I know a lot of
people are going to disagree with me when I say this, but I am usually hard-pressed
to find much about Laguna Beach that I like. To each his own right? Some cities
fit you like a second skin (San Francisco in my case) and some cities leave you
kind of dry and itchy. That’s Laguna for me. It’s usually crowded, you can’t
find parking at any of the coffee shops and the *art and food scenes are a bit
spotty for my personal palate. I
know I am just generalizing but every time I have been there in the past decade
for work or for play, I have come away kind of feeling the same way.
But recently the
Cute Gardener and I took a daylong trek to eat at a restaurant called Watermarc
presided over by Chef Marc Cohen and touting an impressive array on the lunch
menu of 26 grazing plates. It was the best meal I have eaten in the city and my
salad made it onto my mental list of memorable lamb dishes. It also helped that
the free shuttles were running frequently due to the summer season and three
simultaneous art festivals taking place so that we didn’t have to bear the
traffic but could park at the top of the canyon and ride anywhere we wanted to
go within the packed downtown district.
I am a sucker for
lamb and was taught to cook a bevy of the eccentric meat’s dishes by the Greek
orthodox aunt of an old friend. Helen and I used to stand around in her kitchen
on Sundays drinking wine and making things like lamb stuffed artichokes steamed
on a bone bed in a tomato sauce bath, lemon chicken squares and ground lamb
stuffed dolmades just to name a few. It’s hard to find a chef who can live up
to Helen’s cooking but this one did.
These were the
most tender and flavorful bites of lamb chop I’ve had to date. Only bad thing
was that the salad was served with all the ingredients separately. It took me a
good five minutes to cut the grilled romaine, mix in the slaw and slice the
meat from the chops to blend the salad together and I was salivating the entire
time having already had a taste of the lamb.
We shared this
adorable filet mignon potpie for a starter. Small and manageable with sweet and
fork-able nuggets of great meat, it was delicious but more like a rustic, thick
brown and savory soup than a creamy potpie.
The CG had a
grilled chicken cordon bleu sandwich topped with shaved, honey smoked ham,
asparagus, brie and cranberry marmalade. He’s super picky about his sandwiches
and he liked this one which was a good sign for the restaurant overall.
I would come back
to this restaurant if I were in Laguna again to try some of the other grazing
plate items such as the ahi and watermelon skewers, the homemade ricotta with
raisins, honeycomb and almonds or simply to sample some more of their creative,
artisan cocktails.
*Even though the art scene in Laguna is not my
favorite, I do have to send a shout out to my good friend and artist Micha VonDoring whose wood pieces are true works of exquisitely crafted art.
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