Romantic Date Night at Juliette - CLOSED

Juliette Kitchen and Bar

1000 N. Bristol St. #11

Newport Beach, CA. 92660

It has been some time since we have gone out on a true date night. You know the kind of night. The night where it's just you two, you get dressed up a little bit more than you usually do, and you even splash a little extra cologne on yourself. The kind of night that you look at yourself in the mirror and think, not half bad. It was one of those nights.

One other ritual that I have on date night is to go to the computer and check out my list of restaurants that we need go to. There are lots of places on this list, but some are easily eliminated as not date night worthy places. I don't think the 20 places I have listed for breakfast burritos would make Katie feel so great about dressing up. About halfway down my list, there it was, Juliette Kitchen and Bar. My notation next to this restaurant was that they had a really good burger. Not sure I was going to get it, but I did have it in the back of my mind.

Juliette comes to us from the former owners of the Filling Station in Old Town Orange. Run by a husband and wife team, and now they have incorporated their daughter into the mix as the pastry chef. Housed in the former Tradition by Pascal spot, right behind the Coco's and next door to the much-buzzed-about Moulin Bistro, this kitchen is headed up by Executive Chef Daniel Hyatt, who had a previous stint at Nesai, which is also on our must-try list. Chef Hyatt's menu is divided into three main categories, small, share, and large plates. The menu is changed frequently, so their offerings may be a little different based on what's available.

We arrived with reservations at 8pm on a recent Saturday night and were seated promptly. The restaurant is a little on the loud side, but we could still hear each other, much to Katie's chagrin I'm sure. The decor here is very woodsy. Dark woods are everywhere, and the muted lighting does nothing to brighten things up. This space kind of reminded us of some of the wine bars we have been to recently, like Sealegs, Calivino, and the Twisted Vine. I was pretty hungry, so let's see how the dining portion of our meal turned out for us.

Katie always manages to get her phone in at least one shot, and that was the case with the first thing we tried, these Roasted Brussels Sprouts ($8). These fancy Brussels sprouts came with fried pork belly, shallots, parsley, and a pomegranate-molasses sweet and sour sauce. This was a great way to serve the much-maligned Brussels sprout, but it did have some flaws. The pork belly was overdone here and could have played a much more prominent role in this dish. I understand the sprouts are supposed to be the star of the show here though, but I love pork belly so much. The sauce was pretty good, and the sprouts themselves were tasty.

Over and over again in the reviews for Juliette Kitchen, you read about the praise for this Farro Risotto ($14), so we of course had to give it a try. This had a lot of layers to it. Butternut squash was cubed, then joined by squash blossoms, trumpet mushrooms, beet greens, pecorino cheese, sherry vinegar, olive oil, and finished off with some parsley. This was a little lighter than I had imagined. It was unique using the farro here, and the flavors came through in bursts. Very nice dish.

Katie took one look at the menu and made her selection straight away. She did not deviate from ordering the Striped Bass ($30) at Juliette. This beautifully presented fish was served atop braised Swiss chard, roasted sunchoke, mushrooms, fried tofu, scallions, and finished off with a black garlic mushroom broth. Kind of Asian influence with this plate. Katie really enjoyed the flakiness of the fish but had wished that the skin was taken off. Still, she enjoyed the preparation here and liked the way the components of this dish interacted.

After I had read that the OC Register's Food Critic, Brad Johnson had called this Juliette Burger ($17) one of the best burgers in OC, I knew I had to give it a try. After finishing this, I could see why this burger gets a lot of praise. I'd describe this burger as one that does not need a lot of flashes to make it good. Sure there's a tomato jam, aged cheddar, pancetta, grilled balsamic onions, and mustard aioli on this, but these items sit in the background and allow the very good beef to be the star of the show. The burger was a manageable size, and very juicy. The bun held its own here by keeping everything together. This burger came with some very nicely done house-made potato chips, which had a BBQ seasoning on them reminiscent of the old Laura Scudder's potato chips of my youth.

