Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Newport Beach Restaurants

Belly Deli - Hwy 1 Newport Beach
This is the young hipster hang out. The menu had a lot of things, Pizza, salads, wraps, sandwiches..
My veggie sandwich was ok, but not great. They had lots of beer. The place seemed at one time to be a tavern, and after dinner it appears to be a tavern.

Shorewood Inn - Balboa Beach
This place had the craziest menu I have ever seen! There was soo much stuff to chose from. They even had 4 or 5 different veggie meat products. It was unreal. The food, however, was average at best. The service was good and we had good entertainment while watching one very young waitress come to work, and proceed to start removing her clothes. It was a cold morning and she came in all bundled up. Every time she walked by, she seemed to have shed more clothes! Soon she had on a sheer top, no bra, tight sweats and those boots all the girls wear. The food was not great, but the view was pretty good.

finally we got it right...

Bluewater Inn - Newport Beach
This place was in the Marina and had a nice outdoor seating area. We went wild here, starved for some quality food. We two appetizers, the Baked Clams, which were excellent and the Seared Ahi which was phenominal. For dinner we both had the Sea Bass. It was an Australian fish, and it was not as good as Chilean Sea Bass, but it was prepared prefectly. Great meal, not too expensive, I think our bill with several drinks was $100.

Great Mex - Balboa
We had seen this place a few times, what a silly name we thought. We went in, they have a counter you order from, then you take your seat and they bring the food to you. The place was packed with mostly high school age kids.
I had the three combination plate. Shrimp soft taco, Chili Relleno and Crispy Potato Taco. OMG! it was out of this world. We still reminisce over this place daily.
They also feature a salsa bar, with all homemade salsas and beer and wine. This little hole in the wall was too good, we will definately return. In fact, we dined there several times during our short stay.

Baja Fresh - Corona del Mar (various other CA locations)
This fast food chain features all fresh food, nothing frozen or premade. It also has a salsa bar and some locations (Hollywood BLVD from a previous trip) feature beer and wine.

I ordered fish tacos and they were spectacular. We couldn't go wrong eating cheap mexican in Orange County.

Del Taco - various
Crappy chain restaurant similar to Taco Bell. We saw the commercials everywhere and the restaurants everywhere. On our last day, for lack of anywhere better to go at the time, we tried the Del Taco. First thing I see is an Egg and cheese burrito (it was breakfast time). I have never seen a fast food place offer a non meat menu item. I always have to ask for a "egg mcMuffin with no meat" or whatever. This place actually had what I wanted right on the menu. It was better than any Mexican food that I have had in the Seattle area in some time, since the place on 7th and Stewart closed anyways..

Cappys - Newport Beach, HWY 1
This place was a trip. It looked like a restaurant/lounge that you have been too a million times. A Dougals, or Capt K's for my local readers. One problem, they closed at 3! It was very close to the hotel and we so wanted to go there for a drink.
One morning we did go for breakfast. It was unreal. Again, like Shorewood, it had a huge menu. I have never seen anything like it. There must have been 20 different omelets, in addition to scrambles, hot cakes, waffles.. it was amazing.

The food was good too. We ate here twice for breakfast. Simple, greasy, homecooked food. Huge portions!

They had a beautiful, fully stocked bar. And they close daily at 3 pm. We never could figure that one out..