South Coast Plaza Food Blogger Event

Recently, about a dozen LA and Orange County Food Bloggers and Writers were invited to a 2 day event put together by Lee Healey of Lee Healey Marketing Communications and hosted by both Lee and Debra Gunn Downing, Executive Director of Marketing of South Coast Plaza. The event centered around dining experiences at 5 restaurants as well as checking out a high end kitchen and cooking store. Since I hardly ever go down Orange County way, this was my first experience with all the places we visited and it was nice to find such great eating options down South. When we arrived Friday night, our first stop was at Hamamori.

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Even with a premium shopping center like South Coast Plaza, I have to say that my expectations of "mall food" weren't too high, but eating at Hamamori soon changed my mind. At Hamamori, we shared 6 dishes. All were quite good, but I definitely had three favorite dishes. Two of them were special nigiri. Both were sprinkled with Himalayan Pink Salt and had a squeeze of lemon; however, one was Hokkaido Scallop Sushi topped with caviar and the other was Japanese Yellowtail topped with chili paste. Both were fresh and I really liked the tart-salty flavors coming from the lemon and salt.

Third was the fun interactive experience of cooking thinly sliced Kobe beef on top of a steaming and hot lava stone that came from Mt. Fuji. The beef came with a steak sauce, an apple sesame sauce and chili salt. While the sauces weren't mind-blowing, the beef was tender and I enjoyed the instant gratification of seeing the meat cook in seconds and being able to eat it right away.

Hamamori was definitely a great start and from there, we took a walk to Napa Style, part of a chain of high-end kitchen and cooking stores owned by Chef Michael Chiarello of Top Chef Master fame. Here we were able to experience a salt tasting, an olive oil tasting and a wine tasting. At the salt tasting, we got to sample 5 different salts using fingerling potatoes and tomatoes. The use of the fingerling potatoes were genius because it gave you a neutral surface to sample the salt with. Salts ranged from Himalayan Pink Salt to Truffle Salt to the Gray Salt that is Chef Chiarello's go to seasoning for a lot of his cooking.

Afterwards, we sampled some of their olive oils. What's nice about the olive oils is that after you taste them, you can immediately bottle the one you want to purchase. They have both filtered and unfiltered olive oils available as well as olive oils infused with other ingredients. Of the ones we tried, I really enjoyed their Unfiltered Sicilian Extra Virgin Olive Oil because it had a little bite to it and also their Blood Orange Olive Oil, which was absolutely delicious.

Salt, then olive oil and now it was wine time. At our wine tasting, we sampled 5 of Chef Chiarello's red wines and each of the wine was named after a family member, from his youngest daughter to his wife. I'm usually more of a white wine drinker, but I have to say that I actually found these reds quite pleasant.

Our next stop was Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's where we first enjoyed cocktails in their wine shop, Next Vintage and were also shown their eWine Book, a tablet PC that allows them to present their extensive wine list electronically to customers and allows them to search for wine availability based on Type, Country, Region, Varietal, Vintage or Price.

After cocktails, our group shared 9 dishes in a private dining room. Three of the dishes stood out for me. First, there was the Mussels, Garlic and White Wine with Saffron Aiolia and Grilled Sourdough. It had lots of great flavors plus the broth was delicious.

Being a cheeshead, I couldn't get enough of the Burrata Cheese, Roasted Baby Tomatoes and Arugula Pesto.

Finally, the Truffle Fried Egg Topped with Tuna Ham (exported from Spain and costs $42.00 a lb) is a dish I could easily have breakfast, lunch or dinner. That tuna ham was especially memorable and at such a price point, it better be.

You'd think this food marathon would be ending soon, but nope, dessert was next on the agenda and it was experienced at Marche Moderne. What a delicious experience that was. Based on just the desserts alone, a return trip to Marche Moderne to check out their appetizers and entrees is definitely in my agenda in the near future.