These days Katie has not been into dessert very much, so I knew that I would be having the majority of the dessert when I ordered this Salted Caramel Pot de Creme ($9). This was a very good version of this suddenly very trendy dessert flavor. I see salted caramel everything all over the place, and this one was good, even though it included a good many sultanas, which is a white raisin-like creature. This dessert also included milk crumble, whipped mascarpone, and very addictive brown butter shortbread cookies, which I could imagine being very popular with the staff here. Very tasty, and the perfect size for a solo dessert eater.  

I left Juliette in a quandary, not exactly knowing what rating I would give this place. I liked everything that I had but was not over the moon about anything. I'd say this is a very solid restaurant that we would like to come back to again. The burger was very good and really was made with quality ingredients. Katie would try something else, and the sides that we had before our meals were tasty and well made, but I'd like to try their mushrooms and pork cheeks on our next visit. Service was pretty solid, although the food was a little slow making its way out of the kitchen for us on this busy Saturday night. Still, we had a very nice date night experience here, and feel you might as well.

Out of five postmarks, (because every Valentine's day, the city of Juliette, Georgia, offers a dual postmark with the city of Romeo, Michigan in a nod to the famous Shakespeare play), five being best to zero being worst, Juliette Kitchen and Bar gets 3 postmarks.

For more information about Juliette Kitchen and Bar, go to their website here: http://www.juliettenb.com/ 

The Saga of the Five Pound Burrito

Manuel's Original El Tepeyac Cafe

812 North Evergreen Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90033

There's a lot to do when preparing for a wedding. Call me naive, but I had no idea the amount of time, effort, and money that went into these things. It seems that as our big day moves closer, there's more and more to do. Our nights revolve around seating charts, flower arrangements, and the dreaded wedding timeline that I'm not too fond of.

It's another wedding task that brings us up the 5 Freeway on this recent Sunday afternoon. We are meeting up with the officiant of our wedding. We're going over what we would like him to say, what we want him to wear, and he's trying to get a handle of our history. This turns out to be a two-hour meeting, and I knew where I wanted to eat on the way home. I had not eaten anything more than Ritz Crackers and peanut butter all day, so I was pretty famished when we arrived at Manuel's Original El Tepeyac.

El Tepeyac has been at this location in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles since 1952. Run by the Rojas family, they started their restaurant business in downtown LA in 1942, then moved their restaurant to Lincoln Heights for a brief time after that, and finally ended up here. They also have another location in the City of Industry. Up until two years ago, El Tepeyac was run by the charismatic Manuel Rojas, who at the age of 77 got up every day to get the kitchen going, and passed out shots, hugs, and kisses to customers of his beloved restaurant.

I heard about El Tepeyac when they were featured on Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food" in 2009. Their five-pound burritos really caught my attention, and I made note of them again when they were named number 23 of chow down places to eat in all of the US. Pretty good for a restaurant that's a lot smaller on the inside than I imagined, with a friendly staff, and a pretty good-sized menu. The combo plates that were coming out of the kitchen looked good-sized, and I knew I had a tough battle on my hands trying to finish one of their burritos. Let's see if I could finish one of their massive burritos.

After we were seated we were presented with their freshly made Tortilla Chips and Salsa. You could tell that these were freshly fried by the glistening grease coming off of the chips. Served warm, these were one of the better tortilla chips we have had in a restaurant. The smooth, Verde salsa had a good kick to it. I tried to abstain from having too many chips because I had a big meal coming for me.

Before we get to my massive meal, let's take a look at Katie's selection on this evening, the Chicken Salad ($10.75). This was a pretty big salad in its own right. It featured lettuce, tomato, bacon, jack cheese, tortilla strips, and of course chicken. As is her custom when eating Mexican, Katie also ordered a Small Side of Guacamole ($2.25), as if she did not have enough food. Although this salad was good-sized, they kind of skimped out on the chicken. We thought it was kind of weird that there was no dressing on this salad, so Katie added some salsa to it and then ordered some Tortillas ($.75) to make some tacos out of this mound of produce. She easily made three tacos, and still had some salad left to take to work the next day. She'd probably try something else on her next visit to El Tepeyac.

