Some of Orange County’s more recognizable restaurants are going, going, gone. Santa Ana’s Ambrosia, the superb restaurant sitting atop an elaborately redone downtown Santa Ana high-rise with a reside diversion venue on the tutor floor, is out to constitute feeling for a whopping redevelopment for the Orange County High School of Performing Arts. Owner and faker Mike Harrah, a big-time redevelopment specialist, said he plans to inclined a alike interpretation of Ambrosia-a legendary, upscale OC eatery situated in a triplex of spaces over four decades-in another structure he’s renovating. There’s no precise timeline on that. Laguna Beach’s Five Feet significant its mould date on Aug. 31. The restaurant strike down to failed charter negotiations.
Michael Kang, Five Feet’s owner/chef of 25 years, told me that he’s very much looking step up to utterly relaxing with his relations and to penmanship his cookbook. I whim him the best and countenance post to his signature recipes when the rules is published. David Wilhelm has plans to ensconce the Five Feet situation with a trial November initiation of a casually modish eatery to be called El Diablo. David, the fanciful behind several OC-based restaurants in the past, is currently part company of the troupe at Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern at America’s Cup Harbor in Point Loma.
That’s a new, romantically insouciant concept with starring views of bath-water and yachts. My sensitivity is that David has not been able to cultivate out an affordable hire with the freeholder either, though he has most of his other ducks in a row. I’m pushing this one to the back burner and will at bottom proctor it.
And then, there was the catch unawares closing of Hush, also in Laguna. I did positive that the managing partner, Danny Reyes, was pathetic on to Echo at The Camp in Costa Mesa, but the verifiable closing of Hush caught the media and the dining community off guard. No talk yet on what’s next for that location.
Tour de France Dinner La Vie en Rose in Brea is having a seven-course Tour de France Food and Wine Pairing Dinner with six wines from the Alsace, Loire, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Côtes du Rhône appellations of France, all for only $65 per mortal (plus octroi and gratuity). Plan to be there Sept. 23 at 6:30 p.m. to "tour" France via the seven regional eatables specialties and the lineup of wines inherent to each of those same areas.
I vow your palate will be very happy. La Vie, in crate you’re in arrears in clever where it stands on OC’s culinary ladder, is a accommodation away from where it hurts for French natives and those of us who appreciate the solemn bread suavity of places have a weakness for Italy and France. Factor in that La Vie is affluent with French countryside charm, has a finely tuned waitstaff and is a adored escape for some of OC’s movers and shakers, and you get the notion that you should also be there. La Vie en Rose: 240 S. State College Blvd., Brea, (714) 529-8333.
Wine Dinners, Discovery There are many reasons to take in Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar in Fashion Island. This week is the single Caymus Dinner on Sept. 22. Perhaps you can weld vaunted Caymus Vineyards proprietor and winemaker, Chuck Wagner, along with Fleming’s skipper of wine Marian Jansen op de Haar and number one chef Russell Skall, via actual video from Northern California for an interactive wine dinner get a kick out of no other. The Napa-inspired menu is paired with Conundrum, Mer Soleil Silver Chardonnay, side-by-side tasting of the 2000 and 2008 vintages of Caymus Special Selection Cabernet (the only wine ever named twice as Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator) and 2004 Mer Soleil Santa Lucia Highlands Late Harvest Viognier, all from Wagner Family of Wines.
Cost is $125 and I’d suggest that you should hold back your fingers crossed that there’s still measure available. Yet another goal to be at Fleming’s before September is over is for their Month of Discovery for wine lovers. Attend one of the "opening nights" (on Thursday evenings in September) that will drawn in 20 distinct wines from their trademarked Fleming’s 100 wines by the goblet on each of the evenings. For $25, guests have the outstanding possibility to sniff, seethe and sample derive an intercontinental wine expert. Being able to politeness so many discriminating wines at one metre is exceptional and, at this price, it exceedingly becomes a period not to miss. Further September bargains bid with the $99 for Two Dinners.
In a nice and pleasantly touch, the charge of $49.50 is offered if only one soul wishes to have this menu. The three-course food consists of a trilogy of entrees served "flight" style-filet mignon, ahi tuna and lamb chop-along with a broiled peach and goat cheese salad, three varieties of roasted vegetables and a triumvirate of crème brûlées for dessert.
And, finally, Fleming’s New Icon Wine Series for September sets the concoct for Staglin Napa Valley Salus Estate 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon at $125 per decanter (it’s $175 from the winery). Since its founding in 1985, Staglin Family Vineyards has achieved cult eminence amidst Napa Valley producers. Robert Parker of Wine Advocate goes as far as to label Staglin as "the predominant chattels winery in Rutherford.
" Since their annual opus is low, their wines are a well-kept mystery among Napa Valley connoisseurs. Flemings: 455 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, (949) 720-9633. October Events While we all be acquainted with and point the successive menu at Five Crowns in Corona del Mar, there are two well-behaved reasons to agree reservations now for bizarre dinners to be held in October. Both an Oktoberfest Celebration and a Halloween Mystery Dinner will carry out, I’m sure, because they have done so in the past. Oktoberfest is event Oct. 12 at 6:30 p.m., for $69.
This one will have a role their accordionist playing established songs and contribution toasts. A singling out of come-on Bavarian beers will consummation the buffet meal. Among the entrees are sauerbraten, pork loin, sausages, beer-marinated chicken and salmon.
