The Corner, Huntington Beach, Orange County, CA

 Ah, the moon overhead shown brightly over one of the Orange County's many strip malls as my wife and I exited the car.  It was date night and I was attired in a shirt with actual buttons on it.  My wife, as always, looked beautiful in jeans and black blouse.  We made our way to one of the few non-chain restaurants in Orange County.  A little place hidden in the depths of Huntington Beach that served small portions but with big taste.  We had decided to go out to... The Corner.


Housed in what was once a Chinese Restaurant, if you look up you will see the original red tiling along the ceiling, is a hip retreat from the mainstream.  In a slightly darkened room with no windows, is a series of tables and booths have been placed for maximum comfort and my guess to focus on the main attraction of the restaurant, the food.  The atmosphere was loud but friendly that night.  The waiter just having finished talking to the table over and receiving a few belly laughs.  My wife and I took a seat and only had to raise our voice a few decibles to hear one another.

The wait staff, we had a bearded waiter that could have doubled as an action star, came to our table with a smile and a laugh.  I was already in a good mood when he asked us if we want anything to drink.  As it is date night I break my usual taboo about ordering whiskey with ice and decided on a Whiskey Sour Julep.  My wife ordered a Dark and Stormy, which has rum, lime, and ginger beer, on the rocks.  My wife has a weakness for ginger beer.  Our drinks arrive and we decide to try a couple of meatball sliders while we peruse the menu.  They come out fast and are just as advertised, chunks of meat and cheese on a french roll.  They are also delicious.  We also get some bacon wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese.  They are melt in your mouth good, and I don't even like blue cheese.

Best of all though was one of the special appetizers, poutine.  I don't see it in a lot of places but when I do I almost always order it.  This is usually a concoction of fries, cheese curds, and occasionally something other ingredient, a protein most of the time.  It came out in an oversized bowl and at first I didn't know quite what to do with it, but then I grabbed a potatoe skin, dipped it into the cheese sauce and luxuriated in the taste of pure unhealthy food.

My wife and I finally decided on our "Not Entrees" as the amount of food is not quite an appetizer and not quite an entree.  It is a great amount of food if you are not that hungry, or if you are like us and want to try a bit of everything.  I order the Block Cut New York Steak in a wine sauce reduction.  I'm curious to see if it is as good as the one I make at home.  Usually they are not, but with this place I decide to give them the benefit of the doubt.  My wife ordered the Korean BBQ Chicken.  They make a point of telling you it is "non-traditional" and when you see it you know why.


My wife and I engage in idle chatter as our food is prepared and I decide to get a Dark and Stormy for myself.  I normally don't do drink reviews and I'm not going to start now.  Let me just say if you come to The Corner you have to get one.  A few sips later our food came out.  My steak was cooked perfectly.  Medium Rare as I believe all red meat should be cooked.  The wine reduction was really good but the steak barely edged out something I would have been able to accomplish in my own kitchen.  Still it was tasty enough that I did not need a doggy bag at the end of the meal.  My wife's chicken was a very interesting mesh-mash of flavors.  I liked it.  The chicken was cooked perfectly but the whole lettuce wrap delivery left a bit to be desired by me.  My wife on the other hand really enjoyed it.  I will say that the cilantro-lime emulsion that came with it was so good I would have put it on just about anything.

Overall this place was an amazing find.  And with that... all credit for finding this place goes to my wife, and her monthly AAA Magazine, but Shhhh!  Don't tell anyone, as most of the hip places in Orange Country are quickly changed into chain eateries, or Starbucks.  I think it has something to do with the city charter.  I kid! Check this place out the next time you are in town.  I promise you will not be disappointed.



The Corner
8961 Adams Ave.
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
(714) 968-6800
http://thecornerhb.com/

Gordon Birsch, Mission Valley, San Diego, CA

I am always looking for someplace to take my parents to eat when they come down to San Diego.  The only problem is that while somewhat adventuresome they are somewhat hesitant to go to the many hole in the wall locations I prefer to visit.  It is a bad habit they picked up from going to so many chain restaurants.  While there are a few expensive locals I like to hit every once in a while I wanted something that looked nice but wouldn't break the bank, and most importantly had good food, but wasn't part of some gigantic chain.  After consulting with my wife, a native of San Diego, she finally mentioned a placed that I'd been thinking about going, and then she sealed the deal by saying, "... and they have great garlic fries."

