JT Schmid's Restaurant and Brewery
2415 Park Ave.
Irvine, CA 92782
I love watching restaurant shows on TV. Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives, Best Thing I Ever Ate, Food Paradise, Food Wars, and Man V Food are some of my favorites. There are two reasons I like watching these shows. One is that I enjoy seeing great food and how it is prepared; the second reason is that it motivates me to travel places. I get a thrill seeing a place on TV that we have been to. During the three years of this blog, we have had the opportunity to take quite a few trips, and during these trips, we have sought out quite a lot of these TV restaurants.
Restaurants in OC should be more prominently featured on these shows. Sure, some bakeries have been featured on some Cupcake shows, Guy Fieri has spotlighted three of our OC restaurants for his show, and a long while ago, Rachel Ray made her way through Laguna on $40 a Day. I like some of these shows, but my favorite food show was Man Verses Food. I liked seeing host Adam Richman tour an area and tackle an eating challenge. If his show was still in production today, JT Schmid's might get some serious consideration to be featured on his show.
What we have above is JT's Bigger, Badder, Asser Burger. This six-pound behemoth of a patty is grilled, then joined with four extra pounds of bun and toppings to weigh in at an unbelievable ten pounds of hamburger bliss. Throughout the preview night, we were here, they brought out different varieties of this burger. The one above came with the usual burger toppings: lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles, cheddar cheese, and roasted corn mayo.
Luckily for all the food bloggers in attendance, we did not have to worry about slicing this ourselves. It came neatly sliced on an enormous plate or a platter. I thought the burger would have a meatloaf quality, but it tasted more like a burger. The custom-made bun stood up well to the burger toppings, but as you can see, the bottom bun absorbed a lot of the grease from the burger and the sheer weight of everything piled on top. Very understandable. I talked to Jason, the owner of JT Schmid's, and he told me they are still working on the bun issues and tweaking things.
Not only does JT Schmid's have a ten-pound burger, but it can also be prepared in different ways. This was my favorite version of this burger that night. The Cowboy Bigger, Badder, Asser Burger came with blue cheese crumbles, colossal onion rings, bacon, and BBQ sauce. Big-time flavors with this one! I really liked the inclusion of the blue cheese. It added pop to this burger. Another version of this burger that came out, but I did not try, was the Jalapeno Turkey Burger. This was probably for the more health-conscious, but how healthy can you get eating ten pounds worth of burgers? I did overhear my fellow bloggers remark how much they liked this more nutritious alternative.
It was not all about the burgers that night, although I took about fifty pictures. We also got to try some new, more traditional items on the JT Schmid's menu. The Hawaiian Coconut Shrimp should be insulted to be called shrimp because these were anything but small. These jumbo shrimp were covered with coconut, deep fried, and served with an excellent orange marmalade. I usually do not like these, but I ate my fair share this night.
The food just kept on coming! This is another new item, the Jalapeno Mac & Cheese. This is different from your everyday version of this comfort food classic. This is a jazzed-up version, for sure. JT's adds chicken, tomatoes, and bacon to a radiatori pasta, then coats it all with a cheese sauce made from their own ale and a trio of cheeses. This has been getting rave customer reviews, and the same response was given on this night. I really liked the jalapenos in this. Some mac and cheese dishes can put your taste buds to sleep, but this one did not have that problem.
After eating my fair share of the burgers, I needed more room to eat the new pizzas at JT's, but I did try two of them. The Sausage and Basil Pizza was a good pizza with plenty of sausage and went well with the fresh basil. The other slice of pizza was a little less conventional. The Roasted Pear and Blue Cheese Pizza is something that I would usually not eat, but in this instance, I was glad I did. This pizza had it all; sliced red pears, sage, mozzarella and blue cheeses, grilled onions, and pecans. It sounds like a mishmash of many items, but they all worked well together.
The last of the food items we tried was the Meatball Sandwich. I consider myself an aficionado of meatball sandwiches and could endorse this as good. The meatball here was very dense, with a meaty texture and taste. The marinara had a strong hint of garlic while maintaining a low-key sweetness. The bread held everything together well. Some more melted mozzarella cheese could have made this sandwich even better.
Most of my visits to JT's are made to Anaheim, right across from the Honda Center. We usually hit them up for drinks before and after the hockey games. So, I am pretty familiar with their beers. JT Schmid's recently changed their JT Imperial Stout. JT's Brewmaster, Gil Chacon, is aging the beer with French Oak. I will need to learn more about beer to tell you how this changes things, but I did like this beer. It was vibrant and malty. They only serve this in a pint-size due to the high ABV of 8%, but that will get you feeling good in a hurry!
New menu items were also spotted on the dessert menu as well. I did not get a chance to snap up one of the slices of Black Forest Cake because I zoned right in on the other two options for dessert. The Pineapple Sorbet piqued my interest for the unique presentation. The sorbet was served right in the cored-out portion of a pineapple. This added a perceived element of freshness to the refreshing sorbet. It did not strike me until later what the Dream Bomba reminded me of. This dessert had a core of caramel surrounded by a peanut butter gelato, then coated with chocolate and a peanut butter drizzle. What childhood dessert did this remind me of? Of course, it was Drumsticks. This was a delicious dessert. The caramel in the center was like finding a buried treasure, and getting to the caramel was half the fun. The peanut butter flavor and the chocolate outside were good and thick. This would be a great dessert on a hot summer evening.
The new menu items at JT's were all strong but dwarfed by the Bigger, Badder, Asser Burgers. Of course, almost any food item I have ever seen would be dwarfed by such a massive burger. Of course, I had to inquire about the possibility of the food challenge, and Jason said that it has been discussed, but I am still waiting for word on it. I could see no one being able to finish this burger unless Adam Richman wants to do a reboot of his Man V. Food Show.
We would like to thank everyone who made it possible for us to sample all the new menu items at JT Schmid's. First, we should start with the man at the top, Jason Schmid. He was so gracious, answering our questions and providing all the food for us. Also, thanks go out to the wonderful staff at JT's, some of which are pictured above. They really kept on top of things and made sure we did not have a want for anything else. Thanks for your excellent service, guys. Thanks to Pam from the OC Restaurant Association for this superb opportunity to sample this food. One last note of appreciation to our fellow food bloggers, who are always the life of the party, and we always enjoy getting together. You guys rock!
For more information about JT Schmid's, click here: http://jtschmidsrestaurants.com/Home.html
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