STEFANO IL RISTORANTE
Address:
655 Anton Blvd. (at South Coast Plaza office towers), Costa Mesa
Phone:
(714) 850-9399
Reason:
The 100-item midday buffet for only $9.95
GOLDEN TRUFFLE
Address:
1767 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa
Phone:
(949) 645-9858
Reason:
Gourmet Italian food every Thursday; appetizers $5 to $11, entr & #233;es $12 to $21
Greeley Goes Italian on Thursdays
Looking for a new twist to your normal lunch? Stefano il Ristorante at South Coast Metro has a nice midday offering that will even get you back to the office in less than an hour. They’ve introduced a deluxe business buffet and tableside pasta cart service weekdays from 11:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. This is serious stuff. The buffet features more than 100 flavorful items, including appetizers, soups, salads, fish, poultry and meat entr & #233;es, as well as a selection of lovely desserts. Listen up: there are 30 tempting pastas and risottos available from the unique pasta cart.
Chef and owner Stefano Colaiacomo recently purchased the former Amici restaurant, renaming it Stefano il Ristorante. He designed this buffet to provide a quick, easy and delicious alternative to the normal weekday lunch. The buffet allows the people who need to eat and run an elegant, gourmet meal on their own time schedule. This business buffet includes items such as Italian, Greek and Chinese salads, fresh exotic fruits, fresh tuna Louie, leg of lamb in a mushroom sauce, roasted beef in a Barolo sauce, swordfish and halibut skewers, steamed salmon in a hollandaise sauce and an assortment of impressive desserts. The pasta cart offers servings of homemade pasta with sauces such as beef or chicken ragout or vegetables in a tomato cream sauce and creamy risotto with ingredients such as chicken and vegetables in a saffron sauce or tuna with fresh tomato and basil mixed in.
The restaurant is open for lunch Monday through Friday and for dinner nightly. It’s a very attractive setting and Stefano is working hard to catch your attention. Give this a try and see if you don’t agree with me that it’s an impressive experience.
Greeley Conquers Italy
Now how do you suppose I happened to be in the Golden Truffle in Costa Mesa on a Thursday, the exact day of the week on which chef and owner Alan Greeley now cooks Italian food? I did it because my curiosity about what OC’s most creative chef could do with Italian ingredients was bigger than my will power. So I grabbed my gourmet friend, George Rider, and thought I’d try a couple of things and have a nice glass of wine.
It was a very long lunch.
Those of you who know why you visit a three-star chef in Europe understand that the Golden Truffle can be a culinary experience commensurate with that, but at a fraction of the price. Well, on Thursdays there are almost three dozen Italian dishes, presented in the most extraordinary fashion, that it will make you rethink your pasta and risotto routines.
We began with marinated fresh Sardinian anchovies with a glass of Sancerre wine. Alan emerged from the kitchen with lovely geometric plates in hand, on which he’d placed some marinated octopus with a little stack of beets, celery and onion on the side. We switched to a Soave wine and were told by the waiter not to touch our very hot plates holding “farm house” baked black mussels. They were sitting on a bed of equally hot rock salt, the best way to bake any shellfish. A slightly spicy caper sauce was drizzled over them.
By now, I was already more impressed with this fare than I’d planned to be. Three courses down and still ordering more. While the white wine was still being poured, we ordered the sea scallops in a citrus beurre blanc taken to a higher level by some extra reduction magic that Alan had managed. Situated in the center of the plate with a blue fish pattern around the edge, the seared scallops mingled with a few miniature carrots and zucchini.
Then it was time to change to a Merlot because the stewed lamb with pancetta, turnip greens and chunky mashed potatoes were soon to arrive. Yet another architectural wonder of a plate held the aromatic ingredients. Pasta goes fine with red wine if you do things like the tortellini stuffed with sausage and Swiss chard. This particular envelope of good taste was surrounded with a Chianti walnut sauce. Not at all your ordinary pasta. We’d gone way beyond the call of duty and the usual capacity of our tummies at midday; nevertheless, we shared a banana gelato torte sitting on apricots that had been baked in Campari. May I take time out to say this was awesome food?
When did you ever see Tuscan and Piedmontese food like duck prosciutto with tomato relish, fresh seafood and angel hair pasta melange with artichoke marinara sauce, chicken with leeks and carrots, saut & #233;ed butterfish with capers and lemon, prime loin of beef with tomato and onion fondue or pot roast braised in Chianti with Fontina cheese and cabbage? This is the kind of Italian food you would find at the ultra-expensive table of Gaultiero Marchese, Italy’s most renowned three-star chef.
Alan is featuring a selection of Italian wines by the glass to complement the food. And, just to make sure your dinner on these Italian Thursdays has an added dimension of romance and/or relaxation, there’s live, soft music.
Chao publishes Chao’s Dinesty, a food, wine and travel newsletter, in Irvine.
