The Ranch Restaurant Dessert Review

Last week, Mr. G, I and few of my foodie friends went to the Ranch restaurant and Saloon to celebrate our long weekend.  The reason why I knew about this place because one of our friends works for the adjacent engineering company, which owns by the same owner of this resturant and saloon.  It's great to go with my friend because he got us 20% off on our bill since this is a high end resturant.  The 20% really helped to save some from our wallets.

The food and service were both beyond amazing!  I hate to go to a restaurant, where servers don't know anything about their menu and their wine list.  The servers here totally blows our minds away.  They were VERY attentive, TOTALLY knowlegable about their food, wines and desserts and quite funny.  We learnt so much about wine paring and food from our server that night; that's a plus aside from having a great dinner.  They have a special prixfixe dinner menu for 65 dollars per person this Summer. The menu came with 3 amazing dishes plus a dessert; adding an additonal 35 dollars, you could get pairing wines to go with each of your meal.  If you are foodie like me or aventurers, this menu was ways worth the price.

I didn't mean to turn my sweet blog to be a foodie review blog.  So I am going to ONLY focus on reviewing the desserts here; however, I will post some pictures from our main dishes just to share with everyone how amazing the dishes looked and tasted.

WATERMELON 50-50 BAR

Limoncello Semi Freddo / Sugar Queen Melon Soup

it was part of our prixfixe menu.  They used watermelon to create two different textured desserts - watermelon soup and watermelon bar.  To be honest with you, I don't quite like foamy type dishes because it reminds me of shampoo. I liked the watermelon bar though.  It's very refreshing with a hint of mint flavor.  

RANCH BLUEBERRY CROSTATA

                                             Meyer Lemon Curd / Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

My friend ordered this and I had a bite of it; and let me tell you this one was amazing!  the warm pastry mixed with the tart flavors of the lemon and blue berry were irresiable. 

PBJ & MILK CHOCOLATE BAR

                                         Concord Grape / Caramelized Banana Ice Cream

Another well made dessert. Textrue was jello-y like a pana cotta.  It's GREAT enough to make Elvis to jump out from his grave.  LOL

Resturant Information:

1025 E. Ball Road
Anaheim, CA 92805
(714) 817-4200
Located on the
Ground Floor of the
Extron Building.

Resturant Hours:  Open Nightly 5:30PM - 10:00PM
Saloon Hours:  Wednesday - Saturday 5:30PM - 2:00AM/Sunday 5:30PM - 10:00PM (also check thier live entertainment schedule on their website)
Reservation:  Don't take reservation more than 6 people. 
Service Charge:  If your party has more than 8 people, 20% service charge is menataory.
Good for:  Romantic date night/speical occassiions/foodie friends, who enjoy good food and wine.  This is not a place to bring your kids though.
Price: Pricy, but worth it.
Tips and Fun Facts:
-The excutive chef and the excutive pastry chef of this restaurant are brother.  I think their family must be very lucky to have them to make Thanksgiving meal. 
- The owner of the Ranch owns his own farm, the Edwards Ranch Estates in the foothills of the city of Orange and the Santa Ana mountains. The Ranch supplies organically grown produce to the Restaurant & Saloon.
- If you are hard core Country music friends, you need to check out their saloon.  But don't forget your cowboy hat and boot though.  Otherwise, you will feel out of place.
-Pairing your dessert with this wine - 2008 Dr. Loosen Estate, Eiswein.  Trust me, you won't regret.  It's very good dessert wine.

Deep fried egg from the Chef

Appentizer from the prixfixe menu -

LOCAL DAY BOAT CAUGHT BLACK COD - melt in your month good black cod.

LIBERTY FARMS DUCK SCHNITZEL - the duck meat was really tender and juicy.

GRASS FED COLORADO LAMB LOIN -

compared to the Cowboy 36oz Ribeye, this dish was not as good.  Still good if there is no comparision.

The famous Cowboy 36oz Ribeye.  Very juicy, tender and all the fat of the meat made everything tasted even better=)

 

World's Largest Ice Cream Cone

Have you ever secretly to take home those GIANT ice cream cone decoration in front of some old fashion ice cream shops home?  (I did, just like the girl in the picture above).  But wait, they are just a big piece of plastic "pretended" as a big yummy ice cream cone.  I don't need more junks in my garage for no reason.

How about if the ice cream cone is a real one?  Will you take home with you in this hot summer?   British chef Heston Blumenthal made my fantasy come true. He and his team served up the world's largest ice cream cone last weekend as hungry throngs looked on. The giant vanilla scoop (weighed 2,204 pounds); and it took a month to freeze -- was placed on top of a massive cone via forklift. At 13 feet tall, the colossal creamy treat, created using donated ice cream and filmed for TV, set a new world record, besting a 9-foot cone that had set a record in Italy last year. The ice cream was distributed to the masses, but sadly they had to eat it plain because the sauces and sprinkles that had been catapulted onto it didn't stick. IMPRESSIVE!  However, some food lovers complained that wasting food and labors for promoting a TV show is such a stupid idea.

What to expect at the fair this year?

I mentioned that OC Fair (July 13-August 12) is around the corner on my previous post.  I am looking forward to eat my favorite fair food and also try some new "heart-attack" deep fried items at the fair next month.  This year, Chicken Charlie's, southern California's famous king of the deep fryer, will have a brand new deep fried item to offer at the fair this year - deep-fried cereal! Two cereal options could be chosen from Trix or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, both are fried in batter and sprinkled with more sugary cereal for extra crunchy texture.  It might be a good idea if they could serve us milk too=)

Food is fake, but art is real.

