Newport Beach Restaurant Week is here, and it celebrates the city’s dynamic food scene during 10 days of delicious dining. Restaurant Week started on Friday, January 17th and runs until Sunday, January 26th. Yes, I know that’s a few days more than a week. The event gives foodies the opportunity to explore the most vibrant dishes and tastiest culinary gems that Newport Beach has to offer.
On its 8th year, Newport Beach Restaurant Week showcase 60 of Newport Beach’s most delightful and delicious eateries for three-course, prix-fixe dinner menus for only $20, $30 or $40 per person, and the perfect lunch pairings of prix-fixe menus for just $10, $15 or $20 per person depending on the restaurant.
We started our Restaurant Week adventure with a preview dinner at Bayside Restaurant.
New American cuisine comes to life in this custom-designed location overlooking the harbor in Newport Beach, California. Award-winning Executive Chef Paul Gstrein brings culinary drama to his inventive dishes for lunch, dinner and the enormously popular Champagne Sunday Brunch. Lunch, dinner or brunch dining may all be enjoyed al fresco on our wrap-around patio, made comfortable with built-in heaters and sun drapes.
Bayside also hosts a rotating modern art exhibit, featuring carefully selected works that enhance the ambiance, and are available for purchase and further, nightly live entertainment enriches the lavish surroundings with soulful jazz.
The Bayside room is a large and expansive, live music plays most night from 6pm to 10pm, and the bar is prefect for afterwork get-togethers. Overall, it’s what you expect from a Newport Beach fine dining restaurant. What I didn’t expect was the size of the dishes. I guess I’ve gotten use to the small portions served by the restaurants from Dine Out Vancouver. It was refreshing to know that you will feel full after a dining experience from Newport Beach Restaurant Week.
Our three-course meal at Bayside included a cauliflower and curry soup of the day for my wife, and roasted beets and California goat cheese salad for me. Both were great starters. Light and refreshing, with a really great presentation for the salad.
The main courses include sautéed tiger prawns with Bayside’s famous green risotto and sugar snap peas. The prawns were cooked perfectly, and the risotto was prepared al dente. The other main was the prime culotte steak with potato blue cheese fondue, asparagus, and wine merchant sauce. It was cooked medium rare, and seasoned perfectly.
Finishing off the meal, we had a chocolate souffle cake with hazelnut ice cream (WOW!), and a Tahitian vanilla bean creme brulee with a Hamantaschen cookie. I couldn’t think of a better way to end dinner on.
Bayside was a great way to start off Newport Beach Restaurant Week. The view was was great. The service was great. The food was great. The live music was great. At only $40 per person, the price was great too! I look forward to checking out more Newport Beach restaurants this week. if they’re as good as Bayside, I’m going to be a very happy man!