The pictures of this Manuel's Special Pork Burrito ($24.99) do not really capture how enormous this thing actually was. Five and a half pounds of a burrito on this plate, and it was really intimidating when it came out of the kitchen and was placed before me. Inside the burrito was rice, beans, guacamole, and red tomato-based Chile Verde pork, and then it's topped with jack and cheddar cheese and even more pork chunks. I immediately went to work on this burrito, since I had pretty much starved myself all day to challenge this burrito. I had no chance. The burrito was really good though. The chunks of pork were tender and really tasty. The inside of the burrito was good as well. Lots of guacamole, beans, and pork, with it all, spread out nicely, so each bite had a little bit of everything. I always hate when you have a section of a burrito where its all beans, and another where its all cheese. This was a very well balanced burrito. Did I end up eating the whole thing? Keep reading to see if I conquered this Manuel's special burrito.

Not even close. When I saw it with my own eyes, I kind of knew there was no chance I would be walking out of here finishing this. I probably had close to three pounds of it and had the rest the next day for dinner. It was just as good the next day. I walked into El Tepeyac very hungry, but couldn't do it. Still a good burrito, but next time I'd probably get one of the smaller versions.

Needless to say, I left El Tepeyac stuffed. It was a pretty uncomfortable ride down the 5 Freeway back home, but the food here was worth the mild discomfort. Looking around the dining room, I think I might try their nachos, combination plates, or breakfast items on future visits here. All looked to be real good, and big portions. Even though the 5-pound burrito challenge is kind of a novelty thing, it still tasted great, and I have no reason to believe that the rest of the menu would be anything but great as well. We experienced a really good service this evening. Mary, our waitress, took real good care of us and made sure we had iced teas to go for our trip back home. For the amount of food that we had, I do not think the prices were too out of control. Eating this burrito will give me the energy I need to continue on with the wedding planning. Well, after a nap at least.

Out of five hills, (because Tepeyac translates to this, and this restaurant is in the very hilly area of Boyle Heights), five being best to zero being worst, Manuel's Original El Tepeyac Cafe gets 3.5 hills.

For more information about Manuel's Original El Tepeyac Cafe, go to their website here: http://eltepeyaccafe.com/

Hoping for Good Barbecue Down South - CLOSED

Dickey's Barbecue Pit

27931 La Paz Road Suite D

Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

To say that South OC is starved for a good barbecue place, would be an understatement. I have lived south of the El Toro Y for over ten years now, and have yet to find a really good barbecue restaurant that has blown us away down here.

Before you bombard my email box with suggestions, yes I know about Bad to the Bone in San Juan Capistrano, but we have never really liked it. Their meats are hit and miss, and the sides really haven't lived up to expectations. Lucille's gets a lot of praise for their barbecue, but they are pretty pricey, and again, the meats seem like they are pulled out early depending on how busy they are. Wood Ranch has been the best we have had up until this point, but they are very pricey, and then there's the trouble of battling parking at the Spectrum.

When we saw that Dickey's Barbecue Pit was opening up right down the street from my work, I knew we had to give it a try. I had an inkling that this might just be our new go-to spot for barbecue in our own backyard. We had visited a Dickey's once before, in the Dallas Airport. I remember telling Katie that it was a shame that this airport barbecue tasted better than almost anything that we could get back home. I still regret that I did not blog about our first visit back then, but I got a second chance to review Dickey's recently.

For those of you that are not aware, Dickey's is the largest barbecue chain in the United States, with close to 500 locations operating in 42 states. They have big plans for California, as well as Orange County. This is their fourth OC spot, with others being in Buena Park, Fullerton, Brea, and their website touts another coming soon to Ladera Ranch.

