savvysearch

You ARE crazy. Charlie Trotter?! If he snubs LA and SF for OC, I'd say the orange curtain has finally arrived. I wonder how Leatherby's compares with Patina at the Disney Hall. I'd imagine it's the same type of atmosphere considering downtown LA is a ghost-town for diners.

Leatherby's is in the new Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa. I don't know where I got Leatherby Lounge Cafe, but it's correct name is Leatherby's Cafe Rouge. I read Virbila's review about Marche Moderne and I'm happy to say she was very enthusiastic with her words calling it "probably the best bistro in Southern California" and "some of the best bistro cooking this side of the capital." I thought Troquet, the previous tenant, had incredible bistro cooking in it's first few years before their eventual downhill slide. I should specify that the French 75 location I ate at was in Irvine, and not the one in Laguna which I've never tried.

I respectfully disagree. French 75, atleast in my circle, is at the lowest rung in OC dining. I can mention 5 chain restaurants that are cheaper and are superior. And to whoever recommended French 75 as being OC's best offer to you, I'd suggest you never take food recommendations from him/her again. For french fine dining, there's Pinot Provence, Studio, Stonehill, and if the egullet recs are reliable then Leatherby Lounge Cafe and Marche Moderne are also on that level. No one is saying OC is the birthplace of Ferran Adria. But, that's a pretty respectable list, definitely NOT a selection to be ashamed of. I think a city that is NOT San Francisco would still kill to have this selection.

I think that there are so many good restaurants in Orange County that have popped up over the past couple of years. The dining scene here is better than it has ever been. Stonehill has the hype, but I think Pinot Provence is very consistent and reliable. Apparently, their old chef, Florent Marneau, who got lots of praise moved to South Coast Plaza and took over the Troquet space, now called Marche Moderne. The new restaurant over at the Segerstrom Hall received excellent reviews in the LA Times and it seemed to rank it as highly as Stonehill. I just went to Pinot Provence yesterday. The new chef is Nicholas Weber and the food is excellent. The service is spotty and the menu isn't exactly unique but the food is solid. The service was pretty spotty: things like not replacing the forks, having to tell the waiter who brought the food out who ordered what. So I'd be surprised if it got a michelin star. I took the patio setting, so maybe the service is lax for people who dine outdoors? I don't know. The patio music was Snow Patrol. . I wonder if they played that inside. Biggest complaints were the desserts. Creme brulee, although very good, is still creme brulee. And then they offered grand marnier souffle and angel food cake with strawberries. Reliable but boring choices.

That's so strange that he's just says "No" without offering any remedy to the situation. If I was pissed enough, I'd write an email.

An hour and a half.

Good for him. There is no arguably no food writer in LA with greater influence over the LA foodie masses.

I don't know if I am supposed to like this, but I dislike peanut butter and wheat bread.

Cereal. The most bizarre food ever.

I would take a whole cow with me.

I'm a supertaster, but I prefer bitter foods and tend to eat foods most people find disgusting. I also like bitter chocolate over milk chocolate, spinach over lettuce and I love cilantro. And I don't like that some parents use supertasting ability as an excuse to allow their kids free rein over what they eat.

In defense of OC thai, MOST of this country is a wasteland when searching for good thai, simply for the fact that there exists so few decent thai restaurants. The fact that we have one reliable and even famous restaurant in Thai Nakorn is a blessing. The whole cuisine is a constant dissapointment. Almost any other cuisine, if you sample long enough, you'll find a couple of reliable restaurants. But for whatever reason, finding a good thai restaurants is like finding a winning lottery ticket. It's so elusive just to find one restaurant that doesn't indulge their dishes with sugar. I don't care if there is a large thai population. I am convinced that this cuisine has a lower frequency of decent restaurants than almost any other cuisines.

eeddit

I can see your point, but I was thinking more in terms of quality of the menu, where its better to concentrate on a limited number of good dishes rather than a longer list of mediocre dishes. This way, a customer is less likely going to encounter a mediocre dish if the restaurant edits down its choices. I think I read in some of your older threads that you used to work in a Chinese restaurant. You should join us in this thread, and offer us some of your insights: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=98909 ← With such a long list, it should be mediocre, but what makes this restaurant so fantastic is that with such a range, they can still deliver on most of what's on their list. If they have a bad dish, I've been lucky that I haven't found it yet.

That brioche looks wonderful! This is my mushroom/spinach quiche combination. I lined the springform pan with foil as you can see. Last time was almost a disaster with all the leakage.

Look up some community colleges in OC. They tend to have basic cooking classes.

Pizza Pasta Hamburger Fried Chicken Lasagna

I think a better candidate would probably be the chicken. Meat gets a bad rap. The vegetables may have been the culprit. Everyone always underestimates the vegetables.

I was also reminded of the Seinfeld episode. She enjoyed it, which makes no sense since it was a cake made from 1937.

Not hours in advance, but an hour and half. Everyone requested medium-rare which made my job so much easier.

Not planning to do anything with the pan juices. I'm just using a garlic herb butter that I previously used on snails. So I guess broiling is out. Can I start a new debate? pan fry vs. sear+oven. which is better?

I must cook about 5 steaks (filet mignon) this weekend. What I plan to do is pan-sear it for about a minute each side and then in the broiler for about 4 minutes each side. Can I have some opinions on the differences between finishing it off in the oven vs. broiler? Also, my biggest constraint is that I have only 1 cast iron frying pan.

Didn't know this was a common problem. Thought it was just me. I used a turkey baster to refill the pan with the leaked out filling. It was awful. Eventually, the leakage starts to coagulate outside of the pan so that it insulated it from leaking further. Another problem was that the dough had shrunk away from the sides, so the leakage was also outside of the crust as well. Next time, I'm just going to use store bought puff pastry. I really suck at dough.

Great pictures. Is this across from China Garden?

This is really an amazing restaurant. The menu is so extensive, yet everything that I tried was top notch the last time I was there. It's too bad OC doesn't have a vocal food culture because this restaurant needs to be championed.