Fish Camp - Huntington Beach

Fish Camp
16600 Pacific Coast Highway
Huntington Beach (Sunset Beach), CA 92649
562-592-2267
www.samsfishcamp.com

I was recently invited down to try the new menu at Fish Camp in Huntington Beach. Fish Camp is a fast-casual dining concept from the owners of the King's Fish House chain. All of the suppliers are the same, so you basically get the same food as you would get at King's, but at a slightly lower price point because they have eliminated the traditional wait-staff. They also offer only a limited selection of beer, wine and a few cocktails instead of a full bar.

As you enter the restaurant, there is a small fish market where you can buy fresh fish by the pound. One difference between King's Fish House and Fish Camp is that Fish Camp mongers all of their fish in the restaurant every day.

We started out the meal with a few appetizers. JL ordered a cup of the Clam Chowder ($2.95 cup, $5.25 bowl, $7.75 sourdough bowl) and an order of the Crab Cakes ($7.95). I started out my meal with the Baja Shrimp Cocktail ($5.75). We split an order of the Ahi Tuna Poke ($8.75) as well. Lastly, we also both had a Cajun Bloody Mary ($5.75) that we both thought was awesome. It was made with Absolut Peppar vodka to give it an extra kick.

JL really enjoyed his clam chowder. He said that it was really creamy and had a stronger seafood flavor than most clam chowders. He thought that the crab cakes were pretty good, but a little dry.


My Baja Shrimp Cocktail kind of reminded me of shrimp on top of a cold gazpacho soup. The cocktail consisted of a cup of a chunky, cold tomato sauce with avocado mixed in. The shrimp were sliced in half lengthwise and placed on top of the sauce. It was served with crispy tortilla chips. This dish would be the perfect, refreshing start to a warm, balmy summer evening spent relaxing on their patio in the cool ocean breeze.

The Ahi Tuna Poke has peanuts in it. I also felt it was slightly underseasoned. The dish wasn't bad, but I feel it could be improved.
For my main course, I ordered the King Crab Legs (market price, $33.50/1-lb. on 2/7/13). The dinner plates come with your choice of two sides. I chose brown rice and cheesy grits. JL ordered the Sea Scallop plate ($16.75) with french fries and cheesy grits. I really enjoyed my king crab legs. The legs had been partially split open with a knife and the crab was easy to remove from the shell. The crab was cooked perfectly. The cheesy grits were very good. JL and I both agreed that it was a very good, however slightly unusual side dish. The brown rice was just plain, steamed rice. I was hoping for it to be slightly seasoned.

JL enjoyed his scallops. He said that they were smaller than a lot of scallops that he has gotten at other restaurants, but that they were packed full of flavor. He described them as dense in a good way and very tasty.

To finish off our meal, I decided to try a piece of their Chocolate Cake ($4.55).

JL got a piece of their Key Lime Pie ($4.45). The key lime pie is made in-house. JL thought that it was very good and has a nice tang to it. The chocolate cake is made by an outside bakery. The cake was served cold and was dense and fudgy, the way I like it.

Overall, I think that Fish Camp is a very good option if you are looking for a fast-casual seafood experience. The seafood is all of very high quality and it is prepared well. One of the managers was telling me that the company is looking to open a new Fish Camp location by the end of the year and they hope it to be in South Orange County. In the near future, they will be focusing on opening more Fish Camp locations than King's Fish Houses. I hope they open one near me soon!

Blackie's Originals - Pork Chips

www.blackiesoriginals.com

I happened to be walking through the Farmers Market at the Kaiser in Irvine (Wednesdays) when I spotted a booth offering what they call Crispy Pork Jerky. I tried a sample and discovered that is was not much like jerky, but much more like a crispy meat chip. Fantastic! The company is only 5 months old and currently sells their product at this Farmers Market plus the Huntington Beach Farmers Market and the OC Swap Meet at the Fairgrounds over the weekend. The crispy pork chips are now available in Original and Spiked Pepper. The flavor is a little like a sweet teriyaki glaze on lightly smoked, crispy bacon. New flavors will be coming soon. I hope he comes out with a flavor soon that focuses more on the salty instead of the sweet. These are still a great little snack though. The chips are baked, all-natural and 97% fat-free. Bags are currently $6 each or 2 for $10.