Dickey's was started in 1941 by Travis Dickey. Now run by his grandson, Roland, he has kept a lot of the traditions started by his grandfather. There's free soft-serve ice cream at every spot, and kids eat free on Sundays here. All locations smoke their meats on-site, using hickory wood-burning pits. The smell is intoxicating when you drive by, and when you walk through the door the aroma hits you in the face.

We arrived here at 6pm on a recent busy Friday night. Ordering is done at the counter, with an awkward glass partition that sits at just about forehead level, so you find yourself yelling at the guy prepping your meats and side items. The line does move efficiently though, and by the time you make your stop at the side item station, and finally the register, your food is there waiting for you. You then take your metal tray to the dining area, where there are about ten communal tables for you to set up shop. One last thing before you dig in, don't forget to get some of their barbecue sauce, which comes out of the dispenser warm. They offer two kinds, a spicy and regular sauce. Both are good, but I always find myself leaning towards the spicier version. Let's take a closer look at the food we had on this night.

Both Katie and I opted to get meat plates, but they do offer sandwiches, meats by the pound, and a few salads. Katie selected the 2 Meat Plate ($12.95) with Spicy Cheddar Sausage and Beef Brisket. She had wanted just regular polish sausage, but they had just run out. The cheddar sausage is real good though. Just a hint of spice, but the cheese kind of cool it down a bit. A real good sausage here, but the brisket is the thing to get at Dickey's. Tender pieces, with some stray morsels of fat hiding in there. The flavor is spot on, and I liked the crunchy bits that are interwoven in the portion that I had. Crazy good. Side items at Dickey's are pretty solid as well. Katie had the Caesar Salad and the Green Beans with Bacon. I managed to snag a bite of the salad, which was okay. It needed more dressing. I did not even try the green beans, because I'm not really a fan of them, but Katie was pleased with them.

I had a 3 Meat Plate ($13.50) as is my usual when eating at a barbecue restaurant. For my meats, I had the spicy cheddar sausage, the very well done brisket, and the pulled pork. For the most part, the pulled pork has been pretty good. Most bites are tender and moist, but I have had one or two bites that are a little on the dry side. Nothing a little barbecue sauce can not cure. I really do enjoy that they leave the sauce off of their meats here, so you can adjust the amount of sauce to your liking. For my side items, I went with the Jalapeno Baked Beans and the Baked Potato Casserole. Both of these have become my favorite sides at Dickey's. The jalapenos in the baked beans really awaken the taste buds and are not for people that can't tolerate a little heat. The baked potato casserole is really just mashed potatoes with cheese and green onions sprinkled on top of them. Not bad texture-wise, but they would be made even better with some bacon thrown in here.

Since this trip to Dickey's, I have been back a few other times. I'm happy to report that they are pretty consistent with their food. I have not had a bad experience on the three trips I have taken here. I like the amount of smokiness that the meats have at Dickey's. I'm more of a less is more kind of guy when it comes to barbecue. I don't like the natural flavor of the meat being overpowered by a smoky flavor, but instead just a hint, like the meats here. Looking at the pictures of the plates, the serving sizes do look pretty small, but I have left here stuffed. The word seems to be spreading about Dickey's as it can sometimes be challenging finding a seat here during peak dining times. I'm pretty excited that there's a new barbecue place south of Irvine that is worth going to whenever barbecue cravings strike me, which is pretty often.

Out of five oil rigs, (because Dickey's started in the city of Dallas, and part of my childhood was watching the Ewing's run around that city on TV), five being best to zero being worst, Dickey's Barbecue Pit gets 3.5 oil rigs.

