The Seafood Shack, Westminster, CA

 

 

OMG. Oysters. Need I say more? It’s been a really long time since I’ve had oysters as fresh as these at The Seafood Shack. It’s funny. I’ve always been scared of eating anything raw, like these oysters and even sushi. Until one day I just closed my eyes and devoured them like it’s my last day on earth so I don’t care whether I live or die. 😛 And sometimes, that’s the only way to go when trying out food you’ve never had before. I felt that way with oysters. I remember my friends telling me, “just put it in your mouth.” The tabasco sauce and lemon certainly helped. A LOT.

I didn’t realize they had so many types of oysters – blue point, gold band, carlsbad, kumamoto. I was confused. I told them just bring the biggest one, which is the blue point oysters. They weren’t as big as I expected, though, but fresh nevertheless.

I really wanted crab but they didn’t have any due to high prices. So with our big group, we went for the special of the week – a $65.99 bucket that includes 2lbs crawfish, 2lbs clams, 2lbs shrimp, 1 whole lobster, 2 corns, 2 sausages, 2 potatoes, with the “everything” flavors – butter, garlic, lemon, and other cajun spices. There’s a ton of garlic pieces in the pot so if you love garlic like me, you’re in taste heaven. I would say this is probably as good as Boiling Crab, if not better.

The service here is, however, a thousand times better than Boiling Crab’s. Our waiter at Seafood Shack is super bubbly and tells us jokes and takes care of us really well. She and other waiters would come around often to see if we need anything else, and then offer to bring us an extra bucket to make it easier to share among the group. Very considerate.

The place is small. It looks like a shack from the outside, hidden in the corner so it’s hard to find. But it’s nicer on the inside, with TV screens showing sports games. The wait is not as horrible as Boiling Crab’s. I called ahead to make sure we have a table for our group, and even then they said it would take 15-30 minutes. I know they tried to accommodate us the best they could even if it’s clearly implied they don’t really take reservations. But a 35-minute wait wasn’t bad and totally worth it because the food is excellent. It sure beats Boiling Crab’s 1.5 hour wait. Sorry if I keep bagging on BC but beside the good food, there’s nothing positive about them to rave about.

The Seafood Shack
7681 Westminster Blvd
Westminster, CA 92683
(714) 899-6100

 

Brodard Chateau, Garden Grove, CA

 

 

My parents love Vietnamese food, and as you know, there aren’t a lot of “fine dining” Vietnamese restaurants out there to go for a special occasion. Well, I suppose there’s S Vietnamese Fine Dining restaurant next to Westminster Mall. But the thing is, Vietnamese food is delicious yet simple; so to make it fancy is kinda like “Americanizing” it a little. True authentic Vietnamese food should be eaten at restaurants like My Vi Mi Gia, Hau Giang, or Pho places. But I can’t take my parents out to a hole-in-a-wall for Father’s Day so we all decided to go to Brodard Chateau, a more upscale Vietnamese fine dining restaurant in Garden Grove.

Brodard Chateau has the kind of service you’d get at 5-star restaurants. Maybe not as professional and well-trained, but it’s quite up there, with hosts leading you to your table (something you rarely get at typical Asian restaurants), waiters in uniform, bringing you water while you skim the menu, etc. Its interior design is modern and trendy looking and it is, of course, very clean, which is very important to us.

Brodard is known for their spring rolls – pork and shrimp paste rolled in rice paper with veggies. They have another restaurant a few miles away and the rolls are much cheaper there. Adding in the word “Chateau” at a second location means adding a few more bucks to the menu items.

Since my mom is a full-on vegetarian, we ordered veggie spring rolls for her, which consisted of soy paste, cucumber and asparagus. They were nicely cut in these cute little pieces like sushi.

She also had vegetarian banh khot, or tiny pancakes shaped like cupcakes, fried till golden brown on the outside but soft on the inside topped with soy shrimp. They weren’t as crispy as my mom would’ve liked. (Hmm I should try real banh khot one of these days. :))

My stuffed clams appetizer was interesting. Clams were mixed with ground pork, mushrooms, and tiny glass noodles, then baked on a big clam shell. Served with sweet spicy fish sauce.

Another dish we had was pan fried rice noodle topped with seafood and veggies. It seems this is all we order as this wasn’t our first time dining here. The trick is to keep the rice noodle crispy but it’s tough because of all the drizzled sauce on it. So you have to eat it almost immediately before it gets soggy. Overall, the dish was decent.

Since it was Father’s Day, the restaurant was a bit busy so we had to wait a while for our waiter to come out to bring us water and take our order. It was so busy they couldn’t let us keep the menu AND our waiter came around and asked if she could take an empty chair from our table. Yeahhh…

Brodard Chateau
9100 Trask Ave.
Garden Grove, CA 92844
(714) 899-8273

 

Bistango, Irvine, CA

 

My girlfriend and I have been planing our dinner at Bistango for over a month now. She’s been wanting to try this place and, a million texts later, we finally got together to enjoy a fine dining girls night. 🙂

This is a fancy fine dining American restaurant so upon walking in, you’d feel like someone should offer to take off your coat and walk you to your table. The restaurant is tucked away inside a corporate building so you can imagine this is probably the place where rich folks working there would come down here for expensive lunches.

I love restaurants that give you bread, and this place has excellent bread – hot and crunchy served with butter. I’m the type that tears off the crunchy edge and throws away the soft part. All my friends would know this. 🙂

Anyway, on to the food…

I was deciding between a filet mignon or something fish, but I was more leaning towards the Chilean seabass since I haven’t had that in forever. And I was not disappointed. It was cooked just right, with the meat firm and stringy, rather than soft and mushy which would totally ruin it for me. The taste is sweet and lightly salted, and goes well with the sweet brown sauce. After the last piece I didn’t feel stuffed as I would’ve had I had a steak.

