Charlie Palmer in OC

[Swicks]

In another thread SiseFromm mentioned that Charlie Palmer was bringing his act to Orange County. I did a bit of digging and found this blurb, courtesy of EaterLA:

"Skipping LA all together, celebrity chef Charlie Palmer chose the new Bloomingdale's at South Coast Plaza for his new restaurant and wine store. Bloomies opens in May, but the restaurant opens this fall."

Should be interesting.

[SiseFromm]

There you have it!

Speaking of wine stores, it should be noted that Robert Whitesall of Picnic's Deli in Costa Mesa on 17th Street just acquired his license to sell wine & beer. Robert is barely marking wines up and offers a lot of interesting, hand-chosen wines from California, Italy, and France. Additionally, in the old Village Bakery location at The Camp off Bristol, Old Vine Café should be opening within the next couple of months. I believe it's a small cafe-style eatery with a specialization in wine/cheese/charcuterie. Should be interesting.

[Swicks]

Charlie Palmer's new venture in Orange County opens 5/30 according to a blurb in EaterLA. A sample menu is included as well.

http://la.eater.com/archives/2008/05/14/po...rlie_palmer.php

Menu looks pretty straightforward.

Should be interesting.

[AlexNoir]

Charlie Palmer's new venture in Orange County opens 5/30 according to a blurb in EaterLA.  A sample menu is included as well.

http://la.eater.com/archives/2008/05/14/po...rlie_palmer.php

Menu looks pretty straightforward.

Should be interesting.

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Yeah, I saw that on eater. Interesting name - "Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's South Coast Plaza"...at least the food sounds half way decent. It'll be interesting to see if Palmer's cuts into Marche Moderne's business since the food styles would seem to overlap a bit.

[Swicks]

Charlie Palmer's new venture in Orange County opens 5/30 according to a blurb in EaterLA.  A sample menu is included as well.

http://la.eater.com/archives/2008/05/14/po...rlie_palmer.php

Menu looks pretty straightforward.

Should be interesting.

←

Yeah, I saw that on eater. Interesting name - "Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's South Coast Plaza"...at least the food sounds half way decent. It'll be interesting to see if Palmer's cuts into Marche Moderne's business since the food styles would seem to overlap a bit.

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I thought of this too, I couldn't really tell by the article how high end this place will be my guess is it is probably on the same level as MM.

The menu didn't stand out to me as being as interesting as MM but we'll see how it ends up.

[savvysearch]

Comme Ca (David Myers) is opening next year across the street from SCP, so it's going to be a three-way competition, though this one has a more traditional menu.

Edited June 6, 2008 by savvysearch (log)

[Swicks]

Comme Ca (David Myers)  is opening next year across the street from SCP, so it's going to be a three-way competition, though this one has a more traditional menu.

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Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this?

[Swicks]

I think the three restaurants are different enough that they can all peacefully co-exist.

[savvysearch]

Comme Ca (David Myers)  is opening next year across the street from SCP, so it's going to be a three-way competition, though this one has a more traditional menu.

←

Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this?

←

Eater LA blogged about it last month. They also reported that Cat Cora, Marcus Samuelsson, and Rick Bayless are planning on a high end food court at the Macy's at SCP.

[AlexNoir]

Comme Ca (David Myers)  is opening next year across the street from SCP, so it's going to be a three-way competition, though this one has a more traditional menu.

←

Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this?

←

Eater LA blogged about it last month. They also reported that Cat Cora, Marcus Samuelsson, and Rick Bayless are planning on a high end food court at the Macy's at SCP.

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I saw that on ELA as well. It seems there's a little animosity from folks in LA that Orange County is landing these "celebrity chefs". I would be curious to see what comes of the "fine dining food court", but I feel it's going to amount to little more than pretension for pretension's sake with little substance. Most likely, the above chefs will be involved as only lending their "brand names" to the individual restaurants. I think having Comme Ca in our backyard might be nice, though.

The gossip that I'm hoping is true is the piece about Thomas Keller bringing a "Bouchon-like" outlet to LA. That would be friggin sweet (let me have my pipe dreams)!

[Swicks]

Comme Ca (David Myers)  is opening next year across the street from SCP, so it's going to be a three-way competition, though this one has a more traditional menu.

←

Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this?

←

Eater LA blogged about it last month. They also reported that Cat Cora, Marcus Samuelsson, and Rick Bayless are planning on a high end food court at the Macy's at SCP.

←

I saw that on ELA as well. It seems there's a little animosity from folks in LA that Orange County is landing these "celebrity chefs". I would be curious to see what comes of the "fine dining food court", but I feel it's going to amount to little more than pretension for pretension's sake with little substance. Most likely, the above chefs will be involved as only lending their "brand names" to the individual restaurants. I think having Comme Ca in our backyard might be nice, though.

The gossip that I'm hoping is true is the piece about Thomas Keller bringing a "Bouchon-like" outlet to LA. That would be friggin sweet (let me have my pipe dreams)!

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I generally agree with this sentiment, though anything to impove the dining landscape here in OC is welcome in my opinion.

[AlexNoir]

I generally agree with this sentiment, though anything to impove the dining landscape here in OC is welcome in my opinion.