For more information about Dickey's Barbecue Pit, go to their website here: https://www.dickeys.com/

Yet Another Reason to Head to DTSA

4th Street Market

201 E. 4th St.

Santa Ana, CA 92701

It seems like the latest food trend is the neighborhood dining hall. There are a number that have sprouted up recently in OC. I feel ashamed as a food blogger that we have not gone to the Anaheim Packing District yet, and I do not feel that we have explored the OC Mix at SOCO nearly enough. Our list of restaurants to hit up is dotted with many places at that center. There's also the Union Market in Tustin, which we have walked through recently, which has great potential, but there's not nearly enough places open there yet, and not sure they will be opening anytime soon. So to get some of my food cred back, we made a date with our good friends to explore the newly opened 4th Street Market in Santa Ana.

If you haven't made it to Downtown Santa Ana in a long while, you're really missing out. This area probably has the greatest concentration of our favorite restaurants that I can think of off the top of my head. We have had so many great restaurant memories made here, like C4 Deli, Chapter One, Lola Gaspar, The Crosby, and Mil Jugos. We also have some memories in the making when we eventually visit Playground, the North Left, and Pop's Cafe. This night though, was all about 4th Street Market.

Opened almost two months ago, the buzz for this culinary wonderland keeps growing. Every time I see someone on Twitter post that they are there, or I check out my Instagram feed, seeing some of the great food being served at the 4th Street Market, I get a little pang of jealousy that I am not the one enjoying that food. Located at the corner of 4th Street and Bush, this used to be home to the Santa Ana Swap Meet, but now it's home to 15 retailers, a demonstration kitchen, a community market, a European style butcher shop, and everyone's favorite coffee purveyor, Portola Coffee, which has a very prominent spot in the front of the market.

We arrived here at 6pm on a Wednesday night. The market definitely has a vibrancy about it. Kind of a hip feel to it, without being too hipster. While we were waiting for our friends to arrive, we browsed through the Honor Roll Market. They had some locally grown produce, hot sauces, spices, and some handmade soaps that caught our attention. There's also Dough Exchange, which is hawking baked goods, from the guys behind Playground. At this late hour, the case was kind of barren, but from what we saw, it looked promising.

Our friends finally arrived, and we made a lap around the market, making notes on what we wanted to consume. There were five of us, so we decided to use the divide and conquer technique. We set up shop in one of the seating alcoves, and everyone spread out to order what they wanted. Kind of a little overwhelming, but we all decided to share what everyone brought back to the table. Let's take a look at our selections on this evening.

When we made our first lap around the market, we ran into a familiar face, Danny Godeninez, who is part owner of Ink Waffles, and of course the famous Anepalco's. Every time we see him, he's willing to take the time to talk food with us, and his passion for business is inspiring. For his latest venture he's teamed up with Jaritza Gonzalez to introduce their version of a waffle sandwich. Not just a Bruxie knock off, these sandwiches are larger, and really go for it with innovative varieties, including this Waffle Laki ($9.50). This sandwich was filled with a very well done lamb, lettuce, tomatoes, french fries, and tzatziki sauce. I loved the lamb here, but the waffle was so overloaded that it was kind of a mess to eat. It didn't really hold its sandwich shape for too long. Still really good, and we look forward to trying some of their other six sandwich offerings on our next visit.

One of my favorite booths of the night was Stockyard Sandwich Company. Owner Phil Burden, formerly of The Grilled Cheese Spot, had us oohing and ahhing when we tried both versions of his Naughty Totties ($8) . They have two versions of what they call this, "poutine-ish" item, pork and beef. A little hard to photograph in the container it came in, you need to do yourself a favor and try these tater tots that are topped with carnitas or short rib, a fried egg, cheese, and country gravy. Not sure which version I liked better, but I'm going to love to do another taste test soon. The Westside Cheese Lurker ($10) is also worth getting. This sandwich came with braised short rib, bacon, grilled onion, barbecue sauce, chipotle aioli, pepper jack cheese, and jalapeno. As you might expect, big time flavor on this one. It was served with house made potato chips. A real winner on this night.