Gordon Biersch is a great big brewery/restaurant located in Mission Valley.  While it is a chain, it is not a big chain with only five in California so far and a few scattered throughout a couple of other states, and the menu looked pretty good.  Upon walking up to it I was a bit worried I was walking into a TGIF, but once you enter the double doors at the front you get more of a low key sports bar feel to it.  No obvious flare on the walls, and the front of house is friendly and respectful.  After we had been led to our seat I took a look at the menu, and was unsurprised to see a fair amount of bar fare.  There were the obligatory sliders, egg roles, and wings you'll find at any restaurant, and further down a variety of burgers, tacos, pizza... actually you name it they probably had it, and of course beer.  My usual feeling when seeing so many different things on a menu is that when a restaurant has a lot of different items on it they don't have the time or expertise to do any one of them well.  Still I have been proved wrong in the past, and as I said there was beer.

After perusing the menu my wife surprised me by not ordering a burger, instead she got the California Cobb Flatbread, and I ordered a New York Steak Sandwich with garlic fries.  Then I did something else totally out of character for me.  I ordered a beer.  This is not to say I don't like beer.  After being in San Diego for so long it is hard not to have formed an appreciation for the cold sudsy drink produced in large quantities in this area.  It was just not something I did very often.  The reason being that I am, as my wife puts it, a light weight when it comes to alcohol.  Still there are certain occasions when the taste of a nice cold beer is not just wanted but needed, and as this was a brewery I thought I would give it a try.  My wife and I each ordered a Hefenweizen, which was delivered shortly to us from the bar.

Now unlike food, which I tend to, and will below, examine in detail due to having tasted and examined a wide range of flavors and styles, beer is probably one of the things I know little to nothing about, but I know what I like, and I really liked this beer.  For those of you that know even less about beer than me, a Hefenweizen tends to be one of the slightly lighter fruitier beers, or as the menu states it had, "...subtle notes of banana and clove."  All I know is that it is the type of beer I prefer, and in this instance it was delicious.  Now, if this was due to the workout I'd just finished, or the warmness of the day I can't say.  All I know is I liked it a lot, enough to go back and have another, but on to the food.

After I'd drunk enough to become slightly inebriated, about fifteen minutes or so, the food came out, and on first seeing it there was certainly a great deal there.  I'm used to getting maybe half of a steak when I order a steak sandwich but this time they sent out what looked like an entire steak.  With relish I took my first bite and was surprised to taste they had not seasoned the steak, not even a little.  On occasion I will come across a steak that doesn't need any seasoning, a good rib-eye perhaps, but this was not one of them.  I won't say the steak was bad.  It came out medium-rare, cooked pretty much exactly how I like it, but out side of a hint of salt and pepper it tasted like a big piece of meat.  The fried onion string, garlic aioli (of which I barely tasted), and spinach (which I now love on a my burger/sandwiches) helped, but just enough to make it taste good, not amazing.  The dish though was saved by the garlic fries, which by some miracle had, just the right amount of garlic on them.  When I say just the right amount I mean a little more than a normal person would enjoy, as I really really like garlic.

Looking over to my wife's flatbread I saw that the grilled chicken, bacon, avocado, tomatoes, cheddar, blue cheese, and baby green looked a little lacking.  Still after point behind her and saying "Hey is that your cousin?", I stole a piece of piece of it for testing purposes.  After a deft smile of contrition I had a bite, and tasted something leaning towards healthy.  It wasn't a bad flatbread, and here I am doing my best not to add the word pizza as it does not apply in the least to this dish, but it was hard to find a bite that had all the ingredients in enough abundance to really add flavor to the bread.  Oh, the bread was pretty good, but it looked like the chef did not bother to throw on enough to really make it great.  Still I finished off the piece and then proceeded to drink more amazing beer, which in the end made the meal pretty good, especially as I had a gigantic piece of steak to get though.

Okay, maybe not the best meal in the world, but I will say that the service was phenomenal, and again the beer was amazing.  For the beer alone I'll go back there to try something different, hoping that the unseasoned steak was just a mistake done during a slow lunch, and at the very least I now have another place I can take my parents.  Gordon Biersch is just entertaining different enough to fall outside the trappings of a chained restaurant, and just clean and well lit enough to be suitable for the less adventurous of my family.  Until then, cheers, and I'll have another beer.

Gordon Biersch
5010 Mission Center Rd.
San Diego, CA 92108
(619) 688-1120
http://www.gordonbiersch.com/locations/san-diego-ca

Fig Tree Cafe, Hillcrest, San Diego, CA

I've visited the Fig Tree Cafe in Pacific Beach a few times, and providing I get there early enough, have found it to provide a wonderfully pleasant breakfast in a beautiful surrounding with an attentive and interesting wait staff, but one of it's downfalls is that it does not provide dinner. Then along came their new location in Hillcrest. Despite Hillcrest and their reputation for going through restaurants like the mother of the bride at a wedding through tissues I waited a few weeks to check out the new Fig Tree. Finally, one quiet Saturday night I made my way back to my old stomping grounds and sat down with my fiancé for what seemed like a much hipper, trendier version of what I grown used to in Pacific Beach.