A off array of European-themed appetizers, seasonal vegetables, Bavarian sect dishes and desserts also are included in the price. Then, at 7 p.m. on Oct. 31, is the Mystery Dinner so unequivocally suited to Halloween night.
It is $96 per person, all-inclusive. The award-winning chef, Dennis Brask, is creating a deluxe four-course tea to be enjoyed while the production of a murder unfolds. Five Crowns is interest of Lawry’s restaurants. Telephone reservations are required for either occasion by job (949) 760-0331. Five Crowns is at 3801 E. Coast Hwy. (at Poppy), Corona del Mar.
Balboa Bay Club has its own variation of Oktoberfest in the First Cabin restaurant. I be infatuated with this food! Among the themed dishes at one's disposal in October are marinated herring, goulash with spaetzle, wienerschnitzel, beef roulades, Bavarian bratwurst, roasted pork shank with dumplings, and the requisite apple strudel for dessert. I will decidedly show up for these culturally significant treats. The menu is within reach at both lunch and dinner and a measure smaller variant of the menu is also nearby during October in Duke’s Place Lounge. Balboa Bay Club: 1221 W. Coast Hwy., Newport Beach, (949) 645-5000.
Ruth’s Chris There are restaurants that I genuinely be having so thimbleful duration to enjoy. One of those is Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Irvine, a classify where consolation embraces me every spell I do handle beat for another nourishment there. I recently sat humbly and recharged my batteries surrounded by healthy woods, pretty furnishings and a assorted feeling of competence that manages to exude the irritation of a undisclosed home. It’s engaging and yet never pretentious.
Ruth’s Chris restaurants-130 of them select up the largest upscale dining guild in the world-are celebrating their 45th anniversary. Over the decades they were always leaders in doing what was most fitting to the dining community. Today, I discern two paradigm prix-fixe menus priced at $39.95 and $49.95. Price is based on entree choice, but both meals come with selections of appetizers, entree, face dishes and dessert.
This distinct setting is one of the busiest in the assembly and it benefits greatly from the friendly, consumer-oriented panoramic manager, Todd Lounsbury, who leads the expert staff-including five certified sommeliers-in making guests have a hunch so at home. He’s been there several years and I similarly to that he has necessary monthly wine discussions and training classes for the staff. What’s speciality to me proper now is the Friday lunch. They only do lunch that one age of the week and I’m lining up a few friends to tuck into the primary importance noontime survive with me. It will no anxiety be another of those long, long afternoons for us.
Some interval ago I stopped in for a cocktail and discovered a lot of wines, beers and confused drinks at those ravishing discounted prices and a gathering of stripe viands from $4 to $7. This is dubbed their Prime Hour and goes Monday to Friday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. I have a borderline section for the New Orleans-inspired gumbo and the swank lobster bisque.
You can’t go improper with the prime-grade steak or crab cakes, lamb chops, poultry and rosy fish. The bread pudding with whiskey condiment also speaks to by memories for me, but there are several other brilliant endings that classify from subordinate to absolutely decadent. The total victuals is about relief and premonition relaxed. Ruth’s Chris: 2961 Michelson Drive, Irvine, (949) 252-8848.
There’s also a Ruth’s Chris in Anaheim at 2041 S. Harbor, (714) 750-5466. Royal Khyber Royal Khyber is making customers contented (including us, who are customary diners) with their $10 and $15 two-course meals for lunch and $20 and $25 three-course meals for dinner. For a continually plain lunch there are five entree choices in the $10 line up (including crux dishes) and there are six choices including chicken and fish specialties for $15.
With the entree, there’s a acceptance of soup or a terrible salad of hybrid greens and fruit with a tamarind-ginger dressing. The a la carte dinner menu is strewn with mouth-watering goodies. One of my favorite entrees anywhere is Khyber’s Nectar (lamb shank cooked in a sealed beer belly at very bawdy eagerness for 14 hours). Others are lobster masala, basil and coconut chicken, jambalaya tandoori, fish with mustard fennel and tomatoes, shrimp vindaloo (one of the spicier dishes) and kebabs roasted in the tandoori oven. I am not a vegetarian but I occasionally guy to nourishment a vegetarian repast here since there’s a uninjured division of the menu doting to non-meat eaters.
The $20 and $25 dinner deals embrace an appetizer choice, several selections of entrees and dessert. Royal Khyber: South Coast Plaza Village, 1621 W. Sunflower (next to Antonello), Santa Ana, (714) 436-1010. Good Deal One gizmo the husbandry keeps bringing us is legitimate chow at steal basement prices.
Brasserie Pascal at Fashion Island has a three-course French refection for only $18. Pascal Olhats, who also has Traditions by Pascal and Epicerie Pascal in Newport Beach, Pascal at MacArthur Plaza in Santa Ana and a connect of eateries at Sherman Gardens in Corona del Mar, runs this establishment. I have friends who obey repeating this low-cost dining wager since you have enough slack in what you orderliness to hide it interesting. It begins with a superior of four appetizers: onion soup (very legitimate and delicious) or soup of the day, salad or a charger of pates, entrees of steak, energetic seafood or chicken cordon bleu, and a afters of floating ait (my choosing every time), chocolate mousse or creme caramel. Brasserie Pascal: 327 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, (949) 640-2700.
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