Digg's Restaurant & Bar Huntington Beach

Digg's Huntington Beach
8052 Adams Avenue
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
(714) 960-3670
www.diggsrestaurant.com

Digg's Restaurant & Bar in Huntington Beach opened their doors about six weeks ago, but just had their grand opening celebration this past weekend. They said that they were using this time to fine tune their skills to make sure that everything was perfect for their opening weekend. I think they should have taken more time. I battled traffic for about an hour and a half to get to the restaurant and was extremely disappointed with my experience.

Digg's invited the media down during their grand opening celebration to sample their food and check out the place. I was one of only four media people that showed up. The four of us were brought out three plates with four bites each for all of us to share, so I was only able to taste one bite of three of their appetizers. I got to try a beef skewer($8), a small egg roll($6) and one bacon wrapped shrimp($14). (Prices are for a full order)



The food that I tried wasn't bad, but it wasn't really anything special either. The skewers were generic, the shrimp were plain and I think that Jack in The Box has better egg rolls, and they're much bigger too. I was pretty disappointed that I only got to sample these three appetizers. The entrees at Digg's sound very good and I look forward to trying them if I ever return.

The service at Digg's was pretty awful as well. It took them almost two hours to bring out these three small samples and their knowledge of them was limited. I asked how many pieces came in a full sized order and the waitress had no idea. She said she would check with someone, but I never saw her again for the rest of the night. In fact, I think I only saw my waitress twice the entire night. She took our drink order when we first arrived and dropped off one of the samples and took a second drink order. Only half of our second drink order made it to the table. The other items were just dropped off by food runners. Throughout the night various staff members stopped by the table and said "Is this your food?" I told them that I was doing the media tasting so I hadn't actually ordered anything. They would then walk off to ask everyone else in the restaurant if it was their food.

Overall I think that Digg's has a long way to go in their service and product knowledge. They should really consider doing a hardcore training session with their staff so that everyone knows about the menu and what they are serving. Digg's is even advertising specials like "Sushi Night Tuesday", but no one seemed to know what it was. The PR rep said she would ask the owner about it, but came back and said that even the owner wasn't sure. I think these things should be thought out and planned before they are advertised.

The dinner menu at Digg's looks like it has a lot of good sounding entrees. When I first looked at their menu I even thought it sounded like a restaurant that I would not mind driving 20+ miles for. They serve a variety of steaks, acai bowls, seafood and pasta. Unfortunately I don't think I was really given the opportunity to sample enough of their food to determine whether or not it is good. If I had to judge the restaurant on the three small bites I was given, I would not recommend it. Since their menu looks so good though, I may try Digg's again someday when they have had time to work out their kinks. If they don't do it soon though, I can't see how they will survive.

Aloha Grill - Costa Mesa

1749 Newport Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627

949-722-7882

www.alohagrill.com

Tucked away in a tiny strip mall in Costa Mesa, near The Golden Truffle, lies the brand new Aloha Grill. This is the second location for Aloha Grill, the first being in Huntington Beach. I decided to dine at the Aloha Grill a couple of weeks ago as a party of seven. It was one of those nights that was really cold. We walked up to the Aloha Grill and saw that most of the seating was outdoors. There were only about 5 tables inside, and the only one that could accommodate a party of 7 was taken. We thought briefly about sitting outside near the large fire pit, but finally decided to occupy two separate tables, indoors.

We sat down and were given our menus. The waitress told us that they had only been open for three weeks. She asked if we had any questions about the menu. I saw Loco Moco on the menu and asked if it was a popular dish there. The waitress asked me where I saw Loco Moco. I pointed it out on the menu and she said that she had never even heard of it before, so she had no idea. A couple of the rest of us had questions as well, but it seemed as if we knew more about the menu that the waitress did after looking at them for only a few minutes. We decided to make our own decisions without any help from the waitress.

I decided to start off with an appetizer. I ordered the Hawaiian Drums ($7.95) for all of us to share. I then ordered the Kahlua Pork Sliders Special($6.95) that I saw on the specials board outside, another item the waitress had no clue about. V ordered the Pipeline Fish Tacos ($9.95). J ordered the Molokai Teriyaki Chicken ($10.95) and S ordered the Hilo Hawaiian Plate ($9.95). R decided to order the same Kahlua Pork Sliders that I did. C ordered the Kahlua Pork Hawaiian Plate. He had to point it out on the menu because the waitress didn't know what it was. Finally, D ordered the Big Island Plate ($10.95).

