Checking Out Calivino Wine Pub - CLOSED

Calivino Wine Pub

2410 E. Katella Ave.

Anaheim, CA 92806

I hear about restaurants in many different ways. I get press releases from PR people telling me about a restaurant opening or with new menu items. Other times, I hear about a place that another food blogger or food writer has written about. I also read the OC Register food section religiously, and sometimes, I write down some of their tips. My favorite way to hear about a place is, of course, to get a tip from one of our faithful readers. These tend to be the best restaurants.

I heard about Calivino Wine Pub using all of these methods. About nine months ago, I got a press release announcing they would be opening soon. I then started seeing many fellow bloggers coming here and reporting their outstanding experiences at Calvino. An excellent review of the hamburger by OC Register columnist Brad Johnson nudged me toward eating here. He knows his stuff, and his other burger recommendations have been spot-on, so I was excited to try them. I also had an email from a reader requesting that I give this place a shot, so we set up a double date with our friends and met up here on a recent Friday night.

Calivino is located in the same shopping center as Hooters on Katella, right next to the now-departed Zito's Pizza. It's not really a high-traffic center, and I thought it was going to be a slow night here, but as the evening went on, Calivino filled up. There was music starting up at 7, and the late-arriving crowd struggled to find seating as the night went on.

The dining room is small, and there needs to be more separation between the dining space and the bar area. The decor is subtle, and their tables are made from reclaimed wood found throughout Southern California. The menu is small, too. There's, of course, a much bigger focus on the wine and craft beers here. Most food items on the menu are meant for sharing, but there are a few burgers, sandwiches, and some salads that Executive Chef Patrick Dale has put on the menu. Happy hour is almost every day from 3 to 7, except Saturday, when they hold their happy hour later in the night. A dollar off of draft beers, $2 off house wines, and selected menu items are all a part of their happy hour pricing. We arrived at the tail end of happy hour but made two quick orders to take advantage of these offers. Let's see what we thought of the food at Calivino Wine Pub.

First up were these Spinach Wontons ($6 during happy hour). These wontons were filled with creamy baby leaf spinach, Parmesan, and garlic. These were average. None of us were really wowed by these. They lacked the flavor pop I expected from the Parmesan or the garlic. They also need more of a sauce than what was smeared across the plate. Their menu states that they proudly do not have ranch dressing, but using some here could have improved this. Not too impressive.

Alex and I avoid olives, but Katie and Jaszlyn are olive fiends, so they wanted to try these Marinated Olives ($7). They are marinated in garlic, chili, and herbs. There were more than enough for the girls, and Katie felt remorse later that she did not get the remainder to go. They both claim they were delicious; I'll take their word for it.

Our entrees were out next, and first up was Jaszlyn's selection, the Chicken and Brie ($13). This sandwich starts with free-range braised chicken and adds cranberry sauce, brie, and a little honey on marbled rye. Jaszlyn was not a big fan of this sandwich. The chicken was tender, but she expected a little more to be going on here. She called this, "kind of boring", and did not finish it. She enjoyed the fries, though, which you can tell are freshly made and fried crispy. Some delicious fries at Calivino.

I barely got two pictures taken before Alex had finished his House Burger ($13). He engulfed this burger rather impressively. The house burger is made of chuck brisket and topped with onion jam, Havarti cheese, and fried onion strings, all on a brioche bun. It had been some time since Alex was this impressed with a burger. He'd come back for sure for this burger, but he would opt for the hand-cut fries instead of the salad next time.

Katie chose the Seared Ahi Burger ($16) tonight. The ahi came nicely peppered with Asian slaw, spicy aioli, and a Hoisin sauce. Katie thought the tuna was prepared well, but the Hoisin sauce overwhelmed everything. She was also in the minority at our table by saying the fries were okay. Katie would have liked the fries to have been a little crisper. She'd probably get something else next time she was here.

Since Alex had gotten the house burger, I decided to make the sacrifice and get the Pork Belly Burger ($14). On this one, they use the same great patty made of ground chuck brisket but add a good amount of pork belly and some Gouda and garlic. The pork belly was done very well here. It was moist and went well on top of the beef patty. It needed more sauce to tie it all together, but I still really enjoyed this burger.

