chocolate banana macaroon mousse cake or divine souffl & #233;s are just too compelling.
PCH Grill
Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel
1717 S. Disneyland Drive
Anaheim
(714) 956-6755
They’re not going wild with creativity here, but they are keeping the food just edgy enough.
Since this is one of the Disneyland Resorts’ mainstay restaurants, it, too, benefits from that aforementioned commitment to making the culinary recognition a serious issue in its hotel dining rooms. I have often mentioned in my columns some of the superb food- and wine-matching dinners here, complete with representatives of the featured winery. They are great bargains.
This particular place uses quality products and gives out lots of comfort and good service.
Since this would be a place where I’d eat in the middle of the day or at the end of my tiring Disneyland Park sojourn, it’s good to see that the menu sports a sense of humor in the descriptions. Tired feet aside, you’re still able to smile when seated here. This is the kind of restaurant that’s meant to revitalize you. Walls are painted in various happy colors. It’s open and friendly with a curvy kitchen in full view taking up the back section.
A replenishing appetizer is the seafood chowder (made with smoked fish) in which fish pieces are swimming in a broth that obviously has seen vegetables and herbs simmered long and slow till every nuance was drawn out. Crisply fried calamari are good morsels to munch on and they come with a delightful, lemony mayonnaise dip.
Spinach fettuccine is quite likable with tequila lime sauce. Fire-roasted corn and smoked chicken mingle inside ravioli wrappers with a rather delicate creamy garlic sauce napping them. Naturally, there are several wood-fired pizzas. Honey barbecue sauce that manages not to be too sweet coats tender baby back ribs. Salmon, seabass and mahi mahi are fresh every day, with the mahi mahi being especially refreshing given the nuances of pineapple and jasmine rice.
By the time you get to desserts with names like It’s Totally Apple Pie, Chocolate Extreme and Screamin’ Chocolate Sundae, you might be praying either for willpower or just a little more room to scoop in these decadent calories.
Pinot Provence
Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel
686 Anton Blvd.
Costa Mesa
(714) 444-5900
This place did it up right from day one.
Joachim and Christine Splichal,the restaurant gurus who lay claim to the most famous restaurant in L.A., Patina, a bunch of Pinot restaurants in Southern California, one in the Napa Valley, Catal, Naples in Downtown Disney and Tangata at our Bowers Museum,showed their commitment. They took over a space that once was Alfredo’s, the gourmet restaurant of the Westin, but was used for a banquet room for several years.
Not content to just hire a decorator, their vision was big enough to take them on a few trips to southern France while preliminary architectural drawings were under way. Many containers were shipped over, filled with most of what you see in the restaurant today.
Ceilings are made of salvaged barn boards from Provence. The limestone forming the massive archway into the main dining room was shipped over. And the cement garden tables and fountain that charm up the patios, and the table under the arch with its lovely sculpture, came from Provence. All those tall, graceful doors and the dining room chandelier arrived from abroad.
Florent Marneau (one of my former Chefs of the Year) presides over the kitchen. He is a true artist in conceiving the looks and tastes of each dish. It’s almost a sacrilege to ignore the three unique kinds of marinated olives, so have them make a mixed plate for you. You must order appetizers such as tuna tartare with avocado and caramelized ginger and the amazing fricassee of escargot perfumed with parsley butter.
Pan-seared diver scallops are sweet and succulent on their own, but Florent highlights them with lobster risotto in a royal dish. Just to let you know that not all steamed mussel preparations are the same, these are coaxed open in Muscadet wine, dolloped with cr & #269;me fra & #238;che, dazzled a bit with some Soria chorizo and served with a pile of pommes frites. Roasted lamb rib eye is very at home with a rosemary and sweet garlic jus.
My favorite dish on the entire menu is the caramelized veal cheeks and sweetbreads. Way cool. I can have rabbit here with foie gras ravioli on the side. And there’s the amazing dorade fish on the same plate as braised oxtail, all draped in pasta “sheets.” I fall back on the old argument that it’s a hard job tasting all this wonderful food, but somebody’s got to do it. It should be you.
More advice: for dessert, eat one of everything.
Savoury’s
La Casa del Camino Hotel
1287 S. Coast Highway
Laguna Beach
(949) 376-9716
I’ve traipsed you through big-hotel restaurants, but now I’m going to take you to a sweet little place in a small hotel in Laguna. It just had to be included because Brad Toles and his amazing crew are conjuring up some remarkable dishes in this newish restaurant.
I’ve never met a crew more supportive of each other or more tuned into making life more pleasing for their customers than this group. I told Toles, chef and owner, that he should take his show on the road and teach whatever philosophy he was offering here.
This once was a misbegotten little corner in downtown Laguna, the downstairs front corner of the accompanying hotel. Other restaurants had tried their luck, and I liked one of them very much, but they were not defined enough to enthuse serious diners. Savoury’s solves all that. The mantra here is “The arts are not complete without the art of food.”
The room has been turned into something quite reminiscent of a wine-region bistro. It’s the comfortable, inviting kind of place where you cannot help but think of ordering a glass of wine and taking your time with the menu. There’s a cute little bar along the back wall and the room has a few arches in it. Tables are tranquil with proper linens, nice place settings and, of course, correct stemware. Smiles from the manager, Dawn Wilson, and the waiters are abundant.