After a brief wait, the Hawaiian Drums came out. The menu described this dish as marinated chicken drummettes, slow roasted and tossed in a spicy cherry char-siu sauce, then topped with pineapple and green onions. The chicken wings were actually pretty darn tasty. They were slighty sweet, slightly spicy and had a slightly crispy texture. They were very well balanced. These were however, the smallest chicken wings I have seen in my entire life. Everyone was poking at them and wondering if they were actually quail or cornish game hen wings. Since they were so tiny, we actually got about 20 of them on the plate. I picked up a piece of what was supposed to be pineapple and put it on my mouth. I then couldn't decide if I was eating a raw potato or jicama. I told J and V to try a piece. Neither one of them could believe how little flavor it had. C tried one and had the same reaction. V thought that maybe they had taken pineapple, soaked it in water for days to extract all the flavor and then boiled it to get every last bit of flavor out before serving it. I wasn't buying it. I'm pretty sure they were serving us raw potatoes or something that were colored slightly yellow and shaped like pineapple chunks.

Our food came out a little while later. R and I had ordered the same thing, the Kahlua Pork Sliders. The food runner asked us which one of us had ordered the sliders with no onion. Neither one of us had. He just handed one plate to each of us and said he'd bring out a side of grilled onions. R and I both enjoyed our sliders very much. The kahlua pork was tossed in a slightly spicy barbecue sauce and was put on some soft rolls. The only bad part about them was that they had stuffed more of that awful fake pineapple inside. I picked it out and happily ate my sliders. The french fries were really good too. They were fresh, hot and crispy.

V got three tacos stuffed with Mahi Mahi, cabbage and spicy habanero-cilantro mayo. She didn't like her tacos at all. She said the fish was dry and fishy tasting. She felt the tacos were also completely bland.

J's meal was an 8 oz marinated and charbroiled chicken breast glazed with teriyaki sauce. It was served with vegetables and two scoops of sticky rice. J said that thie meal was a contender for the worst meal she has ever had in her entire life. She said that the chicken was dry and tasteless. She didn't know how it was possible, but even the rice was so bad she couldn't eat it. J usually loves vegetables but she said these were completely without flavor. She was wondering how it was possible for her vegetables to taste like absolutely nothing. They didn't even have a bad flavor, they just tasted like nothing at all. Her meal was also covered in more of that flavorless fake pineapple.

C didn't like his Kahlua Pork plate either. He said that the pork was very dry and had no flavor at all. This made me happy that I had the sauce on mine. He said the dish was just horrible.


S's Hilo Hawaiian Plate came with teriyaki chicken, bell pepper and onion. It was served with a scoop of rice and a scoop of mac salad. S also said that her food had no flavor but that she was ok with that. S tends to like really bland food so she said she felt the food was decent.

I don't remember what D said about her food, but I remember that she didn't like it either. Her meal came with teriyaki steak, onions, bell peppers, rice and mac salad. The theme of the night seemed to be that everything was flavorless.

In the end it seemed that most of us were very disappointed in our food. I enjoyed my sliders and wings, except for the fake pineapple though. I guess I was just lucky in my ordering. Most of the people I was with despised their food so much though that I doubt we will ever return.

Seriously......I want this restaurant to contact me and convince me that they were actually serving us pineapple and not some fake pineapple shaped thing. It had the texture of a raw apple or potato, not pineapple. It had no flavor. It looked like pineapple, but it totally wasn't. Has some company out there created mock pineapple that they make out of some flavorless, crispy substance? This is driving me crazy! What was I eating?!?!

Park Bench Cafe - Huntington Beach Central Park

(Photo Courtesy of ParkBenchCafe.com)
17732 Goldenwest Street
Huntington Beach, California, 92647
714-842-0775

Open for breakfast and lunch Wednesday-Sunday

http://www.parkbenchcafe.com

I recently visited the Park Bench Café in Huntington Beach Central Park for my dog’s birthday party. That’s right….I’ll admit it. I had a birthday party for my dog….. But let’s move on. The Park Bench Café is a 100% outdoor seating environment where dogs are more than welcome to dine with their owners. They even have a special dog menu with food items just for the dogs.

I actually visited this restaurant a couple weekends ago during the brutal heat. Even though it was close to 100 degrees in Irvine, it was a lot cooler in Huntington Beach Central Park. It was also full of giant bugs. The Park Bench Café has about 20 outdoor tables and almost every one of them has a dog at it. You will see all kinds of dogs here, big and small.