Alex and Jaszlyn did not want dessert, but Katie and I wanted to try the Beignets ($8). These balls of dough came with a lemon anglaise for dipping. The beignets were good but could have been better. They had plenty of cinnamon and sugar on them, but we wished they had a different kind of sauce for dipping. Lemon did not go here. These took so long to come out that they gave us a Chocolate Lava Cake ($8) to compensate for the almost fifteen-minute lag between ordering and getting the beignets. The cake had a coffee reduction, white chocolate, and whipped cream. I'm not really a big fan of this dessert, either. The cake was not moist; there needed to be more chocolate present to call this a chocolate lava cake, and it came out a little overcooked. It was nice that they tried to make up for their mistake.

After reading this review, we had conflicting views on Calivino. Some items were solid (the burgers, the olives, and the fries), but the other items we had this evening were missing from our book. Wish they had more sauces involved here. The wontons, the burger, and the lava cake could have used a sauce to make them more enjoyable. The prices here were not too out of line for the type of place this is and the amount of food you get. Even with the snafu about our dessert, we experienced pretty good service, even better when you consider how busy they were near the end of our meal. Would we come back? Yeah, the burgers are good enough to come back, but I might have to smuggle in my ranch dressing bottle.

Out of five corks (I know, not original, but I couldn't think of anything else), five being best to zero being worst, Calivino Wine Pub gets 2.5 corks.

For more information about Calivino Wine Pub, go to their website here: http://www.calivinowinepub.com/home

Raising a Toast to Cafe Mimosa

Cafe Mimosa

243 Avenida Del Mar 

San Clemente, CA 92672

As the new year turned from 2014 to 2015, we had a lot of things on our plate. We are planning a wedding, I'm trying to get over the holiday season, and we are trying to find time to be a lot more active. Last year we found one of our favorite walks in all of OC, the San Clemente Beach Trail. Not only do you have gorgeous views of the ocean, but you also have the occasional passing of trains mere yards away from the walking path.

Since this is one of our favorite places to walk, we have tried to incorporate getting breakfast in this area after we are done with our morning jaunt. We have been to some pretty decent places, but when I checked out Yelp, Cafe Mimosa looked really promising, and it would allow us to eat in the middle of our three-mile walk. This would give Katie a little time to rest up for the walk back to the car, and it would also throw in a little elevation into our normally flat walk along the beach.

Cafe Mimosa is located about a half-mile up from the San Clemente pier, right across the street from the San Clemente Library. We were lucky enough to be here on a Sunday, and there's a farmer's market hosted at the library that we had the pleasure of checking out before we headed down the hill so Katie could take a nap for the rest of the day.

This restaurant has been here since 2008, and there's almost always a line on the weekends for breakfast, as was the case when we arrived at 10am on a recent Sunday. Cafe Mimosa is not a huge restaurant. About six tables inside, and another eight or so on the covered patio out front. They play up the French vibe here, without making a mockery of it. A simple French flag out front and french inspired foods on the menu. It kind of reminds me of what they probably envisioned Mimi's Cafe to be back in the day.

After our twenty minute wait to get a seat, we were seated at a small table in the dining room. Tables are pretty close to each other, but we struck up a great conversation with the people to our right, who happened to have been visiting from Chicago. The menu at Cafe Mimosa is not overly huge, but there's enough variety to satisfy most people. This is not a traditional breakfast place. No Grand Slam plates, like at Denny's are served here. This is breakfast with a French twist. After our mile and a half walk to get here, I was ready to eat. Let's see how everything turned out for us.

Katie and I started things off by splitting two of their breakfast bread, the first of which is this Banana Bread ($7). When we ordered this I thought it was going to be a couple of slices of banana bread, and that was all. I was wrong. Two slices of well-made bread are sandwiched between sliced bananas and a cream that resembled Bavarian, but it was less sweet, and then sprinkled with sliced almonds. The bread had a very subtle banana flavor but was still moist. A very well done starter, and definitely worth trying here when coming for brunch.

A lot of people have the wrong idea about croissants. When you bring up this pastry to most people, they probably think about the ones in the grocery store, ones that more resemble a crescent roll than a croissant. What we were served at Cafe Mimosa was definitely not like anything you can get in the supermarket. This was a real croissant. I ordered this Chocolate Croissant ($3) and enjoyed it very much. The glossy top is what caught my eye first. It was not overly stuffed with chocolate ganache, but enough to allow the croissant portion of this to share the lead roll in the pastry. Another winner.

