"Get off the road!" {Driver passes by} "All right..."
Hi I'm Mike of Mike's Road Trip on this episode I'm in Orange county California on a quest to
find the best restaurants in Costa Mesa now the restaurant seen here in Costa Mesa has
exploded in recent years so if you're a foodie looking for the latest in gastro cuisine
come along with me let me show you around the first restaurant i visited in Costa Mesa was
the hall global eatery which is a beautifully open space featuring delicacies from around the world
there are several stations to explore from seafood bakery a cocktail bar to Mediterranean
The Hall is located within the famed south coast plaza a world-class destination for luxury
shopping and culinary arts with more than two dozen fine dining and casual restaurant options
I'm chef Hector Zamora welcome to silver trumpet restaurant
chef hector prepared one of his signature dishes for me a lamb loin with a cherry port sauce
accompanied with a butternut squash puree and grilled asparagus
so what inspired you to become a chef uh well i you know growing growing up in in a Mexican
household like a lot of chefs do right uh the parents cooking not even Mexican just
in general chefs mom's always cooking dad's always cooking so i'd come home from school
my mom was cooking my dad loved cooking on the weekends mostly seafood so then i just followed
through i just followed through and kept going i went to culinary school i didn't know what
i wanted to do i just knew i was going to be in something in the food industry right yeah
whether it be the front of the house back of the house i didn't know and then opportunity
came in to just go take a tour of the campus and i was like this that sounds interesting let's go
check it out and i stayed that was it that was the beginning i started working with Wolfgang
worked a little bit with patina then did a Johnson club in Santa Monica did that for four years
uh i did we opened up perch in downtown l.a i was with the starting crew so do you think there's one
thing that really attracts the foodie to come to Costa Mesa yeah the food the food
the weather you know the chefs are amazing the clean city you know and you have a variety of you
go down the street you have a Japanese market you go down here you have Mexican market and
then you have Mediterranean you have Peruvian restaurants it's everything's so condensed here
um so it's quite a selection oh very much though for sure very good well chef thank you so much
for uh this wonderful meal and for taking the time out to thank you guys for coming out here
so i am here with jenny wedge from travel Costa Mesa and we're at a really cool place right now
can you tell me a little bit about it yeah we're actually at the camp it's an Eco-friendly campus
every business retailer here is focused on active healthy lifestyle so the dining options are all
focused on healthy menu items and actually across the street is a sister property called the lab
they're focused on little American businesses so all the businesses that you'll see here
are independently owned and it's a great way to support local businesses for shopping and dining
great well let's go have a stroll sounds great the lab which stands for little American business
is a really fun place to visit it's cool and colorful with a whimsical vibe
there is a large common area to meet friends along with many restaurant options including
the gypsy den which is where i had a tasty breakfast one morning
the camp across the street from the lab has a similar feel but i'd say it's a bit more refined
during my stay i visited a couple of restaurants at the camp one morning it was breakfast at Vidaly
an eatery serving up the three main staples of Italian cuisine coffee pasta and gelato
the space is beautifully laid out with several indoor and outdoor alcoves that accentuate the
relaxing environment the other camp restaurant i visited was the old vine kitchen and bar
a Costa Mesa institution hi I'm chef Mark MacDonald from old vine kitchen and bar
welcome to Costa Mesa so today I'm going to be executing our Indonesian curry dish it features
fresh shrimp braised calamari and then also braised octopus that are all seared together and
and then de-glazed with white wine and finish with our signature Indonesian
curry
so tell me what do you think it is that is drawing so many chefs to Costa Mesa
i think what really draws chefs to Costa Mesa is this concentration of uh you know
so many chef owned restaurants that you know over over the past like 10 years has really
become kind of a dining mecca for orange county but not only orange county but greater Los
Angeles especially with you know south coast plaza being here and being such a destination
um you know all of the great lodging that we have uh you know near south coast plaza and
also uh you know near the lab in the camp um you know i i think i think the draw is is that that
community of uh independently run uh not large chain but independently run chef driven concepts
yeah well i think you guys are doing a fantastic job here and i just want to thank you very much
