Coastal Kitchen
34091 Pacific Coast Highway
Dana Point, CA 92629
It was a few days after my parents took Katie and me out to celebrate our third wedding anniversary, and after a night of having leftovers from that dinner, Katie's parents wanted us to grace them with our presence to celebrate the big three-year mark. I think they were just surprised that Katie was able to put up with me for this long. As is the custom when we are going out to dinner, I give her mom and dad a list of four restaurants to try, and they decide where we are going to meet. This time they chose Coastal Kitchen in Dana Point.
Coastal Kitchen has been around for close to two years now. Owned by a husband and wife team, Micahel and Christina Grant, both of whom met and worked at Hillstone Restaurant Group, which locally runs Bandera, R + D Kitchen, Gulfstream, and others. The Hillstone Group runs some of my favorite restaurants, and you can see the subtle touches that the owners have picked up from their former employer in the menu layout, a sleek, yet casual restaurant environment, and even a few menu items, (I'm looking at you trout dip).
Located in a nearly hundred-year-old building on the corner of Blue Lantern and PCH, they did a great job of retooling this restaurant, which dates from the 1920's. Back then it was a cafe and service station for weary travelers that were shuttling between San Diego and Los Angeles. The redone dining space is beautifully decorated in blue and white, with plenty of booths, a rambunctious bar scene, and a tinge of a nautical theme. Also, if you do visit Coastal Kitchen, make sure to take the short walk a block south to the gazebo that overlooks Dana Point Harbor. One of the best views in OC.
The menu at Coastal Kitchen is separated into starters, salads, sandwiches, entrees, and sides. Sandwiches hover around the $17 dollar mark, while bigger entrees range between $18 to $43. Each section of the menu features more than a handful of options for your dining pleasure. I have read some positive and some negative reviews about this place in print, and I was ready to form my own opinion. Let's see which way I was going to come down on the food at Coastal Kitchen.
When we are out with Katie's family, they always order appetizers and on this evening we had three, starting with this Roasted Red Pepper Hummus ($9). This big mound of hummus was topped with an olive tapenade, which I'm not really a fan of, but it helped balance things out here. I did not really get too much spice from the red pepper hummus, but the consistency was spot on, firm but easily scooped with the provided tortilla chips. The ratio of chips to hummus was off by a lot, but we asked for more chips and they obliged us.
Confession time. This was my first time ever having Parker House Rolls ($5). At Coastal Kitchen they come to the table in a cast iron skillet with an herbed butter plopped in the middle of the four rolls. Since there were four of us, I only had one but I enjoyed it very much. A nice, slightly crunchy outer layer and pillowy soft inside. The outside was studded with specs of salt which went well with the slightly sweet bread. The herbed butter did not add too much to these, and I would have liked to have tried this with just regular butter instead. Glad I can finally say that I've had Parker House rolls.
Pork Belly Bites ($12) were a favorite of Edwin from the OC Weekly when he ate here, so I knew I'd be trying them. The only problem was that they come four to an order and I know Katie and her parents are probably not going to have any, and I know that I shouldn't eat this much pork belly all by myself. I convinced Dennis to have one and Katie committed to a half, so I decided that was good enough and we got them. Pork belly is always delicious, and these were no exception. These big cubes are like bacon on steroids. Fried nicely on the outside with a thin batter, while the inside is soft and has all the flavor that you enjoy about bacon, but in a more solid form. I also liked the use of the ginger glaze, which sweetened things up a bit and helped to cut the saltiness. Nicely done, but make sure you have some help with these. Even I know that all this pork belly is not good for you.
Both Katie and her mom got the same Chicken BLT Sandwich ($17) but with different sides. When this sandwich came to the table it took me back to what Katie had when we visited R + D Kitchen over a year ago. It appears that they use the same bread, and the chicken is breaded and pounded thin just like the Ding's Crispy Chicken sandwich at R + D. At Coastal they differentiate this sandwich from that one by adding bacon, swiss cheese, mayo, and arugula to it. Katie liked this sandwich as it was not too heavy, but still had nice textures and flavors going for it. The arugula and crispy chicken had some nice crunch, while the bacon added smokiness. The menu states that you can get either slaw or fries for your side, but our server told us any of the sides were an option. Katie took advantage of this loophole by trying their Fried Cauliflower. She should have stuck with the fries or slaw. The cauliflower was very boring, over fried, and really needed some sort of sauce to pizzaz it up a bit. I liked the red cabbage slaw a lot. A nice mix of shredded carrots and red and green cabbage gave this a nice crunch, and the liberal use of a delicious dressing made this side a winner in my book.
Katie's dad Dennis loves to have soup for dinner, and that was his plan when he heard that they were serving one of his favorites on this evening, New England Clam Chowder ($9). This bowl came out piping hot and added to the chowder was some crumbled bacon and croutons. He must have loved this as it did not last too long.
After checking out the menu at home before stepping foot in here, I had narrowed my dinner options to about half a dozen before our night out at Coastal Kitchen. When I finally was sitting at the table, at the moment of truth, I ordered the Cuban Sandwich ($17). This Cuban utilized braised pork shoulder, black forest ham, Swiss and Muenster cheeses, and plenty of pickles and mustard seeds. I thought this sandwich was just okay. I noticed that it was missing something when I ate it, and it was mustard. The mustard seeds on this were just odd, and too many pickles kind of overpowered here. The meats and cheeses were good, the bread nicely toasted but this sandwich needed yellow mustard to round it out. I also took our server's suggestion to try another side item rather than the suggested slaw or fries and went with the Roasted Brussels Sprouts. Not so good. The sprouts were way over roasted, with some being burnt. The kitchen staff must love mustard seeds, as they were on the sprouts as well and did little to help these poor things out. These Brussels sprouts have sent the sprout movement back a few decades.
Our server really talked up the desserts here, but we only had room for one. He suggested that we definitely had to try the S'Mores Pie ($9). A graham cracker crust supports the chocolate custard and the slightly torched marshmallow meringue above it. I liked this dessert but was not in love with it. The graham cracker crust and the rich chocolate custard were good, but the merigue was wasted on me, as I'm not really into either marshmallows or meringue. I moved it off to the side and just ate the rest. I know I'm weird not liking one of the key components of a s'more, but I've been that way ever since I was a kid. We'd go camping and I'd be the only one eating just the chocolate and graham crackers.
I can now understand the mixed reviews for Coastal Kitchen, even though I do not support the harshness of one of the reviewers that did not have a positive experience here at all. There were some hits for me on this visit, the pork belly, clam chowder, parker house rolls, and the coleslaw. These give me hope that there are some hidden gems on this menu, maybe one of the other five items I should have had instead of the Cuban sandwich that I eventually went with. I'm intrigued by the trout dip, the burger, the ribeye, and the ice cream sundae for my next visit. Service was excellent, as our server was not worried about turning over tables quickly, as he was making sure that our dinner went at our desired pace. Very comforting, just like the feel of Coastal Kitchen. It has the feel of a great restaurant, and it might be, but not based on what we had on this one visit.
Out of five pilgrims, (because Dana Point is named after Richard Henery Dana, a lawyer from Massachussets, who came to California aboard the Pilgrim in 1834), five being best to zero being worst, Coastal Kitchen gets 3 pilgrims.
For more information about Coastal Kitchen, head to their website here: http://www.coastalkitchendanapoint.com/
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