Quick Weekend Getaway: Part 2

After picking me up from the San Juan Capistrano station, my friend Janet (we have known each other since we were 8 years old) took me to her gated apartment community in Dana Point. Is it me, or is the entire O.C. area gated communities? The interesting thing is that there's really no danger in these areas in the first place; everything is super clean and new and yuppie-centric. So why the need for all those gates?

Maybe to keep crazy dogs like Sassy away from the world at large. Just kidding. Sassy is Janet's Shih Tzu, and she's really cute and sweet, but hyper as the day is long. We decided to go on a walk down to the beach, but left Sassy behind as apparently she was too tired and would need to be carried half the way.

Sassy stays at home

The cool thing about Janet's gated community is that there is a path that leads down to the Dana Point coastline. It was a cold and foggy day, but the beach and hillsides are still breathtakingly beautiful, and it was a really nice walk. We passed both the St. Regis hotel and the Ritz Carlton on our way down the ocean. Of course our biggest motivation for taking the walk was to prep for our fabulous dinner later. After about 3 miles of walking, we felt like we had created enough of a calorie deficit to head back to the apartment and get ready for a fun night on the town in Laguna Beach.

Dana Point beach

Thanks to some Chowhound recommendations, we chose 230 Forest Avenue restaurant. The place was packed, and we had to wait a while to be seated in spite of reservations, but we were also running a bit late thanks to a very slow cab driver. We sat at the bar and ordered two glasses of Hess Select Cab Sav, one of my favorite wines, and within 10 minutes were escorted to our table.

Warm bread in a bag - yum

The bread, hot and fresh, came in a paper bag and was served with a side of olive butter. Now usually I don't like olives, but the butter was actually quite good. And the bread was crusty on the outside, and nice flaky, buttery wonder on the inside.

We started with two appetizers: the roasted beet salad with hazelnut crusted goat cheese and shallot vinaigrette, and the prosciutto wrapped shrimp with mozzarella, herb pesto and young basil. The roasted beets could have been cooked a little longer, but overall the dish was very good - especially the goat cheese. And the shrimp dish was perfect and an interesting combination of flavors. The fresh mozzarella was a nice contrast to the tangy pesto and salty prosciutto. A winning combo.

Beets and goat cheese

Wonderful shrimp with pesto

The service at 230 Forest was spot-on and they clearly know how to handle their stuff even on the busiest of nights. We had both forgotten it was St. Patrick's Day, so downtown Laguna Beach was rampant with rabid drunken types, all hungry for a good meal. Our waitress was friendly and attentive, and she kept a watchful eye without hovering or getting in the way.

For dinner, Janet ordered the wild King salmon in a saffron and tomato broth. She gave it a thumbs-up and said it tasted good. The presentation was nice and it looked appetizing, though for some reason I didn't take a bite - think I just plumb forgot!

Salmon, served in a heart bowl.

I opted for the seared Ahi tuna with lobster mashed potatoes and edamame. The tuna was crusted with black and white sesame seeds, which was good but I think they overdid it with the sesame. I can understand the use of this nutty seed to balance a fishy fish, like mackerel, but with fish as neutral as Ahi, I don't really get the purpose. All you taste is sesame seeds. However, the fish was fresh and perfectly cooked. The accompaniment of lobster mashed potatoes was something that seems like a good idea, in theory, but it just doesn't work. I love lobster, and I love mashed pots, but together, it was like a fishy blob of paste. I don't think fish or shellfish really works as an ingredient in mashed potatoes. I think a jalapeno mash or a saffron mash would have worked better with this.

Tuna and fishy mashed pots!

The edamame was good, and the sauce was nice as well. I liked but didn't love, sigh. But stay tuned for Part 3, as a little French brunch place saves the weekend with some delectable mid-morning fare.

Review: Engine Co. 28

Working in downtown LA, there are many choices for food when it comes to eating out for lunch. Since our company has only been in the area for about three months, we're still eating our way through the hundreds of options available to us.

For the most part, I bring my lunch, but we recently hired a new employee and decided to take her out for a "welcome to the team" meal. I chose Engine Co. 28, because none of us had ever tried it and I'd heard mainly good things about this comfort-food hangout.

The first thing I noticed was how nice the atmosphere was: High ceilings, comfy booths and chairs, a little fancy but not over-the-top. We were seated promptly (I made reservations through Open Table) to a nice table toward the back of the house. The hostess wished us well in our lunch endeavor, and we had good expectations for this new-to-us resto.

The bread cylinder

The bread "basket" was more like a cylinder, with one medium-sized baguette tucked inside. The bread was warm, and crusty in and chewy in all the right places. However, I think it's a bit odd to serve it like this...it forces people to take the whole baguette in their hand and rip pieces off for themselves. Luckily none of us are germaphobes, but I still found it a bit unsettling. Either serve the baguette sliced or serve a bread basket with rolls, I say.

I started with the beef carpaccio, which is one of my favorite dishes. According to the menu, it would be served with a "truffle oil-creole mustard sauce." What I got didn't fit the description. The beef itself was okay, though it was clearly frozen at one point as it tasted a bit, well, waterlogged. And the sauce was more like plain mayonnaise, which I'm not really a fan of. There was no hint of mustard or truffle in this eggy, white sauce, and there was way too much of it on the beef. The Parmesan came in thick shards, not thin shavings like I expected. The combo of the cheese and the mayo-like sauce was utterly inedible; my first bite tasted like Parmesan-flavored wax with salty cream and almost creamy beef. Blech. I scraped off all the toppings and managed to eat most of the beef, but not happily.

Carpaccio disaster

For my meal, I ordered the Grilled Ahi Tuna Salad. I got about four, finger-sized slices of tuna, which had way too many sesame seeds and peppercorns on the crust. I've never understood why restaurants coat fish with broken pieces of peppercorns - you get a shock with every bite, and you'll be picking flecks of peppercorn out of your teeth for years after. The greens were fine and well dressed in balsamic, but I was very disappointed with the dish overall. The fried ginger that came on top tasted more like ginger candy. Not a great addition.

My coworker Joey ordered the Braised Lamb Shank with parpadelle noodles. It was a huge portion, and looked quite tasty. Joey liked his dish a lot, and gave it a 7 out of 10. I had a bite of the lamb, which was tender and lovely, though I did have to cut a huge piece of fat off of my bite before eating.

Meat and bones...yum

Lily opted for the Rigatoni with grilled chicken, peppers and cream. She also gave hers a 7 out of 10, noting that there was way more chicken than pasta (strange since it's a pasta dish). She said she wished there was more carby pasta goodness, but otherwise liked her choice.

Creamy chicken rigatoni

I think the lesson learned is that, if you're going to go to a comfort food restaurant, stick to the comfort food. Clearly they do the cream sauces and braised meats and home-cooking stuff decently while they cut corners on the healthier options. That said, I probably wouldn't go back because I rarely feel like loading up on such heavy food at lunch, but that's just me. If mac & cheese is your thang, then you'll probably like Engine Co. 28.