thank you pleasure if you have a sweet tooth like i do don't miss stopping by the Fill Bakeshop
for some incredibly scrumptious donuts and specialty coffees
Hi my name is chef Eddie and welcome to the country club Costa Mesa ah this looks delicious
nice so what am i eating here so right over here you have our crab part adele
um so basically um the pasta we all we do in house um and then the crab Parmesan is consistent of
your dungeness crab garlic shallots oil butter chicken stock
a little bit of cream in there for the richness and then to top it off it has chives
pancreatic and then a little bit of shaved pecorino cheese right on top oh awesome
oh that's fantastic the country club is not just a place for fantastic food they also
have an amazing bar with a team that will dazzle you with their skills and cocktail concoctions
after spending some time in Costa Mesa it became apparent why so many foodies gravitate to the area
come to find out Costa Mesa has a rich agricultural history dating back to the
late 1800s when the Sagerstrom family began farming lima beans in the area thanks to the
sagerstrom's philanthropic efforts over the years the city has molded into an arts mecca
promoting fashion arts through its world-class south coast plaza performing arts at several
venues street art and of course the culinary arts permeate every crevice of the city good afternoon
welcome to knife fleet at south coast plaza i'm Yasmin Sarmadi i'm tony now the chef please join
us to the kitchen the kitchen at Knife Pleat is on display and is part of the culinary performance
well chef thank you so much for this incredible meal why don't you tell us what we have here so we
have a vegetable leg in the season so you have 19 different vegetables they change all the time week
by week today we're having carrot kohlrabi parsnip radish sun choke fossil spots leeks cauliflower
Swiss chard salsa exeter external funnels leeks wow well that is an Instagram photo
if I've never if I've ever seen one what is this main entree the main entree is a crescent duck
so receive the old duck wedge your breasts for two weeks like that the skin is nice and crispy
the meat is tenderized and more flavorful the legs is comfy overnight in the own dark fat
i do also some sweet charm the the red part is a stem the greener saute with some garlic and you
have a poached fig the fig is edge also for two weeks with red wine and pork ah lovely all right
well if you don't mind sure you know you're having the leg confines so the leg is cooked overnight
we take off the skin take up the meat from the bone add some duck juice some dark fats put back
everything together press it overnight it crispy again wow the duck like trophy without the bones
and the skin yeah it's perfect outstanding how did you guys come about being in Costa Mesa
so it was south coast plaza initially the tourist to Costa Mesa the the the stores that are here
a lot of them a lot of the luxury stores are uh french designers and we felt this would be
a great fit oh yes with the you know the stores and the brands that are here um and as we came
to discover Costa Mesa more and more while we were here we realized what a nice um metropolis it is
in orange county there's the performing arts center nearby um with the ballet and the theater
and um we have just wonderful clientele that come through knight fleet um and some from southwest
plaza some from other parts of orange county but international too from different countries
yes in south coast plaza really and as a result knife clean has become quite an international
destination we have a lot of international clients so that's that's also been wonderful that's fun
the last restaurant i visited while in Costa Mesa was the water grill a utopia for seafood lovers
they have live lobsters and prawns king crabs and an oyster bar and during my visit i had some
outstanding sushi followed by a grilled lobster tail that was perfectly prepared
and by the way all the restaurants featured in
this video have year-round patios the water grill being the largest
it's worth mentioning that Costa Mesa is only 10 minutes from the beach
and the lodging is more affordable than the nearby coastal communities
in addition to the sensational restaurant options Costa Mesa has some great parks open spaces
water features and public art installations to check out
there are a number of fantastic lodging options here in Costa Mesa i just happen to be staying
at the avenue of the arts hotel which is within walking distance of the performing arts center
the south coast plaza and a number of other attractions
the hotel showcases arts-inspired design
from the colorful and bold colors in the lobby to the clean palette highlighted in the rooms
well that's it from Costa Mesa California if you have any questions about visiting this destination
leave a comment below and if you enjoyed this video hit that like button and don't forget to
subscribe for more road trip travel videos so until next time we'll see on the road...