I found absolutely no fault with any of their sweet offerings which included the following: Green Tea Macaroon, Apricot Macaroon, Orange Beignet, Banana Caramel Pecan Tart and Meringue Filled with Lemon Curd and Topped with Fresh Raspberry. Of all the desserts though, my absolute favorite was the Orange Beignet. I loved how light and airy it was.

So ended our first day. While the OC Bloggers went to their respective homes, hotel accommodations at the Westin were paid for by South Coast Plaza for the LA Bloggers. After a good night's sleep, the next day started with Continental Breakfast at Pinot Provence, which is actually in the hotel itself.

While we started our day with a choice of bagels, lox, cream cheese, muffins, croissants, granola, yogurt and fruit, we were joined by Executive Chef Lauren “Lulu” DeRouen. For someone so young, she's definitely well-travelled and she shared stories about her various culinary adventures. It was really enjoyable being able to sit down with a Chef and hear about her food background and why she became a Chef in the first place.

Our last stop on this 2 day food journey was at Pizzeria Ortica. Here we got a chance to see a pasta making demonstration from Executive Chef/Partner Steve Samson and helped by his Sous Chef, Zach. Between the two of them, they showed us how to make pasta dough and how to roll that pasta through an Italian pasta rolling machine. Afterwards, we got to see how various types of pasta were made, which included everything from filled raviolis, noodles, agnolotti, tortellini and more. They definitely made it look easy. Being all thumbs, I don't think I'd be able to do as good a job.

After the demonstration, we sat down to enjoy a pasta sampler plate which included Pear and Pecorino Tortelli with Brown Sugar and Sage, Burrata Ravioli with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Basil and Spinach Tagliatelle with Bolognese Sauce and Parmigiano Reggiano. We were also treated to a Margherita Pizza with San Marzano Tomatoes, Gioia Mozzarella and Basil. After seeing all the work into making pasta in general, it made me appreciate that last meal even more.

Overall, it was an enjoyable two days, spending time with my fellow bloggers as well getting the chance to experience some great OC eats at the South Coast Plaza. I still may not make it down to Orange County very often, but at least when I am in town, I have some new options I've never had before.

Click Here To See the 176 Pictures I Took of This Event!

Hamamori
3333 Bear St
Ste 320
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714-850-0880

Napa Style
3333 Bear St
Costa Mesa, CA
714.825.0445

Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdales
3333 S Bristol St
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714.352.2525



Marché Moderne
3333 Bristol St
Ste 3001
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714.434.7900



Pinot Provence
686 Anton Blvd
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714.444.5900

Pizzeria Ortica
650 Anton Blvd
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
714.445.4900

Read What My Fellow Food Bloggers Had to Say:

e*Star LA
OC Eating: South Coast Plaza Restaurant Tour

Food GPS
5 Top Tastes of South Coast Plaza

Gourmet Pigs
South Coast Plaza Food Extravaganza Part I: Hamamori & Napa Style

South Coast Plaza Food Extravaganza Part II: Charlie Palmer & Marche Moderne + Giveaway

Disclaimer: (which I'm shameless copying from FoodGPS because he said it so well)

FTC regulations dictate full disclosure. All South Coast Plaza meals were fully comped and they hosted most of the L.A. bloggers at the Westin St. Francis for the night of October 2. As we toured South Coast Plaza, several stops gave us takeways. NapaStyle gave us a bottle of wine, a tin of gray salt and a Michael Chiarello cookbook. Charlie Palmer’s gave us a bottle of wine and a wine opener. South Coast Plaza gave us a luggage tag, Kiehl’s body scrub, a jar of Antonello’s pasta sauce, three magazines and a cookie. Pizzeria Ortica gave us a bag of beans, cooking wine and a T-shirt. While we didn’t receive cash, every blogger knew going in that if we posted three tweets per stop, we’d receive a $100 gift card to South Coast Plaza, and that if we posted about our experience within 72 hours, we’d receive another $100 gift card.



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