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Sunday, May 15, 2016

Weekend Cooking- Breakfast Treats




This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Last weekend my husband had a conference at the Ritz-Carlton resort at Laguna Niguel in California. The views were spectacular, and it is located near a public beach where lots of surfers hang out. They all look like birds in the water, hanging out looking for a wave.
My breakfast view

I had breakfast at Raya, which has has huge windows overlooking the ocean. It is a spectacular view and what a way to start the day. Since it was California, I had the Breakfast Tacos of course. The tacos were soft flour tortillas filled with shredded hash brown potatoes, bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, and pico de gallo. A side of black beans with queso fresco and guacamole accompanied this delightful dish.
The breakfast tacos were delicious

We enjoyed lunch at 180Blu, an outdoor terrace overlooking the ocean. We shared the nachos, which had cheese, shredded chicken, chorizo, jalapenos and fresno chile peppers. The nachos were the perfect size to share and the view was even better.
Our lunch view

Dinner was at their steakhouse, EnoSteak. We were not pleased with the dinner. There were three of us and dinner came to $400, and that was only with two glasses of wine total for the table. We all ordered the Wedge Salad, and we were served a wedge of lettuce with the core intact. I found that strange. The salad had chopped bacon, blue cheese crumbles, chopped red onion and just a scant tablespoon of a very thin buttermilk dressing. The salad really needed more dressing.

Two people at our table ordered the nine ounce beef tenderloin, and I ordered the nine ounce strip steak. The steaks were fine, done to medium as we asked, but all three steaks looked exactly alike to me, which I found odd as they had tenderloin and I had strip steak. That perplexed me.

We skipped dessert, as there didn't seem to be anything on a rather limited menu that appealed to us. The service was fine, and even though we are used to paying Manhattan prices for dinner, we thought that $68 for the steak alone was pretty pricy. I can't really say I would recommend EnoSteak.

This morning my sons took us to brunch for a belated Mother's Day celebration. We went to Uva, a lovely local restaurant that specializes in Italian food. We each got the brunch special, a brunch entree, side dish and a cocktail for $19.50 per person.

I chose the chocolate crepes with nutella filling, topped with whipped cream, a side of sausage and a Fragosa- prosecco with fragioli wild strawberry liqueur. Brunch was delicious and we ate in the garden area. The restaurant opened at 11am and the place was full within ten minutes. I enjoyed the company even more than the brunch.
Chocolate nutella filled crepes
I hope you all had a great week. I missed the Book Expo this year, as it was in Chicago and after traveling to California, another trip in the same week wasn't in the cards. I did follow BEA on social media and it looked like another great year. We'll see you all in NYC next May!


4 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had good (mostly) eating on the West Coast. I'd like to try making some of those chocolate Nutella crepes.

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  2. Those Nutella crepes do look amazing. Looks like quite the food-filled weekend. ;-)

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  3. Gorgeous views in California, but I agree that $68 is a bit pricey! Those chocolate crepes look AMAZING!

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  4. I love the photos of the beach, I miss living in California!

    I was actually surprised at how cheap the restaurants in Manhattan and the surrounding area were. I was expecting them to be much more expense.

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