C'est La Vie
373 South Pacific Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
My parents got me an Entertainment book for Christmas. So now that the holidays have wound down, it is time to put it to good use. Only problem was that it was a Friday night at seven, and a lot of places do not take the Entertainment card on Friday nights. Our choices were very limited. We could drive all the way up to Anaheim, but it would be almost 8:30 by the time we ate dinner, or maybe try the Jolly Roger again, (not going to happen), or we could just forget the book and go where the wind would take us. I was ready to take the last option, when I saw that C'est La Vie accepts the card everyday. So that is where we ended up.
C'est La Vie is located right on PCH, in downtown Laguna. They are on the ocean side, so when the weather is warmer, the spot to be is on their patio for a stunning view. This night though is in the 50's, so we take a seat in the dining room. The restaurant is almost deserted except for us and two other couples. C'est La Vie's menu is Californian French, and this is what we got off of it.
Okay we did not actually get this off the menu, it was given to us. I really just wanted to show you the bread basket. It was nothing spectacular. We were also given a taste of their Bisque de Homard. This lobster bisque was very creamy, and went down real smooth. I remember they gave us this taster the last time we were here. Very rich, but this could have been heated up more.
For a starter we ordered the Jumbo Mushrooms. These were stuffed with lump crab and a garlic herb sauce. These had plenty of crab on them, but the sauce over powered the crab, and pushed it out of the way. If I was blind folded and asked what I was eating, I would not have guessed crab. The mushroom was nicely cooked though.
Katie had the elegant sounding Crevettes a la Crime de Homard for dinner. Translated this means, shrimp scampi with a lobster brandy glace. This was served over linguine, with roasted potatoes on the side. Katie liked the taste of the glace, and also felt that the potatoes were great, but she had an issue with the temperature of the plate. It came out lukewarm.
I was having issues with the lighting here all night. We had a light right above us that was dimming in and out while we were here, so this is the best shot I got of my meal. I went with the Filet Mignon de Boeuf au Roquefort. The sauce served with this was a Cabernet sauvignon reduction. The steak also came with mashed potatoes and green beans. I ordered this steak medium rare and that is the way it came out. The Roquefort was very strong, and took me by surprise how it over powered the steak. I like blue cheeses, but this was really pungent. I would have liked more of the Cabernet sauce to balance this dish out. The mashed potatoes were okay, they kind of had a lack of heat issue as well. The greens beans were just average.
C'est La Vie is a full on bakery also. According to the waiter this is their best selling dessert. He said there was no name for it, they just call it the Filo Dough filled with Chocolate Mousse. This was a very rich dessert. The mousse could have been lighter, and the filo dough was hard to break into. In case you did not have enough chocolate on this, they also added a dollop of chocolate ice cream on the side. I liked the presentation, but I might try something else in the future.
Our trip to C'est La Vie was just average this time. The kitchen on this night had issues getting the food out nice and hot. Nothing that we had would make us yearn to go back here. The service was okay, and the value was a little over-priced, $29 for my steak and Katie's scampi was $27. We did get $16 dollars off with the Entertainment card, so it paid for the tip though. They did not punch the card, so we can use it again, but we will only do that if it is a Friday night and we can't use the card anywhere else.
Out of five dominoes, (because that was the name of the second hit from Robbie Nevil's 1986 album. His first hit was... of course C'est La Vie), five being best to zero being worst, C'est La Vie gets 2 dominoes.
For more information on C'est La Vie, click here: http://www.cestlavierestaurant.com/
so sweet nice
ReplyDeleteEntertainment