Andrea at Pelican Hill

We were all invited to this restaurant at the beautiful Pelican Hill Resort in Newport Beach, California.  When I made the reservations, they informed me that they only offered the Express Lunch; a 3 course prix fixe; choice of soup, salad or appetizer, an entree and a gelato.

I ordered champagne for the table though some preferred cocktails which they ordered. The restaurant was not crowded at all so it was very upsetting to me that it was after 1:00 pm by the time everyone (18 people) got their drinks. We were all there at noon though we had to wait for them to remove several place settings since 3 people could not come. The appetizers did not start coming until 1:30 pm. We only had 1 waiter that catered to us and one lady that just filled our water glasses. One of the salads was Arugula with artichokes; that didn't have much flavor. My salad was good but only because it had a ton of prosciutto which is salty so it's hard to screw that up. The Burrata was nothing special. I was not sure about the Endive salad since I didn't get to ask how it was.

Majority of the people ordered the Grilled Sea Bass with baby kale sprouts, roasted potatoes with lemon oil & parsley dressing. It was perfectly cooked though in my opinion it lacked flavor. Some people did like it. The other entreé was the Gnocchi with bolognese sauce. According to Eric, it was good. Ross and I had the Lasagna with mushrooms. That was a complete disappointment. I wanted parmesan cheese and there was no one to ask, all servers must have taken a break. The lady whose job it was to fill the water glasses came, so I asked her for some cheese. By the time she came with the cheese, my pasta was cold. I finished mine only because I was starving as it was past 2:00  pm by then. I must mention that one of the guests talked to the person in charge to let her know that service was so bad and we were waiting too long. She was assured that she would take care of it. She even mentioned that another guest is a food blogger so they better do something! The something was a 20% discount. Trinity had the Risotto which was tasteless and uncooked for her taste so she sent it back and got the Sea Bass instead. I wonder if others were just being polite in saying their food was good.

Our server informed me that someone wanted more champagne towards the end of the meal. He asked if he should just give her a glass and I said yes of course. It turned out, there was still left over champagne in the bottle that one of the guests discovered at the end of our meal. I also discovered 3 more people had more champagne which he took the liberty of just giving them "by the glass". At that point, we could have had another bottle which was unopened, sitting in the bucket of ice.

Dessert came with our "EXPRESS" (slow boat to China), meal. I haven't seen such a tiny serving of gelato in a tiny bowl. I'm glad some people ordered other desserts. I had a bite from Sandi's chocolate with fig dessert; all I can say was it was chocolate and the fig was not ripe enough. A bunch of us ordered coffee and cappuccino. The coffee came but no cream. I had to ask the water lady for cream, so off she went in search for cream. The cappuccinos were all cold! We sent those back. For some miracle, my coffee was real hot so it was still warm when the cream arrived.

I can explain the whole experience in one word; disastrous.  First of all, they should not advertise this prix fixe as Express because nothing was quick; everything was in slow motion. We probably could have taken naps in between the 3 courses. The person in charge didn't approach us to apologize. I guess she thought the 20% was very generous. Not only will I never organize a meal at this restaurant, I am confident the other polite guests will not be returning either.

A good manager would have asked what she could have done to make us happy. I totally do not expect this from a "classy" restaurant in at a 5-star luxury resort. There is definitely no excuse.