With the excitement that the first part of our meal brought us, we were stoked when our entrees came out. Up first is Katie's selection, the Mexican Omelette ($15). Joining the light and fluffy eggs in this was an Oaxaca cheese, roasted red peppers, scallions, a green tomatillo salsa, sliced avocados, and two corn tortillas. Katie loved the spicy flavor of this, but she does have a low tolerance to spice because I did not think it was spicy enough. I did like the bite I had though but wished it had some meat in it. This kept Katie full all day. This gave her more than enough energy for the remainder of our walk.

I was really torn between this Pork Belly ($17) and the chorizo scramble, but my love of pork belly won out. Glad it did, because this was a really good breakfast. Scrambled eggs are mixed with ham, bacon, and chives then placed on top of their tender house potatoes. Then as if that was not enough, a big cube of crisped pork belly was placed on top of that. Even though it has been a few weeks since I've had this, I still think about it often. The pork belly was cooked perfectly, the eggs were light, and the potatoes added just the right amount of starch to break up the meatiness here. One of the better breakfasts we have had in some time.

Both Katie and I left Cafe Mimosa very full and satisfied. Because of the prices here, and the high-quality ingredients used, I'd classify this as a special occasion breakfast restaurant, although I totally could eat here every week if my waistline and wallet could handle it. After having their breakfast, I'd love to come back for dinner and try their duck or short rib, both of which sound like they would be winners. The service that we had from Brooke on this morning was nice and pleasant. Glad we could work this restaurant in on one of our walks. Now we'll have to walk an extra few miles to work off all of this great food.

Out of five elephant vacuum cleaners, (because former San Clemente resident, Jane Vander Pyl voiced Wilma Flintstone, who used this to clean her house in Bedrock), five being best to zero being worst, Cafe Mimosa gets 3.5 elephant vacuum cleaners.

For more information about Cafe Mimosa, go to their website here: https://www.thecafemimosa.com/

Making Our Maiden Voyage to La Palma

A'Roma Ristorante

30 Centerpointe Dr. #1 

La Palma, CA 90623

It feels pretty good to have taken one of my new years resolutions to heart. No, I'm not into dieting, or saving money, I made it my mission to have finally eaten in every OC city during the run of this blog. So far after five plus years of writing these restaurant reviews, we have managed to dodge the cities of La Palma and Seal Beach.

I have a pretty good list of places to hit up in Seal Beach, but La Palma was trickier. At first I thought that the La Palma Chicken Pie Shop was in La Palma, but it's just near La Palma Avenue in Anaheim. So I had to do a little more research, which brought us to A'Roma Ristorante.

We were going to be meeting our good friends Sabrina and Anthony on this night, to celebrate getting through the craziness of the holiday season. We hadn't seen them in a awhile, and it worked out, as their parents live near here. Before heading up the 5 Freeway from our house, I had made reservations, which is a good thing because they were pretty packed when we rolled in at 6pm on a recent Saturday.

A'Roma is located near the intersection of Valley View and Orangethorpe, right across the street from Marie Callender's and Habit Burger. Not sure how long they have been in business, but their first Yelp review dates from 2007, and there's no mention that this is a new restaurant. Owned by the Ferrari family, this 20 table restaurant has an older customer base, but the atmosphere was still lively. One side of the restaurant was dedicated to the bar, and the other side the dining room. Their website touts that they want their customers to experience, "real Italian cooking," so I was very excited to see what they would deliver to our table. Let's check it out.

As is our custom, we always like to show you  the bread service before the meal. Here they gave us Toasted Focaccia with a Mascarpone Spread. I was not too into this spread that they brought out, but everyone else liked it. It was a little too much like cream cheese to me. The marinara portion of this was good, but I did not enjoy the mascarpone part. I ate the toasted bread on its own, and it was fine.

We were all pretty hungry, so we decided we'd all split an appetizer. Our choice was the Mozzarella Marinara ($10.50). This fried cheese was breaded, and topped with marinara and some Parmesan cheese. This was a pretty good version of this dish. Not overly greasy, and made with some pretty good quality mozzarella cheese. We were happy that this came four to an order for the four of us, because that way Sabrina would not try to hog more than her fair share.

