Flights and Irons Urban Kitchen
376 Camino De Estrella
San Clemente, CA 92672
It was another adventure with our good friends Tom and Daniele. I love them so much, but they have become one trick ponies. Every time we make plans to go out to eat, they automatically suggest their favorite all you can eat sushi place. Sushi is fine, but I do not love it as much as they do. It's also pretty difficult for me to write about. So, I usually counter with a list of restaurants I have not been to yet, and then we eliminate them as a group until we end up with where we are going to be headed. On this particular Friday meetup, we decided to try Flights and Irons Urban Kitchen in San Clemente.
I put this restaurant on my list after reading some very positive reviews in both the OC Weekly and the OC Register. They do not take reservations, so Katie and I arrived a little bit before our mutually agreed upon time of 7pm, and were met with a very packed restaurant. We were quoted a wait time of about a half hour, which was fine because we were still waiting for the perpetually late duo of Tom and Daniele to arrive. Just as they arrived, ten minutes later, our table was all ready for us.
Opened less than six months now, Flights and Irons has a great local following. The reason for their name is really quite simple. With their extensive and unique wine and beer lists, they like to steer people towards their flights, which allow patrons to try small samples so they can find their favorites. The iron part of their name is due to the fact that a large number of their menu items are cooked in cast iron and then finished off in their wood burning oven.
The darkened dining room on this evening was crowded and very loud. Tables were pretty close to each other. The chairs were not the most comfortable we have sat in, so maybe request one of the half-booths near the back of the restaurant and then draw straws to see who gets to sit on the hopefully comfier booth side.
The menu at Flights and Irons features a small irons section, which is their appetizers, a small selection of soups and salads, sandwiches, big irons, which are their entrees, and the menu is finished off with a trio of sides and three desserts. Prices for the entrees range between $23 to $36 for the most expensive, the Ribeye. Appetizers will only set you back $10 to $13. I was really torn as to what to get here, as a number of the items sounded appealing. Let's see what the four of us ended up trying on this evening.
I was not really feeling like any of the appetizers, so Tom, Daniele, and Katie ended up picking this Fire Roasted Tomato and Brie Cheese ($12). In the skillet were fire-kissed grape tomatoes, garlic, and basil. The sliced bread was drizzled lazily with balsamic and a wedge of brie cheese was also included on the plate. All three of them liked this dish and made quick work of it. I did try a slice of the bread with a tiny sliver of the brie and thought it was fine.
Both Tom and Daniele got the soup on this rather chilly evening, and both ended up really enjoying their selections. Daniele tried the French Onion ($8), which was a pretty standard presentation. It had a blanket of Swiss cheese keeping the onions, broth, and large crouton scaldingly hot underneath there. Great flavor and lots of cheese made Daniele a very happy girl. Tom could not stop gushing over his Irons Tomato Soup ($8). This creamy tomato soup was brought to an even higher level with the addition of jalapeno and coconut milk. The spice of the jalapeno was tempered by the soothing coconut milk, a little yin and yang thing going on here, which Tom really enjoyed. Our favorite couple gave plenty of praise to the soups at Flights and Irons.
Just by looking at the picture above, I bet you could not guess what kind of salad this is. It's the F and I House Caesar Salad ($14). Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed Caesar either. A romaine heart was topped with red onion, tomatoes, pepitas, a pepita lime dressing, with some roasted corn and croutons scattered about the plate. This deconstructed salad was not bad, but I would have liked it to be chopped up a bit for easier eating and it needed more of the better than average dressing. Not really a Caesar, except for the fact that it uses romaine, but I still like that they tried to make this Caesar their own.
Katie very rarely orders burgers, but that's the way she went when she ordered the Flights and Iron Burger ($14). This half-pound burger came with two slices of cheddar, some house spread, and lettuce, tomato, and red onion on the side. This burger was okay but reminded both Katie and me of a burger we recently had at Coco's. There was nothing that really made it stand out. Not enough of their house spread and the burger patty itself was not seasoned near enough. Good bun though, but who orders a burger for the bun alone?
From the salad section of the menu came Daniele's choice on this evening, the Ahi Salad ($18). Seared ahi was joined in the bowl by a spring mix of leafy greens, diced tomatoes, and a balsamic and wasabi vinaigrette. The highlight of this salad for Daniele was the very fresh and well-executed ahi. She was not a big fan of the dressing, which at first she feared would be too overpowering with the wasabi, but it turned out to be just the opposite, as it was too sweet for her palate. The serving size was pretty good here, even if most of this was just the spring mix.
After some great debate, I went with this Shepard's Pie ($23). I should have gone with what our server had suggested, the pork chop. This was a pretty boring and awkward shepherd's pie. The top layer of mashed potatoes was way too soupy and did not cover the whole top of the skillet. I love pork belly but was not sure why the need for the strip to be floating in one big hunk over the rather mundane bottom portion of this Shepard's pie. There was not nearly enough beef filet included in this to become noticeable. I like a much more structured Shepard's pie. This was a very disappointing entree that I had such great hopes for.
The best entree of the bunch, and most unexpected was Tom's choice, the DD's Fried Balonga ($13). It's not every day that you find a fried bologna sandwich on a menu in OC, and this one should not be missed. Ignore all of your preconceived notions of the bologna you get on the lunch meat aisle of the supermarket, and think more in lines of a more mellow, freshly sliced deli pastrami. This high quality sliced fried bologna is piled high on toasted bread with lettuce, pickles, mustard, pickled onions, and red-eye mayo, which is a southern staple of coffee and mayo and is used prominently by David Chang of Momofuku fame. Tom called this the best sandwich he has had all year. He loved the textures and different layers of flavor on this one. He would not hesitate to get this again.
People on Yelp rave about the butter cake at Flights and Irons, but according to our server she said they could not keep up with the demand due to the size of their oven, so they scrubbed it from their menu. So we had to go with our second choice, the S'Mores Skillet ($9). I did not really get the s'mores vibe with this skillet dessert. The cake portion of this, which supposedly included both chocolate and graham cracker was way overcooked and dry. The marshmallow, which was the only part of this that resembled a s'more to me, (and my least favorite part of a s'more) was a few seconds away from being burnt. The only thing that saved this was that we had ordered a scoop of Cinnamon Ice Cream ($3) with this, which helped moisten it up and mask the burnt pieces of the marshmallow and dry outer ring of cake. I hope they find some way to bring back their butter cake.
I was pretty disappointed with our visit to Flights and Irons, but even more disappointed in my choices this evening. I should have listened to the suggestions of our server, instead of going with what I had my heart set on. Maybe the pork chop would have left me with a better taste in my mouth at the end of the evening. Serving sizes and prices are definitely out of whack here as well. You can't look at my salad and tell me that is anywhere close to a $14 salad. The Shepard's pie was also on the small side for $23, as I was done way before the others, and that's even after I had to let it cool down for a few minutes. Service was pretty good on this evening, and the owner was very hands on making sure her guests were well taken care of. Glad we could finally catch up with our good friends Tom and Daniele, and I'm sure they will suggest sushi the next time we meet up.
Out of five skyscrapers, (because Adrian Smith is the architect for the worlds tallest building, 163 stories in Dubai, and he grew up in San Clemente), five being best to zero being worst, Flights and Irons gets 2.5 skyscrapers.
For more information about Flights and Irons, head to their website here: https://flightsandirons.com/home
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