One of the first things I noticed about this restaurant was that even though they have created a place for dog lovers to come and bring their “furry family members,” they still treat them just like dogs. You can get a bowl of water for your dog, but don’t expect to get something clean. The bowls were all dirty and it doesn’t appear that they are even rinsed out after a dog uses them. The restaurant requests that you get water for your dog from a special dispenser that was full of leaves and dirt when I looked in it. Luckily, I brought my dogs portable water bowl and a bottle of water for it. (I swear I’m not crazy, I just love my dog.)

Anyway, on to the food. In addition to the “dog menu,” Park Bench Café serves your typical breakfast and lunch fare. Some of the items include omelettes, breakfast burritos, pancakes, salads, hot dogs, burgers and sandwiches. Most of us decided to order burgers ($8-$10), except for J who ordered a Monte Cristo Sandwich ($9.50). I also ordered a “Wrangler Roundup” ($2.75) for my dog. This was just cooked, ground turkey.

The burgers came with regular french fries, but you could substitute chili fries for $1.99 extra or onion rings for $1.25 extra. Drinks were $2.25 a pop. Most of our burgers looked the same, so I will just post a few of the pictures below.


(Wrangler Roundup)

(Cheeseburger with Chili Fries)

(Monte Cristo Sandwich, I don't know why the plate is so big)

(Western Burger with Onion Rings)

(Supreme Melt with Chili Fries)

(Blue Cheese Garden Burger with Fries)

Everyone seemed to agree that the food wasn’t that great. The burgers were bland and generic. I would have rather eaten at McDonalds. I’ve made better fries at home by opening a bag of frozen fries, dumping them on a baking sheet and sticking them in the oven. The food here was basically overpriced "snack bar" food. Their gimmick to bring people in is the dog menu, but I wasn’t even impressed with the meal my dog received. It was a fun experience to visit here once so my dog could order off the menu, but I don’t think I will return again.

Gyu-Kaku

As Seen in Hungry? Thirsty? OrangeCounty 1st edition
By Griffin Tamura

GYU-KAKU
Japanese BBQ Dining. Grilled Meats Galore!!!
Since 1996
$$$$
7862 Warner Avenue, #109, Huntington Beach 92647
(at Beach Blvd.)
Phone (714) 842-8333

Gyu-Kaku Tustin
14181 Newport Ave
Tustin, CA 92780
(714) 731-1719
www.gyu-kaku.com

CATEGORY
[Dinner] [Japanese] [Barbecue]
Mon-Thurs: 5:00 PM-11:00 PM
Fri-Sat: 5:00 PM-12:00 AM
Sun: 5:00 PM-10:00 PM

PARKING
For free parking you must park in the structure behind the restaurant. Parking in front of the restaurant is free for 30 minutes, then $2 per hour.

PAYMENT
[VISA] [MC] [AMEX] [DISC]

POPULAR DISH
I love grilled meats! With so many options, it's hard to decide which dishes are the best. All dishes here are served raw and you cook the meats yourself on smokeless charcoal grills in the middle of your table. My two favorite would have to be the Harami skirt steak and the filet mignon. The Harami skirt steak is marinated in miso and is so delicious, I could eat it by the pound. The filet mignon is lightly salted and peppered and is extremely tender.

UNIQUE DISH
For the adventurous tongue, make sure to order the Gyu-Tan, or cows tongue. You will receive thinly sliced cow tongue and a wedge of lemon. Grill the tongue until it is nice and crispy and squeeze a few drops of lemon on to it. Divine!

DRINKS
Gyu-Kaku serves beer, wine and sake. Soft drinks and tea are also available

SEATING
The restaurant has about 20-25 tables and can fill up fast. I would recommend that you make a reservation unless you plan on going for an early dinner in the middle of the week.

AMBIANCE/CLIENTELE
The atmosphere is dark and cozy. This is a great place for friends to come and converse. Don't come with too large of a party though, or you may be fighting for grill space. I also would not recommend bringing kids here, the grills are very hot and the potential for burns is high.

EXTRAS/NOTES
For the best deals, visit during their happy hours. Happy hours are usually between 5:00 PM-7:00 PM and 9:00 PM-Close everyday. Happy hour specials change monthly, so check their website or sign up for their e-mail newsletter for current selections. Happy hours have been known to change, so make sure to read the details before you order.

OTHER ONES
Gyu-Kaku has over 800 worldwide locations. The first location opened in the U.S. in 2001. Other US locations include Topanga Canyon, CA, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, Beverly Hills ,CA, Pasadena, CA Torrance, CA, Sherman Oaks, CA, West Los Angeles, CA, Kapiolani, HI, Waikiki, HI, East Village, NY and Mid-town, NY.