Happy New Year!
For us, a new year means new dining opportunities—new restaurants, new chefs, new menus, new cuisine.
And it means it’s time for one of our favorite events of the year: the 12th annual Newport Beach Restaurant Week—which is actually a two-week culinary affair scheduled for Jan. 15 through Jan. 28. This year’s theme is “Beyond the Menu: A Culinary Journey.” For us, it’s more like a gastronomic joyride through some of the county’s best restaurants—and many of our favorites—including A Restaurant, Andrea at Pelican Hill, Bayside, Red O, Sushi Roku, and The Winery. Even Nobu is on the list of about 60 restaurants participating this year.
The eateries offer two- or three-course prix fixe menus, with lunches available for $10 to $25 and dinners for $20 to $50.
New this year is a dine-around experience on Jan. 11 at Fashion Island’s Lincoln Experience Center. It’s exclusive—only 100 tickets are available, and you get to sample cuisine from Nobu, Sessions West Coast Deli, Cucina Enoteca, The Bungalow, Balboa Lily’s, Andrea, and Mayor’s Table (at the soon-to-open Lido House Hotel). Tickets are $35 and include tastings, plus two glasses of wine or beer.
Details can be found at DineNB.com. You can bet we’ll be there.
Cha Cha Cha
We’ve dined at Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen in Brea several times and love the Mexican cuisine and upscale vibe but always wished it was more centrally located.
Now it is; Cha Chas has opened a second location in the Irvine Marketplace, and we couldn’t be happier.
It also just launched a new Sunday brunch menu, so of course we had to go try it. The selection includes a variety of authentic Mexican dishes, from appetizers to entrees available a la carte, including a few items you can’t get in Brea, such as the sopas and empanadas.
We opted for the champagne brunch special: a starter of salad, pozole verde or fresh fruit, followed by choice of entree.
We started with chips and salsa, which Catherine says are some of the best in Orange County. The warm, light and crunchy chips are served with three different salsas: mild, spicy and green.
Catherine ordered the fresh fruit, followed by cheese enchiladas served with a healthy dollop of green sauce and a side of roasted salsa rice and black beans. Unlike some accompaniments at other restaurants, this rice was moist and flavorful, and the beans had a nice kick.
Christopher’s pozole verde was superb, with moist hominy sharing the stage with chicken and chilis. The chicken hash with poached eggs, poblano peppers, Oaxaca cheese and potatoes was a hearty dish with flavors that practically jumped off the plate. He polished it off in record time.
It was all washed down with margaritas. Tequila fans take note: Cha Cha’s has dozens of tequilas and mezcals listed on its menu.
13126 Jamboree Road, Irvine, (714) 408-7819; chachaslatinkitchen.com
At the Ranch
We popped into The Ranch Restaurant in Anaheim last month, and were reminded how wonderful Chef Michael Rossi’s menu is, and what a fantastic wine list Master Sommelier Michael Jordan has curated—11,000 bottles with an emphasis on California vintners—more than 40 West Coast Pinot Noirs are listed, plus five Turley Zinfandels. About three dozen wines are available by the glass.
Instead of starting with typical bread and butter, we had the freshly baked popovers served with a soft organic, European-style butter and house-made preserves. For our main courses, we ate the Skuna Bay Salmon with baby root vegetables, shiitake mushrooms and a healthy helping of miso-yuzu sauce, and the lobster mac ’n cheese with Vermont white cheddar, accompanied by a glass of Hitching Post Pinot Noir (shades of “Sideways”).
The salmon was cooked perfectly and had a nice crisp skin on top, and the miso-yuzu sauce gave the dish some Asian flair. The veggies were fresh and full of flavor, probably thanks to the fact they come from The Ranch’s heirloom vegetable farm on Edwards Ranch Estates.
The service was, as expected, impeccable. The Ranch continues to be one of the top dining experiences in Orange County.
1025 E. Ball Road, Anaheim, (714) 817-4200; theRanch.com
Fresh Breezes
Combine the words dining and view, and you get Las Brisas, a mainstay in Laguna Beach for nearly four decades. Overlooking the ocean and the Laguna Beach coastline, it’s become a landmark noted more for its breathtaking views and fun cocktails than its cuisine.
Fortunately, that’s changing, thanks to Chef Matthew Robinson, who’s been in the Las Brisas kitchen for less than four months but is putting an indelible mark on the menu. He redid the breakfast buffet in the fall, around the time the restaurant unveiled a new decor, and recently launched a new lunch menu that’s finally a match for the endless vistas.
“When I got here, they were running the same menu for lunch and dinner, and it was priced the same,” noted Chef Robinson, formerly of Crow Bar and Crow Burger in Newport Beach. “I wanted the food to complement and match the view. They gave me carte blanche to change the menu.”
And he changed it for the better, based on a lunch menu tasting Christopher attended last month. He sampled the ceviche with cured seabass and shrimp, the guacamole, the fried calamari and the short rib enchiladas—all excellent. However, it was the hamburger that took his breath away.
The Brisas Burger starts with a patty of sirloin, short rib and brisket. It’s cooked to order and piled atop a brioche bun with bacon-onion jam, Havarti cheese, foie gras aioli, and a fried egg, accompanied by perfect, thin house-made potato chips.
“Oh wow … wow … wow” was all Christopher could utter as he ate it. “May be the best burger I’ve had this year. A perfect, harmonious combination of flavors. Nothing overwhelms the palate—and the fried egg puts it over the top.”
After all that, dessert was out of the question—although one suddenly appeared at the table: the berry tostada with mixed berries and ice cream served in an almond Florentine shell. Christopher quickly polished it off.
One final note: kudos to Christopher’s server, Dante Delarosa, who’s been with Las Brisas for 22 years. The reason for his longevity? “It’s a great experience. I try every day with every guest to create memories. Our view, our food, our service, all has to be at the same level. If they come just for the view, then we have a problem.”
Problem solved, thanks to Chef Robinson, and to Dante, who made the entire experience memorable.
361 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, (949) 497-5434; lasbrisaslagunabeach.com
Ciao Again, Prego
Italian mainstay Prego closed its Irvine location last year after three decades in business, but recently reopened as Prego Mediterranean at The District in Tustin Legacy, inside the space formerly occupied by Bluewater Grill.
A media tasting was held last month to give us an idea where Chef Ugo Allesina is taking the menu, which has a handful of familiar dishes and plenty of new ones.
Catherine never had a chance to dine at the old Prego, so she had a fresh perspective on the new one.
Her take: “My favorite light appetizer was the seasonal hummus, which was served with house-made rustic flatbread and included three flavors—mushroom and truffle, roasted garlic basil and sundried tomato. Each hummus was unique and full of flavor. The golden beet salad was a mixture of fresh, juicy yellow beets, mixed baby greens, goat cheese, caramelized onions and a balsamic reduction. I could have eaten a bowlful without any accompaniments.”
Christopher’s take: “It was difficult for me to get a handle on the menu. The hummus was indeed terrific, the sliders and meatballs from the bar bites menu were good, as was the short rib and polenta cake, and the lobster ravioli. But I remember the old Prego as being more Italian-centric, and while I appreciate the Mediterranean focus, I’ll need to dine here a couple more times to get a better idea of what they’re doing.”
2409 Park Ave., Tustin, (949) 553-1333; pregoOC.com
