Highly recommended by peers at yelp, my wife and I decided to try this place for brunch on Sat morning. For those people who are not familiar of the plaza layout, the restaurant can be hard to find. The location of this restaurant is between trade Joe and mandarin terrace, and is right next to yarn lady.
Once set down, my wife ordered Thai coffee while I ordered iced tea. While waiting for our drinks, my wife explained to me that the chef for this restaurant used to be a chef at Ritz. She explained that the chef wanted to spend more time with his family, so he opened this restaurant in 2006. This restaurant only open till 3:00pm everyday.
When the waiter brought the coffee and iced tea. I immediately fall in love with the tea. The tropical iced tea has a very different taste than the usual commercial iced tea. No sugar was needed and usually I am the type of person that puts lots of honey or sugar to the tea to cover the bitter taste of the tea. The coffee was also very rich and very tasty.
The menu for the entree is different than what you normally would see. The selection are Beef, Chicken, Duck, ... etc and of course the typical breakfast items such as pancake, waffle, eggs and bacon ... etc. I ordered Beef while my wife ordered the Duck.
When the waiter brought out the dishes, the plating of the dishes were phenomenal. You felt that you are eating at a 5 star restaurant while paying the 3 star restaurant price. Overall, the duck was pretty tasty. I especially enjoyed the duck meat in combination with the rich creamy sauce of cauliflower puree and slight sour taste of the goji berry.
The Beef was great too. The meat were very tender and moist. The two (Merlot seasoned)poached eggs were tasty. The strong smell of red wine in the poached eggs were a a great complement of the beef. The taro bits and mushroom and rice cake within the dish brought a very different experience to the taste but.
After the meal, we had chocolate cream brulee. Unlike typical American desert, the cream brulee was not too sweet and even after you finished the dish, you can still taste the richness of chocolate in your mouth.
I highly recommend going to restaurant for a meal. The outside patio seating is very relaxing. If you ever are around Laguna Hill mall around lunch time, you should definitely try this restaurant.
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