First off I should note that there is no comparing the two. They are like apples and oranges, at least in appearance. Where the Fig Tree in Pacific Beach is a laid back hippy commune filled with free spirits, the Fig Tree feels more like a well dressed if laid back hangout for hip and happy folk to chill. Where the PB Fig Tree is open and green, the Hillcrest Fig Tree is a bit darker and heavier. Strangely enough I like both atmospheres. It is all dependent on my mood, but as always the most important thing is the food.

My fiancé and I walked into what appeared to be a cross between a wine bar and the innards of a oak barrel and were seated within seconds. The host was perhaps one of the most professional yet likable people I'll ever come across, but more on that later. Our waitress took a few minutes to get to us but after she did she fell into the rhythm of all professional waitresses seeming to know the exact moments to stop and check up on us, and when to leave us to our conversation. The drinks were good, my fiance got a glass of pear cider, and I stuck with iced tea, as I didn't want anything distracting me from the food before me.

We started off with a bite, which is a bit of house baked bread and our choice of two spreads. My fiancé went with sun dried tomatoes and Gorgonzola mousse, which also comes with a sprinkling of walnut in it. I ordered the fresh chili roasted garlic spread. The bread came out in two types: flat bread, which left a little to be desired, and a few cuts from a small loaf, which I rather enjoyed. I knew that I had to try both of the spreads so I started with the sun dried tomatoes first, just to get it out of the way as I have no love for sun dried tomatoes in any venue from sandwich to appetizer. It had an odd taste that I couldn't quite place, but it wasn't bad. Then I tried the chili roasted garlic, and was stunned. I won't go so far to say it tasted bad, but there was almost no taste of garlic in it, not even an after taste, and when I hear the word chili I expect a bit of bite to something, in this nadda. I switched back to the sun dried tomatoes to finish off the rest of the bites, slowly growing to appreciate the taste of the spread, especially the balance of consistency between the smoothed moose and the bits of walnut. Bemused by first part of the meal I moved on to the next.

My fiancé and I decided to order the special, not because the rest of the menu didn't look good. I'm pretty positive the short ribs would have been amazing judging by the description alone, then again I though the same thing about the chili roasted garlic spread. The specials just sounded too good to pass up. I ordered salmon sauteed with mussels, and shrimp served in a light chipotle, cilantro-tomato sauce. My fiancé went with the grilled flat iron steak over roasted garlic mash and sauteed veggies finished in a Bordelaise sauce(a sauce made of red wine, bone marrow, shallots, butter).

My first bite had a hint of fish in it, which I know is what I ordered but I don't like to be reminded of that in the first bite. Moving forward though each piece of my meal was cooked perfectly. The fish was tender, the mussels showed no hint of rubber, and the shrimp brought a smile to my face. The sauce, which I will admit probably got me to buy it in the first place as I have a weakness for anything chipotle, was just incredible. After a few more bites the fishy taste disappeared to be overtaken by the amazing combination and a superior sauce. By the end of my meal I was beaming, my fiance not so much.

This was one of the few times that I'd chosen the better dish, mostly because she doesn't particularly like the taste of fish, but I'll take what I can get. Her steak was cooked medium, but was still succulent enough to satisfy me, but it tasted like steak. There was nothing to enrich the flavor, not even the Bordelaise sauce which sadly enough was not that great. Now I'm not saying I wanted to pour A-1 all over it, the steak by itself tasted good, but the sauce failed to carry it up to the level of greatness, which was a crime in this particular dish as the steak itself had no other flavors to enhance it. Thankfully the sauteed veggies and garlic mash were delicious. I am not usually such a food snob, ignore the self applied Foodie title, but I swear I could taste the healthy local and fresh taste in those vegetables. Almost good enough to be served on its own, almost.

We paid our bill, made our way out the front door, but not before the host from earlier first asked me how I liked the food, and actually seemed to want to hear my answer. A nice personal touch that improved the evening for both my fiancé and myself, then he was gracious enough to snap a picture of us in the restaurant. Yeah, I can definitely see myself coming back, if only to try the short ribs, and a real appetizer, and enjoy the hip atmosphere where even I felt welcomed.

The Fig Tree Cafe in Hillcrest
416 University Ave.
Hillcrest, CA 92103
619-298-2010

http://www.figtreecafehillcrest.com/

Gulf Coast Grill, San Diego, CA

The Place, Gulf Coast Grill. The time, Friday night, date night. It was go time. In an (continual) effort to keep my relationship fresh and fun, I grabbed the nearest Groupon for this little place off Park a mile or two north of Balboa. Despite getting out of work early, I was pretty much exhausted so I didn't quite dress to the nines, more around the sixes, seven and a half tops. My girlfriend, as usual looked much nicer than me, and with a nod and smile I went outside and knocked on the front door. Date night had begun.