My friend tried the mahi mahi and it was decadent. Her dish came with mushrooms, garlic, and some decorative veggies. We shared some pieces of our fish to try out and we were both very pleased.

I love garlic fries and I guess $6 is not such a bad price for a place like this. As you can see from the receipt, our meal was quite hefty. It could be worse, though. Other fancy places I’ve eaten, the dishes could be well up to $50 each. This isn’t the kind of meal you’d be able to enjoy regularly. But it was a fun night for us regardless. 🙂

 

S Vietnamese Fine Dining, Westminster, CA

$30 Vietnamese food plate?! I am soo there!

OK if you didn’t get my sarcasm…well, it was. 😛

Took my mom (and dad) here for Mother’s Day. Upon entering, there was no one at the front desk to greet us. One of the servers saw me but didn’t make an effort to get someone to come out? Hmph. Took them a few minutes for someone to come and greet. But…no biggie. Finally got a server girl who seated us and gave us 2 red roses for Mother’s Day! How sweet is that! I assumed 1 for my mom and 1 for me because I’m going to be mom someday? Sorry Dad! Haha.

We were then served with a complimentary crispy cake (banh trang) with this yummy sweet sauce. The nice presentation made the cake even more delicious than it really is.

They don’t have a huge menu or anything, just a few courses priced from $25 and up. I know, too expensive for Vietnamese food. But think about how you are really paying for the peacefully classy decor and ambiance, the “Americanized” service (unlike ghetto Asian places where they basically just slap dishes down in front of you), and chefs who probably did go to a culinary arts school.

So here’s what we ate:

Chilean seabass (top left), scallop with ginger and curry sauce (bottom), and noodle scampi (top right). All delicious. The scallop was unfortunately a bit salty, however. I’d recommend the other 2.

Bottom line: this isn’t a place where you’d go regularly, but perfect for special occasions when you feel it’s worth it to burn your wallets. 🙂

The Cellar, Fullerton, CA

I like the candle-lit ambience. Very quiet, romantic, and has an upscale feel. Definitely suitable for a special romantic date 🙂

Now, on to the food.

New York Steak (top left). Cooked well. Not overly salty or dry. Highly recommend.

Swordfish (top right). Delicious, but didn’t care for the bed of rice it laid on. The rice had a weird texture I didn’t like. The orangey sauce was excellent, though. Recommend.

Sea Scallop Appetizer (middle). Very delicious and loved those little crispy onion things topped with a sweet tangy sauce; but way too small. One bite and you’re done. Seriously. I want more!

Chocolate Souffle dessert (bottom right). Nice and hot and moist, but I don’t see what the big deal is. Not a big fan.

I dig the butter (bottom left) that looks like a rose. Simple pleasures 😉

Service is superb. Waiters are very nice, friendly and attentive.

The ONLY thing I did not like about this place is they served sparkling water without asking what you’d prefer. So they charged us nearly $7 for all those “sparkling” waters they filled up. I personally just prefer regular water which is better than that “sparkly” taste. One word of advice, if you don’t want to pay $7 for water, make sure you tell your waiter to bring you regular water before they start pouring away. I would come back but only for super special occasions since it’s pretty pricey.

Gordon Ramsay at The London, West Hollywood, CA

Well, if hell had a kitchen that makes food as good as Gordon Ramsay’s West Hollywood restaurant, then send me there anyday! Just hold the burning fire please.

This is definitely not one of those places you’d want to frequent and gorge yourself out, unless you want to drop $50 on a portion as big as your thumb and then go find the nearest In-N-Out Burger immediately afterwards.

My friends and I only came here during the DineLA event, $45 a person that includes appetizer, entree, and dessert. I was warned that it’s all about quality and not quanity here so I expected baby portions. But if you can look past the tiny portions on your plate (like, OK, really, WHERE’s the food?), then pretty much everything is delicious.

Stepping into The London hotel already makes you feel 5-star. We were all dressed up, too, so it made us feel…what’s the Hollywood word for it..oh yeah, “fabulous”. (Gosh how I hate that word.)

So here’s the stuff we ordered from the DineLA Menu:

Grilled kingfish sashimi, sautéed foie gras, sake soy dressing (top left). Very thin slices of marinated sashimi, along with interesting choices of veggies. Not too crazy about the surprisingly messy presentation.

Marrow and herb-crusted petit filet mignon, glazed root vegetables and tarragon sauce (top middle). Petite indeed! You can down the whole thing in 2 cuts I’ll bet. The meat was nicely glazed and cooked to perfection.

Braised pork belly tostada, pickled onions, avocado, shishito peppers (top right.) I like the interesting artistic layout, with the green swipe. I’m guessing it’s a cilantro sauce. The pork belly itself is sweet and tasty, if you can get past the fact that you’re eating pure pig fat. LOL!

Short rib risotto, mascarpone and parmesan cheese (bottom left). Stardard presentation, but the meat was cooked to medium as requested, so it was as moist as it gets and goes well with the sauce.

Desserts were not too shabby either. We were given choices of chocolate hazelnut crunch, salted caramel (bottom middle) or fruit tart with vanilla custard, raspberry sauce (bottom right). I LOVED the hazelnut, crunchy sweetness topped with ice cream!? What not to love? The fruit tart was OK good, not jumping-out-of-my-seat delicious or anything. I just like the cute little raspery dots making it fun to look at.

I’ve never been to a restaurant where I’m still slightly hungry AFTER all THREE courses. Haha. I don’t know how rich people do it, if this is their lifestyle. Spending lots of money eating practically nothing. But I guess that’s how they keep their figure.