540 South Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
Every time I cross into the city limits of Laguna Beach, a vacation vibe instantly washes over me. Of course, being this close to the ocean could be a major reason for this, but it could also be all the summers that we spent here growing up. We'd stay at my uncle's house for a week, hang out at the beach, walk around the shops downtown, and ride our bikes down the big hills.
Fast forward more decades than I care to mention, Katie and I are going a little stir crazy being cooped up at home. We decided to take advantage of a slightly overcast weekend day, and some free parking that my fantastic friend Darren had offered us. It's good to know people in high places.
We stretched our legs a bit by walking the downtown area, where they have blocked off a portion of Forest Avenue to vehicle traffic and filled the street with tables and chairs to help the struggling local restaurants. They did a great job of maintaining social distancing, but none of the restaurants we walked by really struck our fancy on this particular late morning. That's when I remembered from my Instagram feed that South of Nick's had recently started serving breakfast. Sounding good to both of us, we walked the nearly two blocks at a very brisk pace to satisfy our hunger pains.
I'm a little ashamed to say that this was my first visit to South of Nick's. I have heard such great things about their food, seen plenty of it on their aforementioned Instagram feed, but have yet to make it to this location, or their other location in San Clemente. We had been to this address before when it was House of Big Fish and Ice Cold Beer, which incredibly was over seven years ago, which does not seem possible.
We were seated on the patio overlooking busy PCH, and if you sit just upright enough in your chair you can just spy the ocean across the street. I was also focusing on the breakfast menu because I was a bit hungry. The one-page menu at South of Nick's is not going to dazzle you with its wide-ranging variety. There's six regular breakfast options and four south of the border selections to choose from. Prices range between $10 to $19 per entree, which in this high rent district is not totally out of whack. Let's see if this breakfast can compete with the wonderful view we had on this fine Saturday morning.
Let's start off with Katie's first meal of the day, the very traditional California Omelet ($14). This omelet was filled with bacon and cheese, with avocado slices placed on top with a dollop of sour cream. Katie really liked the fluffiness of the egg and felt that the provided salsa and sour cream went well with the bacon and cheese filling. Due to Katie doing the whole keto thing, she was unable to enjoy her fresh-cut fruit or sourdough toast, which was a bonus for me, as I ate it happily to round out my upcoming meal.
Not surprisingly, I went with one of the Mexican inspired breakfast dishes at South of Nick's, the Omar's Skillet ($15). I'm not sure who Omar is, but he enjoys two eggs, chorizo, poblano peppers, hash browns, jack cheese, black beans, onion, sour cream, avocado, and pico de gallo in his breakfast skillets. I thought this was just okay. I had wished that the chorizo was going to shine more here, but the eggs and black beans really overwhelmed the rest of the ingredients. I'll definitely veer towards either the chilaquiles or the breakfast burrito next time I visit for breakfast.
Be advised that breakfast is only served at South of Nick's on weekends. With the food that we've had at Nick's on previous visits and the excellent things we've heard about South of Nick's, I expected a little bit more from the breakfast here. It was not awful or even bad, but I just expected the food to pop a bit more and be a little more memorable. Still, the service was wonderful and the view couldn't be beaten. This trip back to Laguna for those vacation vibes and is just what the doctor ordered.
Out of five phone chargers, (because the most common item left behind in hotel rooms is the phone charger, and Laguna Beach boasts the most beachfront lodging accommodations in the entire state), five being best to zero being worst, South of Nick's gets 3 phone chargers.
For more information about South of Nick's, head to their website here: http://nicksrestaurants.com/
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