I never had the pleasure of eating at Civic before they closed up, but if Joe Melendez's new venture, Mar is any indication, I really missed out. We picked two items from this seafood focused menu. Their Ceviche of the Day ($8) happened to be a Mahi Mahi in a mango habanero salsa on this evening. The fish was fresh, but a little too much liquid in this serving. I also would have liked a little more spice. This was more on the sweet side, with just a little note of spice on the back end of each bite. Katie could not stop raving about the Poke ($10) here. She of course loved the cubes of rich ahi tuna accented with garlic, ginger, green onions, sesame seeds, and topped with avocado, but she was also enamored with the zucchini carrot noodles this was served on top of. She loved this option, and would get this again in a heartbeat.

I'm not really into food trucks, because I'm not into hunting down my food when I'm hungry. One truck I had always heard good things about though was Dos Chino's. Lucky for us food truck snobs, there's no need to hunt them down now since they will be at 4th Street Market permanently. Katie wanted to give their Latin/Asian mashup a try, so she had their Vietnamese Roasted Pork Tacos ($7 for two). These tacos brought these two food cultures together wonderfully. Inside the corn tortilla is a five spice roasted pork belly, pickled carrots, daikon, and jalapenos, and then a touch of green salsa. The result was a wonderful fusion taco that will have us exploring more of their menu next time.

I've had some real good experiences with fried chicken recently. It all started when I went to Disneyland and had their version at the Plaza Inn. It continued when I went to my buddies house, and he treated us to his version of this southern classic dish. This Fried Chicken Combo ($10) completed the trifecta of great fried chicken. This fried chicken was delicious, and had a sweet sauce that did not overpower, and let the chicken shine. It was moist, without being greasy. Very impressive. This combo was also rounded out by a unique Chipotle Potato Salad and a slice of Skillet Cornbread. Both were pretty tasty, but didn't distract us too long from finishing the fried chicken.

Also from the boys at Playground is this hamburger concept, Wagyu Chuck. I've heard great things about the off the menu burger at Playground, and if it's the same as this one, those raves are well deserved. I'd describe this Double Burger ($9) as being a very clean and simple burger. Kind of like In-N-Out, but higher quality ingredients and better flavor. The bun was really good here, with a nice toasted touch to it. We all were a fan of the Fried Baked Potatoes ($2) as well. These kind of tasted like they would fit right in at the OC Fair, but were not as greasy, and with a very nice crunch to them. A very impressive side item for the burgers here.

By this time of the night, I can admit that I was pretty much done, but I knew that other people in our group wanted to try dessert. There are a number of options for dessert at 4th Street Market; like Front Porch Pops, Torch S'More Company, and the place we eventually ended up, Chunk-N-Chip. Ice cream cookie sandwiches seem to be a hot trend right now, and these were solid, even though I was already pretty stuffed. They make all of their cookies here, and the ice cream is also made by them. They had some very interesting flavors, and were very generous with the samples. I settled on a Half Sandwich, which was a dark chocolate chip cookie with banana ice cream on top of it. Rebekah had a scoop of peach ice cream sandwiched between two macadamia nut with white chocolate and pineapple cookies. She was in total bliss having this, which made up for the fact that she was going home with our friend Angel. Not the easiest pill to swallow. Anyways, this was a great end to our night at 4th Street Market.

When I saw my good friend Angel again the next week at our regular poker game, we both remarked that we did not think there was anything that we had on this night that we would not want to have again. Everything really impressed us, and we look forward to coming back again soon to try more. I'm not guaranteeing that you will like everything that you encounter at 4th Street Market, but you will definitely find something you will be telling your friends that they must try when coming here. I'm just glad that for a few hours at least, I felt like one of those hip, food bloggers while eating at 4th Street Market. Well worth the trip just for that.

For more information about 4th Street Market, head over to their website here: http://4thstreetmarket.com/