I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of taking a lady out to a classy joint and wooing her back to your place. Well this was similar, only my place was her place, and the lady in question had already been wooed. Still sometimes it pays to liven up a relationship, so I'd thought I'd give it another go. After all, what's the worse that could happen? At this point I had already fallen asleep on the couch once or twice, and both times had been watching a movie.

Keeping in the tradition of returning to old haunts I decided to go back to the Gulf Coast Grill, not our first date, technically I cooked for her on that on one, and technically not the most romantic, that would be Buon Appetito in Little Italy for her birthday. No, this was simply a place that we had gone to before, and that the food had been better than average, at least for me. The first time we'd gone there had been because she'd overheard me going on and on about how I loved Cajun food, and that had coincided with a conveniently advertised Groupon. Actually I loved any spicy, flavorful food that was often a concoction of seemingly random things thrown together for taste. As long as the gumbo is flavorful and the jambalaya has got a kick, I will probably enjoy it. Still I'd missed out on a family trip to New Orleans, and have never had the real thing. Hey, someone had to take care of the dog! So when reading this review keep in mind I am making no claim that this place is the best thing outside of the bayou. I can't say that, all I can say is that it is good, really good.

We showed up at the restaurant ten minutes later than I'd made the reservation for, but they still had a table waiting for me. A nice little wooden table, with very strait backed chairs in the corner, affording a decent view of Park street. The place was packed. Three or four people at the bar, watching "the game", and almost every table, inside and out had a couple or group at it. Everyone of them looking happy, which I took for a good omen. Our waiter showed up in almost no time, and my girlfriend ordered a cocktail, something with the words Cajun or Bayou. I ordered some ice tea and a water and perused the menu, even though I already knew what I was going to order, the Cajun Combo with jambalaya, seafood gumbo, and hushpuppies. My girlfriend pondered a couple of low priced choices until I reminded her that I had a Groupon for the place, then she ordered the second most expensive item on the menu, the Blackened New York Strip Steak. I made my order and passed the time asking first date questions that I already knew the answer to. Still she found it funny so I didn't feel like a complete idiot doing it.

Thankfully I also ordered some Gulf Coast Chowder, which came almost immediately. The Gulf Coast Chowder had clams, potatoes, bacon, tomatoes, and cream, so it was basically a New England Clam Chowder, but with more kick. I think it was that extra bit of Cajun spice that pushed it beyond your average chowder. Each bite had a hint of fire that not even the addition of hot sauce or "exciter" as my girlfriends father would say, could have added. Finally I wiped up the last bits of chowder with a bit of sourdough and leaned back contently. I wouldn't have long to wait though as our entrees came out soon after that.

I'd had the Cajun Combo before, but the hushpuppies had been a bit dry that time. This time everything was perfect. The jambalaya had shrimp, spicy andouille sausage (so andouille sausage), smoked chicken, and a crawfish on top. My first bite reminded me of why I'd liked it so much last time. The shrimp is cooked perfectly, something I am a bit particular about. The andouille sausage had just the right amount of kick. The smoked chicken, my God, it brought me back to the first time I'd eaten there and I remembered just how much a perfectly cooked and seasoned piece of chicken can taste. The rice was just right, not too mushy and not too dry. The crawfish, which daunts most eaters of Cajun cuisine, sat atop it, staring at me with its black soulless eyes. I paused half a second and then remembered my aunt teaching me to eat crawfish at a Mexican place (don't know why they had it there, but it wasn't bad). I separated the tail from the head with a twist and dined upon the somewhat spicy and salty meat within. Next I ate the gumbo, with more shrimp, scallops, fish (my guess was chunks of salmon), and a variety of other sea food, in a heavenly brownish fish broth. In between I would take a bite of the hushpuppies, with a somewhat spicy sauce, chipotle-related I'm guessing, dribbled on them. They were great, which was a surprise as I usually am not a big fan of said puppies, usually finding them too dry. This time they were perfectly cooked.

Not to be outdone I had a bite of my girlfriend's dish. The New York steak was cooked a little more than I usually like, but my girlfriend prefers her steaks medium. Despite that it was great. Especially the blue cheese chipotle cream sauce. Though I must admit it was a bit more chipotle than blue cheese, the combination brought out an amazing flavor in the meat. The veggies and mashed potatoes were a nice addition, but nothing to write home about.

Filled to the brim with great tasting Cajun food, we exited the Gulf Coast Grill. Dinner was followed by a movie, and... well the rest is none of your business.

Gulf Coast Grill
4130 Park Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92103
(619) 295-2244
http://www.gulfcoastgrill.com/