THE GALLIVANTING GOURMET: Elegant eating at a ‘small plates’ price

Hotel restaurants are generally not considered dining destinations, although recently, the trend is changing. The Palm Terrace Restaurant in the Island Hotel at Fashion Island is a case in point. With the plethora of restaurants in the mall, why would you even think to look across the street for hotel dining, especially when hotel eateries are consistently pricier?

Yet, just across from Bloomingdales is a beautiful, high-end luxury establishment surrounded by lovely gardens with a restaurant serving surprisingly good food at the expected prices, but with the enticing exception of a small-bites menu that features tasting-size portions of the same delicious food at very appetizing prices.

Lately, we have been on a quest to find affordable good food, which usually translates to small plates or pre-fixe meals. Here, Chef Bracken’s concept is to present a selection of their most popular dishes for your grazing pleasure. This means you can design your own tasting menu, including a small bite dessert selection, for about half the price of a chef’s tasting menu elsewhere.

In addition, all this may be enjoyed in an elegant dining room with an outdoor terrace, overlooking a luxuriant tropical garden and pool with service as polished and attentive as any we’ve experienced.

Relaxing against a comfortable banquette, we were offered a selection of five lovely breads, warm and fresh from the oven: a pretzel bread, dotted with sea salt, a very cheesy cheese roll, an olive bread with excellent kalamata olives (not too briny), a crusty French roll and a sweet cakey pumpkin bread. Of course, we tasted them all and all were really good. They were enhanced by two decadent little crocks of double cream butter “” unsalted Plugra and salted Devon. We could very happily have made a meal out of these with the pumpkin bread for dessert and gone home content, but we had a job to do.

We decided to focus on the “small bites” to enjoy a variety of tastes. Even before the dish parade began, we were treated to an amuse bouche, an espresso cup of rustic potato leek soup, a French classic. Pureed, but not to the point of silkiness, it still had the texture of potato and was full of potato flavor, dominating the butter and cream.

The tuna tartar was an especially lovely and surprisingly light rendition of this menu staple, punctuated with spicy chili, lemony shiso (a Japanese herb in the mint family), marinated Maui onions and sparked with a tiny bit of ginger aioli, and black and white sesame seeds. The last minute addition of crunchy sea salt was the perfect use of this trendy but often misunderstood ingredient. Toasted taro chips completed the presentation.

Balancing the lightness of the tartar was Bracken’s take on macaroni and cheese. This may be the richest and best we’ve ever eaten. A tasting portion is big enough to share and leave you both satisfied. Bathed in a fabulous Tallegio cheese sauce, deepened with the heady taste of black truffles, it was irresistibly good.

On the other hand, a “small bite” of Chilean sea bass is just as advertised. This deep fried, potato crusted piece of fish was about the size of a golf ball. Because the piece was so small, the potato crust overwhelmed the fish. It tasted like a good crispy potato pancake with a bit of fish in the middle. As an entrée-sized portion, this would not be true.

The only disappointment of the evening was beef short ribs, marinated and cooked sous-vide style (vacuum-sealed in plastic and cooked in hot water for 24+ hours and requiring special equipment). This method of cooking makes the beef very tender. However, the meat had a strange sour flavor. The waiter graciously took it back and brought another portion, which, sadly, tasted exactly the same, although the accompanying mashed potatoes and deeply flavored red wine sauce were yummy.

In the interest of evaluating the restaurant as a whole, we decided we should try one of the entrées from the regular menu. The most notable thing about the yellowfin tuna was its lovely modern architectural presentation. Bricks of seared fish, arranged in a line, were bisected by a pressed square of potato confit. The center of each brick was slightly hollowed out and filled with a sliver of smoked salmon. A few fried capers were sprinkled on top and a small cup of horseradish cream was available for dipping. However, the sauce had no kick as the horseradish was virtually indiscernible. The potato cake also left something to be desired. We were sorry we didn’t order more “small bites” instead.

We did, however, eat our vegetables. From the “sides” menu, for the same small price, we had a large order of very flavorful, perfectly cooked, garlicky broccolini.

Although small plates are popping up on menus everywhere, Bracken is the only one who has brought this concept to desserts. Surprisingly so, because in some ways it’s the most obvious place to have tasting-size portions, since people are always reaching across the table to taste someone else’s dessert.

Five items are offered in mini portions from the nine-item regular menu: the Balboa sundae, ginger spice cake, Valrhona chocolate obsession, a mini-apple tart and our choice for the evening, warm southern sweet potato pudding, recommended heartily by our waiter “” with good reason.

The pudding, a perfect winter dessert, was very rich but not overly sweet and redolent with dark spices. It was like a buttery, creamy version of pumpkin pie filling. On the side were little round cinnamon-swirled crackers, not sweet but a perfect foil for the pudding. We thought we were done, but no, out came an amuse gueule, something you’d expect in fancy French restaurants, but rarely elsewhere. Two mini-cupcakes, one chocolate and one vanilla, somehow managed to get eaten.

If we had our druthers, all meals would be like this one: lots of small tastes of everything on the menu.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: The Palm Terrace (949) 760-4920 www.theislandhotel.com

WHERE: 690 Newport Center Drive

WHEN:

Breakfast: 6:30 to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday; 7 to 11 a.m. Saturday; 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday

Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday

Dinner: 6 to 10 p.m. Monday through Sunday

PRICES:

Appetizers: $10 to $14

Entrées: $19 to $36

Desserts: $9 to $11.50

Small bites: $4 to $9

WINE:

Bottles: $22 to $3,500

Half bottles: $15 to $121

By the glass: $10 to $29

Corkage Fee: $35

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ owned a la Carte for 20 years and can be reached at [email protected].