Dinners at A'Roma come with this House Salad. It looked pretty basic to me, but I like the fact that dinners come with a salad. Fresh greens, shaved carrots, tomatoes, and a few olives are all dressed with a house Italian vinaigrette. No complaints from anyone about this salad either.

Another thing I really liked about the menu at A'Roma was that they offered to upgrade your salad for an extra $2. You have your choice of a cup of soup, a Greek Salad, or this very good Caesar Salad, which I went with. There was plenty of asiago cheese, house made croutons, and dressing on this salad. One of the better ones I have had recently.

The entrees started to make their way out for us, and Katie's hit the table first. She had the Chicken Scarpariello ($20.50). With this plate the chicken breast was served with a well made lemon-garlic butter sauce and sliced mushrooms. Katie liked this plate. The chicken was tender, and there were plenty of mushrooms included. The pasta and vegetables were well done also.

Anthony went for the Cannelloni Fiorentina ($19.50). This looked real good from where I was sitting. I'm not sure why I never get cannelloni, but I'm going to get one the next time I'm in an Italian joint. This one was filled with ground beef, pork, veal, cheese and spinach, then topped with a Bolognese meat sauce and a little bechamel sauce. I did not get a chance to try this dish, but Anthony thought it was good, but not great. He thought it was going to be a little more flavorful with all of the meats in there. He did enjoy the Bolognese sauce though.

The last few times we have been out with Sabrina, she has gotten a similar dish to the one she had this night, the Capellini Alla Checca ($16). At A'Roma they use an angel hair pasta as the base for this dish, then toss it with olive oil, Roma tomatoes, garlic, basil, and herbs. Sabrina liked this dish, but wished that it had a little more pop of flavor. She did finish it though, and we will probably see her order something similar the next time we go out with her.

I've been in the mood for veal for awhile now, and when I saw this Veal Saltimbocca Alla Romana ($28), I jumped at the chance to order it. The veal is served with a brown demi-glace sauce with herbs and a little white wine, then topped with mozzarella and prosciutto. This version was good, not great. The veal was not as tender as veal should be, and the cheese was not as pronounced as I would have liked it. The sauce, along with the very good prosciutto saved this dish for me. This came served with fusilli aurora and sauteed vegetables, which were both cooked well, and helped round out this meal.

A'Roma was good, but did not really blow any of us away with what we had on this evening. If we lived closer, we would definitely have this restaurant in our rotation though. With so many options on their menu, it would not be easy to tire of their food. Their prices might be a tad too high for the amount of food that you get, but they do seem to use high quality ingredients here. Service was pretty good, for how busy they were, and the food did make it out of the kitchen in a very timely manner. Glad we finally had the chance to dine in La Palma, and we will definitely be back to see what else the city has to offer. Now to make plans to head out to Seal Beach.

Out of five dairy cows, (because La Palma was originally incorporated as Dairyland in 1955, and only changed their name when the dairies moved east in the 60's), five being best to zero being worst, A'Roma Ristorante gets 3 dairy cows.

For more information about A'Roma Ristorante, go to their website here: http://www.aromalapalma.com/

New Winter Menu Offerings at RA Sushi

RA Sushi

2401 Park Ave. 

Tustin, CA 92782

Katie does not ask too much from me. Yes, I have to sometimes take out the trash, maybe make the bed, and every once in awhile, I have to empty the dishwasher. When she asks me to do these things, it's not really nagging either. She genuinely feels sorry about asking me to do these things, so I try to accommodate most of her wishes most of the time. One of those wishes is that we have sushi once a month.

I could give or take sushi. It's not my favorite thing to eat, but I really don't mind it either. Katie on the other hand wants it a lot more than me, so when we were approached by RA Sushi to come in to try their new Winter Menu offerings, Katie was beyond excited. She even made plans to leave work early, and we headed off to the District at Tustin Legacy.

We had not been back to RA Sushi in about five years. We reviewed it once, which you can see here. Please excuse the awful pictures. I have since learned that pictures need to be in focus to look good. It also helps you to see what we actually ate. We had a very pleasant time that night five years ago at happy hour, and just haven't found time to go back. RA still has that hip, fun vibe that we loved so much on our first visit. Red and black dominates the color scheme here, and with the vibrant music playing over the sound system, it gives this restaurant a hip, almost club kind of vibe to it.