Good point. Celebrity chef or not, I guess it is nice to see something other than a King's Fishhouse, Outback Steakhouse, etc. in Orange County. To get back on topic, reviews from Charlie Palmer's seem to be pretty good according to Eater.

[Swicks]

I generally agree with this sentiment, though anything to impove the dining landscape here in OC is welcome in my opinion.

Good point. Celebrity chef or not, I guess it is nice to see something other than a King's Fishhouse, Outback Steakhouse, etc. in Orange County. To get back on topic, reviews from Charlie Palmer's seem to be pretty good according to Eater.

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To be fair, I think OC has a lot of good restaurants and the "chain restaurants and that's it" claim is a bit over blown. Of course there are a lot of areas where this is totally true but i think its getting better.

I hear good things as well. A friend of mine is one of the sommeliers and I spent a while talking to him about it over the weekend and granted he is biased but I talked to a mutual friend of ours and he ate there opening weekend and loved it.

I'll probably wait at least another few weeks before I give it a try, I also read they start lunch service sometime this month so that is a plus as well.

[mukki]

We had lunch at Charlie Palmer's today and thought it was fairly mediocre. I much prefer Marche Moderne. I might go back to try the cocktail menu, which looks interesting, but I don't have high hopes. (By the way, I have yet to get a good cocktail in OC). Anyway, onto the food...

I had the prix fixe -- tomato gazpacho (really nothing special), pan roasted rainbow trout (not as crispy as I would have liked it and a bit overpowered by the capers, some boring boiled potatoes were included on the plate) and a praline tart (which turned out to be a chunk of chocolate ganache "cake" with some praline hidden under a piece of pastry). Cost = $26. It would have been a good deal if I'd enjoyed the food more.

SO had the hamachi to start, which was serviceable. Definitely not a noteworthy rendition of hamachi. Went on to the "chicken fried chicken sliders" which was a terrible choice; these tasted no better than some sort of frozen mini chicken sliders from Costco or whatnot that you would never buy again. I'm not sure how they could possibly let these onto the menu and out of the kitchen. He also tried the farro risotto with morels, which was recommended by a few people, and was merely ok. The farro risotto I tried at Mesa was much better.

[savvysearch]

Comme Ca (David Myers)  is opening next year across the street from SCP, so it's going to be a three-way competition, though this one has a more traditional menu.

←

Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this?

←

Eater LA blogged about it last month. They also reported that Cat Cora, Marcus Samuelsson, and Rick Bayless are planning on a high end food court at the Macy's at SCP.

←

I saw that on ELA as well. It seems there's a little animosity from folks in LA that Orange County is landing these "celebrity chefs". I would be curious to see what comes of the "fine dining food court", but I feel it's going to amount to little more than pretension for pretension's sake with little substance. Most likely, the above chefs will be involved as only lending their "brand names" to the individual restaurants. I think having Comme Ca in our backyard might be nice, though.

The gossip that I'm hoping is true is the piece about Thomas Keller bringing a "Bouchon-like" outlet to LA. That would be friggin sweet (let me have my pipe dreams)!

←

The on-line reaction OC got when Dean and Deluca chose OC over LA. That was something interesting.

Since we are on the topic of restaurant openings, Capital Seafood is opening up a location in Irvine. For a chinese dominated area, there are a surprising lack of dim sum restaurants, yet 3 or 4 korean tofu houses within a few miles of each other (BCD Tofu is opening another location).

[AlexNoir]

We had lunch at Charlie Palmer's today and thought it was fairly mediocre. I much prefer Marche Moderne. I might go back to try the cocktail menu, which looks interesting, but I don't have high hopes. (By the way, I have yet to get a good cocktail in OC). Anyway, onto the food...

I had the prix fixe -- tomato gazpacho (really nothing special), pan roasted rainbow trout (not as crispy as I would have liked it and a bit overpowered by the capers, some boring boiled potatoes were included on the plate) and a praline tart (which turned out to be a chunk of chocolate ganache "cake" with some praline hidden under a piece of pastry). Cost = $26. It would have been a good deal if I'd enjoyed the food more.

SO had the hamachi to start, which was serviceable. Definitely not a noteworthy rendition of hamachi. Went on to the "chicken fried chicken sliders" which was a terrible choice; these tasted no better than some sort of frozen mini chicken sliders from Costco or whatnot that you would never buy again. I'm not sure how they could possibly let these onto the menu and out of the kitchen. He also tried the farro risotto with morels, which was recommended by a few people, and was merely ok. The farro risotto I tried at Mesa was much better.

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Thanks for the report, Mukki! It's sad to hear that CP's did not have a great showing, but that may be good news for Marche Moderne, who will now have to compete with a similar restaurant in close vicinity.

It sounds as if the menu was conceptualized by Palmer and simply left to be executed by a kitchen staff that could be working "anywhere", with little control over quality. Would this be a fair assumption to make based on your experience?

[Swicks]

Interesting, if disappointing that you had a bad experience. perhaps the "b team" is on lunch duty and is struggling.

Were your issues with the meal more conceptual or execution wise?