Orange County, CA

BYO Forum - Wine at Restaurants
61

No Corkage at The Playground in Santa Ana.

62

Asian Tapas in Irvine. $10/bottle, no bottle limit.

63

I’m going to be in Long Beach later this month. Are there any BYO’s in town or close to town? I’m going out to dinner with a vendor that’s looking for casual food. She’s recently become interested in wine, and I’m going to bring a bottle.

64

Hi Dan!

Michael’s on Naples. No corkage on Mondays (up to three bottles). Best place in LB. http://www.michaelsonnaples.com/

Cheers,

65

Good call Veronica. Michaels is always a solid choice. Especially when you can sit out on the deck.

66

Agree with Michaels. Lasher’s is also quite good, $15 corkage IIRC. Cool little place in a converted house.

67

Chapter One in Santa Ana is $15 but offers free corkage (and half-off bottles) on Wednesdays. The menu offers a wildly creative spin on some American classics, but it’s hit or miss IMO, and a several dishes are just too clever by half and probably could use some editing. But their $5 all-you-can-drink mimosa brunch on Sundays is good sloppy fun and worth checking out at least once.

68

Agreed. Chapter One is a fun place and free corkage Weds. kicks ass. Really like the Mac & Cheese. We should do a dinner there on a Weds.

69

The next NWA event?

70

Lashers report

Pretty place from the outside, but not as pretty inside. Stil cute though. I’m a sucker for beets, so when the waitress said they had a special salad of golden beets with strawberries, I was hooked. After about 3 bites of salad, I said to my companion, where are the beets? She looked and was puzzled. Where’s the beets? I was expecting to see beet slices or chunks, but what I had was 2 small ‘pineapple chunk’ type of pieces. [scratch.gif] I called over the waitress who headed to the kitchen to make our salad right. She came back with the only explanation I would have accepted. She told me that the beets fell to the bottom of whatever container they were in, and that’s what got me 2 bite size pieces. Still short of what I expected. It was careless.

My friend ordered a chicken dish with a white sauce. She told me the sauce made the chicken dish delicious. I ordered the short ribs which was outstanding. It went well with the 08 Carlisle Syrah Papas Block. Outstanding wine that’s drinking well now, but has a long life ahead. The $17 corkage wasn’t waived, even thought we offered a glass to the waitress (who shared with the chef).

Before the bill arrived, the chef sent out an some apple concoction with ice cream, as a thank you for the pour. [cheers.gif]

I’d still return to Lasher’s, but next time I’ll pass on the beet special. $115 all in for 2.

71

Traditions (Tustin) - $10

72

oops

73

Ecco (Costa Mesa) - $15

74

How was the food? Big fan of Old Vine Cafe next door.

75

Meh! Decent, but I wouldn’t rush out to dine there.

76

http://www.moroscubanrestaurant.com/

Moros Cuban

Pretty small place. Great food. Probably should bring your own stems. They have no alcohol so bring what you’ll need. Might be fun to take this place over one night for an offline.

$0 [cheers.gif] [thumbs-up.gif]

J

77

Update. Memphis on Bristol is now $8, Thurs-Sat … if IIRC.

BTW - Their food is getting more and more inconsistant.

78

Piccolino in Mission Viejo is $15 but they waive corkage on Sundays and Mondays. The food is home-style Italian American done well. A lot of their pastas are made in house – I had the duck confit ravioli and LB had the pappardelle with lamb ragu – cooked to a perfect al dente. Not exactly a fancy place but huge step up from your typical OC strip mall mom-and-pop places.

79

fyi…The winery in tustin is $25

80

Houston’s in Irvine is still no corkage as of a week ago. There was some discussion on the LA thread about some Hillstone Group restaurants starting to charge corkage.