RA Sushi opened for business in 1997, and has since expanded to 27 locations in 9 states. We are lucky to have six of these spots in the Southern California area, including another OC location at The Strand in Huntington Beach. We arrived at this Irvine spot at 5pm, and the restaurant was already packed with people consuming copious amounts of sushi and appetizers during their great happy hour.

The happy hour at RA is more like an all day thing. It starts at 3 and goes until 7pm Monday through Friday, then starts up again from 10pm til closing. They even have happy hour on the weekends, running from 10pm to closing on Saturday, and 8 until closing on Sunday. That's a lot of hours to take advantage of their nearly 30 food items that they have on their happy hour menu, which is nicely matched by their numerous beverages that are marked down to celebrate the end of the workday. Happy hour would have to wait for us, as we were here to try their new Winter Menu Offerings.

As quickly as we sat down, this Chili Garlic Shrimp Starter was place in front of us. Quite a warm welcome by the people at RA Sushi. These shrimp featured a spicy kick, from a flavorful chili ponzu sauce, and were served on a bed of sauteed garlic and bok choy. Big time flavor with this appetizer, but the spice did not overpower. I liked the crunch from the tempura batter on the shrimp, and since Katie does not eat shrimp, I got to enjoy hers as well. Really solid start to their new Winter Menu Offerings.

Next up was the new King Crab Salad. This was the only miss of the night for me, but one of Katie's favorites. We can never agree on anything. This salad had large hunks of king crab included with the mixed greens, cubed avocados, cucumber slices, and grape tomatoes, which all came together with a Suehiro vinaigrette. I liked the fresh produce here, but would have liked more dressing on this. It was too lightly dressed for my taste, so I'd definitely ask for more dressing next time. For those of you still keeping your New Years resolution to eat lighter, this is the salad for you.

Since this is RA Sushi, sushi was definitely on the menu on this night. We started things off with this non-traditional Crunchy Yami Roll. It came with tempura sweet potato, cucumber, avocado, and was topped with crunchy shredded sweet potato and spinach tempura, and was finished off with a sweet eel sauce. Even for this carnivore, I did not miss the absence of meat in this roll. I liked the crunch of the outer portion of this, and the soft center. Very tasty eel sauce brought this all together.

This showstopper of the night is just in time for Valentine's Day, the Red Heart Roll. Everyone in attendance on this night really enjoyed the presentation here, but I was more impressed with the taste. Crab, avocado, and cucumber are rolled up, and topped with a spicy tuna, spicy mayo, and Sriracha. This really popped when consumed. Absolutely delicious, and the hearts on the plate will symbolize the love you have for this when you try it.

Anytime Katie sees ahi on a menu, she gets a little giddy. So when this Seared Ahi tuna came out, she could barely contain her enthusiasm. This beautiful tuna came seasoned with togarashi and black pepper. I learned writing this that togarashi is the Japanese name for red peppers, and this added a nice flavor to the ahi, which was served on top of asparagus, and a very nicely made shiitake mushroom cream sauce. I really enjoyed the sauce, which complimented the asparagus and tuna equally. Nicely done RA Sushi.

Not only does this new Winter Menu offer new food options, but it also has a number of new beverage options. There is a Blue Ginger Martini, and a Lychee Margarita for the more adventurous of people. What peeked my interest was their new Passion Punch Bowl. Meant to be shared, it is a fruity and refreshing drink served in a fish bowl. Coming back with friends for that one for sure. I was also pretty impressed with the TY KU Coconut Sake, which is a premium Nigori sake imported from Japan. The coconut was present, but hints of vanilla still came through. They offer this sake alone, or as a Seasonal Sake Flight that features three 2 ounce tastings, for people that are indecisive about their sake.

I really liked this new seasonal menu at RA Sushi, but what I liked more than that is they are trying to keep their menu fresh. So many successful restaurants would rest on their laurels, and not offer something new to their regular guests that might want to try something new. This is not the case at RA. I really enjoyed the ahi and the red heart roll the best. Make sure to make it out to try these soon, as they will only be around until the end of April, and are only available at the six Southern California area RA Sushi locations. Glad I could make Katie happy for once, even if I had a big assist from RA Sushi.

For more information about RA Sushi, go to their website here: http://www.rasushi.com/