Brick
216 N. El Camino Real
San Clemente, CA 92672
This must be what it feels like to cheat on someone. It's probably not shocking to you, but since it was hard for me to even get one girl, let alone two, I have never cheated until now. To make matters worse, I cheated in front of the other restaurant.
There it was, one of our favorite restaurants, right across the street. We love Vine Restaurant, but I had heard some good stuff about Brick. We had our friends Sabrina and Anthony over, and usually, we would want to show off one of our favorite places, but for some reason, I made online reservations at Brick. Part of the reason for this is that I have already written about Vine twice, and I did want to share a new experience with you readers. So please forgive me, Vine, we will be back, but for now, we hurried into Brick before Russ and the boys at Vine could see us.
Brick has been open for over two years now. Owner and Executive Chef David Pratt is no stranger to OC restaurants. He was General Manager at Studio at the Montage Resort in Laguna, and before that, he was the chef and owner of Mirabeau French Bistro in Dana Point. With Brick, he is serving up "rustic Italian cuisine," made with hand-picked produce from farmer's markets. Chef Pratt also gets one or two pigs a week and butchers them up, using everything from the snout to the tail for sausages, meatballs, sauces, and daily specials. I was very excited to see what Brick had in store for us.
We arrived at this bustling area of San Clemente at about 6pm on a Saturday night. Parking is always challenging, but we didn't mind the short walk. We sat at the front of the restaurant, near the bar. Predictably, the walls are brick, with lots of dark woods throughout the very comfortable dining room. The dining space is "beach comfortable," with high tops and a few communal tables scattered about. Since this is near the beach, there's no air conditioning, so if you are here on a warm day like us, be prepared for it to be a bit balmy inside. I was excited to eat, and once the food hit the table, it limited the number of words we had to hear our good friend Sabrina speak, so let's enjoy the silence and see what we thought of the cuisines at Brick.
There were few options for starters at Brick, but the four of us wanted to try their Pizza Bread Antipasta ($12). This was a little misnamed on the menu. It should have been called, "Do it yourself, pizza bread." This came with sliced pizza dough, some prosciutto, burrata, and marinara sauce. I liked this but was not in love with it. Splitting this between four people was tough because you wanted to ensure you split everything evenly, which was hard to do with this appetizer. The components of this were definitely fresh, but not nearly enough burrata or prosciutto for the four of us. We would probably skip this on our next visit if we had more than two people splitting this.
We must have been in a sharing mood because the four of us also split a Family Sized Caesar Salad ($16). I'm always leery when splitting a family-sized salad, but this was more than enough for us. This Caesar had all the usual suspects, including fresh romaine lettuce, a generous amount of parmesan cheese, croutons, and a liberal amount of a very mild-tasting Caesar dressing. They also added some little cherry tomatoes to this salad. This salad was pretty good, and the farmers market fresh produce was definitely in full effect with this.
I have had some good luck with pork chops recently, which also held true at Brick. In fact, this could be one of the best experiences I have had. When I heard Chef Pratt gets a whole pig each week and makes specials out of it, I hoped they would not be out of it when I came to eat here. Lucky for me, they still had this limited availability item. These House Butchered Pork Chops ($20) come three to an order and are served above a casserole of cannellini beans, kale, and pork belly, then it's topped with a lemon-Calabrian chile arugula salad. I liked this dish so much I didn't even mind that it had kale and arugula in it. The pork chops were a little on the small side, but there were three and more than enough meat. They were tender and went well with the delicious cannellini bean casserole. This is a hearty dish that all four of us enjoyed, but probably none more than myself.
The entree portion of the menu at Brick is divided into pizzas, pasta, and plates. I always enjoy a little nice alliteration. Katie selected the Orecchiette ($16) from the pasta section of the menu. This plate featured house-made sausage, broccoli, mushrooms, pecorino cheese, and freshly made orecchiette. Katie really enjoyed this earthy dish. The mushrooms were plentiful, the sausage had a great flavor, and it had just the right amount of cheese. Katie would totally get this again when coming back here.
Our good friend Anthony felt like a pizza that night, and he selected the one I would have tried if I had not ordered my fantastic pork chops. The Carne ($17) predictably has a lot of meat. Pancetta, salami, sausage, and bresaola, which I learned is an air-dried, salted beef, are all included here. The pizza is cooked in their 750-degree Valoriani pizza oven, and the edges got charred, which some think adds character. Anthony felt this was a good-sized pizza with a crunchy crust, which he enjoyed.
The only miss of the night as far as our entrees were concerned was Sabrina's pick, the Khorasan Wheat Pici ($16). Honestly, I have no idea what was in this, but we all agreed this was not very good. Of course, I am not a fan of whole wheat pasta, so take my opinion for what you will. There appeared to be tomatoes, olives, and artichokes in this. The pasta was much too thick and had a weird texture.
Even though we ended on a low note with Sabrina's dish, we all enjoyed our time at Brick. The pork chop I had was worth the trip from anywhere in OC. The menu will not blow you away with its variety, but from our experience, almost everything is worth trying. We had the bartender as our server, and he was solid service-wise. It's usually hit or miss when you have a bartender as your server, but he kept checking on us, and even the food runners were very attentive. We still love Vine, but now we have another great option in San Clemente.
Out of five devils (because hockey season is upon us, and the New Jersey Devils play in Newark, nicknamed Brick City), Brick gets 3.5, from five being the best to zero being the worst.
For more information about Brick, go to their website here: http://www.brickpizzeria.com/home.php
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