The wild mushroom soup leaves almost all others in the dust. This one is rich, creamy and streaked with cr & #269;me fra & #238;che, itself perfumed with black truffle oil. Spring rolls filled with roasted duck are so good. I also encourage you to order the Mongolian-style barbecued short ribs. The beef is tender and oozing good flavor, all the better to go with the scallion basmati rice and wokked vegetables.
Organic chicken has a crisp coating of pistachios and rosemary needles, very much in the Mediterranean style. It’s nicely paired with grilled hearts of romaine. Ahi tuna is frosted with crushed peanuts and chile peppers, in a pseudo kung pao style, before being seared. Steak, fresh fish and some pastas are also featured.
There are boutique wines to savor and desserts to relish.
Splashes
Surf & Sand Hotel
1555 S. Coast Highway
Laguna Beach
(949) 497-4477
This restaurant is the star of the resort, terraced along part of the 500 feet of white sand beach. How can anyone tire of the surf crashing just in front of you, the sunsets so vivid?
We often have a before-dinner drink in the adjoining Splashes Lounge in order to savor the magnificent views, the briny smell of the air, the casually luxurious feeling that permeates it all. It’s very much a romantic place.
The hotel and this dining room are Mediterranean in style. Terra-cotta tiles line the floors and a wall of glass allows full views from the inside dining room. An al fresco terrace protected with plexiglas and warmed in the evening by overhead heaters is dream seating for me. These two areas join a palm-shaded patio. Teak chairs were never more at home in an atmosphere and we always seem to use ours for hours.
The chef is passionate about using organic food and incorporates it into all his dishes as much as possible. Sustainable agriculture is his passion away from the kitchen, too. His menu features grilled meats, poultry, seafood, and vegetables seasoned with herbs from his garden, as well as a selection of pastas and soups. In addition to the standard dinner menu, Splashes offers a dinner menu that changes daily, allowing variety for the guests.
Prince Edward Island mussels are steamed with wine and herbs for a bracing appetizer. There’s a nice winter farm salad of escarole, watercress, pears, hazelnuts and Point Reyes blue cheese. Prosciutto-wrapped Maine diver scallops sit atop cannellini bean rago & #369;t.
In the entr & #233;e realm, a rapid saut & #233; preserves the gentle flavor of sea bass, which then is adorned with heirloom zucchini and chanterelle mushrooms. Colorado lamb shank is braised in Burgundy wine, very French, and sided with creamy polenta, quite Italian. Bone-in veal (New York cut) is simply grilled and propped against chic truffled mashed potatoes. Fresh sage flavors the free-range chicken.
There’s a well-conceived wine list to match the food and several mind-bending chocolate and fruit desserts, not to mention a wicked cr & #269;me br & #369;l & #233;e. Dessert’s almost as good as the views.
Yamabuki
Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel
1717 S. Disneyland Drive
Anaheim
(714) 956-6755
As if I already didn’t give you enough reasons to go to Disneyland Resorts, and I almost feel guilty about talking yet again of their restaurants, here we go.
Listen, it’s not my fault that they are out-dedicating themselves in the world of food and wine and surprising us all with the results. In fact, I perceive Yamabuki as being in a world of its own. That’s because it has a large clientele of Japanese businessmen and tourists who love to dine in this remarkable restaurant. It’s a well-known destination restaurant to them. Having said that, this American appreciates the total authenticity that resides here; not a creatively tweaked dish on the whole big menu.
The rooms are decorated in serene Japanese simplicity. Screens of bleached wood and white rice paper serve as dividers. Walls are in light monochromatic tones. Tables are clean-lined and surrounded by very comfortable chairs for the meals, which are meant to be savored slowly. A long sushi bar fronted by several chairs features chefs making common sushi items Americans know well and delicate hand-rolled sushi items that only the Japanese customers seem to know about.
I had the good fortune to have dinner here once with Naoe Amemiya, whose late husband was vice president of Disneyland Resorts. I wish I had the space to impart just a little of the food stories she shared with me. She’s truly a walking encyclopedia of regional Japanese foods and their background. Perhaps in a regular column that will be appropriate. For now, I can only highlight the menu.
Begin with broiled Shishamo (tiny smelts) and Gyu Negima Yaki (thinly-sliced, marbled beef seared on the grill and wrapped around scallions). A must is the Maguro Yamakake (sliced raw tuna with sweet yams). And the Yakitori is so flavorful that I will allow you to have that (marinated chicken on skewers). A bowl of miso soup is perfect at this stage.
Move on to the scrumptious egg custard with shrimp called Chawan Mushi and since their shrimp tempura is so good, order that, too. Tonkatsu Zen (crispy pork cutlets with rice) was never better. If you like teriyaki chicken or beef, or the stew you make yourself called Shabu Shabu, they also are full of mouth-tingling flavor.
This is a minuscule representation of the full menu,just a primer for you. I suggest you simply settle in and discuss your likes with the waitress and let the good times roll.
