WHAT’S NEW
OC Debuts Are a Trip From Italy to Japan With a Stop in California.
Special Report – Executive Dining by Fifi Chao
L’OPERA
45 Fortune Drive, Irvine
(949) 754-0400
Lunch and dinner
This is the brand new restaurant in Irvine Spectrum. It’s the sister of L’Opera in Long Beach, which opened in 1990 on Pine Avenue at the beginning of the renovation of that whole downtown area. Some of you may recall the Bertolini restaurant in Spectrum. That is the space that has now become L’Opera. Since it was waiting for a new proprietor anyway, and it does encompass 7,100 square feet, the principals in the Long Beach restaurant decided to expand. Terry Antonelli, one of the partners, told the Long Beach Business Journal that they got the space cheap and that they were “offered a deal we couldn’t refuse.”
The former restaurant consisted of a large room given a curvaceous d & #233;cor for interest with casual booth seating and an open kitchen. L’Opera upped the stylishness in their redo. Considering that both lunch and dinner business is very good for most of the restaurants at Spectrum, L’Opera here might outsell its sibling in Long Beach.
As for the menu, you’ll get your Italian lesson reading it. But everything’s explained fully beneath the name of each dish. At lunch, there’s a brace of salads. Pizzas, of course. Perhaps some saffron ravioli skins stuffed with porcini mushrooms, medallions of pork tenderloin or slices of veal topped with prosciutto. Dinner might be the time for spinach pasta filled with eggplant and gorgonzola cheese, marinated steak Florentine style (a 16-oz. porterhouse), rack of lamb with baby artichokes or risotto with beef tenderloin. The menu is pretty inclusive of popular Italian dishes as well.
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SAVOURY’S
1287 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach
(949) 376-9718
Dinner only
Brad Toles is a well-known caterer in Orange County. He has a gold medal from the Culinary Olympics. In 1993, he and his catering staff volunteered to feed masses of people during the Laguna Beach fire. Last October, he opened this restaurant on the ground level of La Casa del Camino hotel. It was another culinary step for him.
Brad used bistros in Napa Valley as inspiration of for his concept. The dining room is upscale casual with big arches marching through part of it and a martini and tapas bar adding an inviting touch. Large windows open on pleasant days to the briny breezes from the ocean facing the hotel. There’s also rooftop garden dining. He’s brought along good china, put tea lights on each table, all of which are nicely dressed in white cloths, and is culling a wine- and food-savvy clientele with his food and serious wine list.
Since I have not eaten here I can only give you some of the menu items. However several of our friends have and the feedback has been very good. There’s a wild mushroom soup with black truffle oil creme fra & #238;che. Foie gras is pan-seared with port wine and balsamic reduction, served over greens. Potstickers are stuffed with leek, shiitake mushrooms and kumquat. Organic chicken is used for the coq au vin. Lobster and blue crab cannelloni are served over wild mushroom, bean and vegetable cassoulet. In case this doesn’t yet convince you of his serious intent, I might as well tell you that there’s also a pastry chef on board and a holistic chef who has several vegetarian items on the menu.
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WASA
13124 Jamboree Road (at Irvine Boulevard), Irvine
(714) 665-3338
It’s three months old and pretty cute. It’s one of those elongated spaces in what’s become a food corner in the newest part of the Marketplace just off the Santa Ana Freeway. Good architecture has fooled the eye. There’s ample giant bamboo used as walls at the entry. There’s a big sushi bar (18 seats) surrounded by tiers of blond wood along the left wall. Curvy overhangs and ceiling treatments soften things considerably. The other long wall of the dining room is painted a muted gray with wall insets holding live orchid plants. Dark wood tables fill the floor space.
There’s a rather big menu that takes you through Japan and then some. And the sushi menu has a whole section of what owner Bronnie Lee calls New Generation Sushi. That means Atlantic salmon with terakobu seaweed, seared yellowtail with jalape & #324;o cream sauce, tuna with wasabi sour cream. Creative stuff. The rest of the sushi and sashimi menu lists about every piece of raw fish you ever came across on rice or on its own.
As for the a la carte menu, where do I begin? Edamame soy beans, yakitori chicken, soft-shell crab, tempura, smoked salmon roll, an oyster shooter (but this one’s on a shell with ponzu sauce) and tuna tartare barely skim the surface of the appetizers. Entr & #233;es go way beyond what you’d expect. A teriyaki rib eye steak, beef short ribs with sake-miso sauce, fried oysters, bouillabaisse, Chilean sea bass oven-glazed with soy sauce and tangerine juice. There’s a unique “roll” of grilled asparagus and green onions rolled inside thinly sliced rib eye. There are combination plates mixing and matching some of these entrees. The tempura and teriyaki specialties cover shrimp, salmon, whitefish, chicken and beef. They’ve got the right idea and certainly the right prices. And they’ve got me trying to work my way through all the rest of the menu.