Peter Anton (born 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American artist and sculptor. His primary subject matter is food with an emphasis on chocolates and other sweets. He creates giant realistic sculptures and is best known for his "bigger than life" boxed chocolates.

Anton treats his food artworks very seriously.  His beginning process of creating his artworks is to eat, smell, feel, study and dissect a new food over and over again in order to hyper-familiarize himself with the new subject. He then begins the long and tedious process of sculpting, carving, sanding, painting, and construction of his mixed media works.

I am sure his artworks could certainly fool you when you first look at it.  Even just looking at the pictures, I really want to lick the box of donuts or touch the giant ice cream.  However, his artworks has bigger meanings than just being looking real. Anton emphasizes:

In my sculptures I like to alter and overstate foods to give them new meanings. I have an innate reverence for the things we eat. Food brings people together and there is no better way to celebrate life. Through the use of humor, scale, irony, and intensity in my forms, the foods we take for granted become aesthetically pleasing and seductive in atypical ways. I like to create art that can lure, charm, tease, disarm and surprise. My sculptures put viewers in a vulnerable state so that I can communicate with their inner selves in a more honest and direct way. I activate the hunger people have for the things that give them pleasure and force them to surrender. The sensual nature of the works stimulates basic human needs and desires that generate cravings and passion. 

I LOVE Pinterest!



Ever since I discovered this website, Pinterest, I am obsessed with it.  It's a very smart and well-organized website for searching topics, that you like.  It's much better than typing keywords on the search engine, such as Yahoo, Google or Bing...

You could find every topic on Pinterest - from Fashion to Home to Health to FOOD...everything you would love to explore is on Pinterest. The awesomest part is you could pin whatever you like and organize them by categories, and you could always re-visit the one you pinned later.  Most of the people pinned their items; they are nice enough to share instructions of how they made their items or where you could find the items.  And you think that's awesome, wait...because you could immediately share with your family and friends on Facebook and Twitter. 

Remember to follow us on Pinterest (click the logo above) and explore more...Happy Pinning and Happy Friday!

Dear CakeSpy...

Once again, I cannot say thank you enough to lovely Head Spy, Jessie Moore Oleson for having me on her page (check out our "Batter Chatter [aka an interview]" here).  To say thank you, I crafted some cupcake toppers specially for her to brighten up her day and of course her home made creations (that's the way bakers say THANK YOU!).  And once again, thank you for giving us such a great opportunity - to introduce our works to those, who love sweet and appreciate cupcake art, and let Mrs. G shared her passion of cupcakes and art with everyone. We are ready to take on more challenges, and are ready to create more lovely creations to make everyone smile=)

At last, thank you once again for liking the specially crafted cakespy inspired cupcake toppers and posted them as your daily feel-good picture.

 I hand painted each toppers with edible food colors to achieve
the water color feeling of the original artworks from Jessie O. 

I was thinking that's something the CakeSpy will say.

hand drawn and painted cupcake toppers

Am I tanned?

I am so hot.

I love colors.

Jello Art

When I was a little kid, I always thought jello was the most interesting dessert ever.  Why?  Because the jiggly textures makes jello so special and unordinary.  And when I was kid, my mom used to make some colorful jello candies (covered with coconut shred), they were one of the most fun things to eat when you were a kid. 

I would like to share some jello arts I found online with you today (photographs from websites:  Eat Me Daily and South Jersey Real Estate; please visit these two websites for more information).  These "jello artists" took jello to another level - they used jello to create jewelries, food, and EVEN architectures and cities...these artworks just blown my mind away!

Look like a very fancy French dish

American classic - burger and fries

A close up of the "burger" (everything is made with jello)

How about some caviar?

So tropical with the jello pineapple

Ready for BBQ?

Classy! 

If you like fashion and jewelries, how about some vintage style jewelries made from edible materials and jello:

Look like a piece of good jade

Can you tell they are jello from this angle?

An amazing artwork

 My day time job is an Environmental Planner, and I have a thing toward architectures and urban planning/design.  I just love to look at buildings (especially those historical ones=))

The NO KETCHUP Rule

I had a very fataboulous birthday night with my family last weekend.  We went to one of the hippest restaurants in Orange County, California.  The Playground it is.  This is surely the HIGHLIGHT of the night!  We all enjoyed every dishes and the hospitality there. 

Inside of the Playground

Chef Jason Quinn with me (the birthday girl) and us

Exterior of the restaurant

Talking about this restaurant and the owner and the Chef of this place.  I have been a royal fans of the Lime Truck since they launched.  Their food is truely fresh, refreshing and delicious just like the lime logo on their truck.  They were busy because of their food.  But now they got even more popular after they won the hit show "The Great Food Truck Race" on Food Network.  Last year, I heard that the Chef, Jason Quinn from the Lime Truck left his partner and the truck to open his very own "Playground" restaurant in downtown Santa Ana, CA.  I was beyond excited and could not wait to try his "creations".  Let me tell you, everything on the menu were good and fresh.  The dishes are more on the adventous side if you like to order the same thing at the resturant, this place might be too adventurous side.  However, if you are ready to put your trust in the Chef and his team, and want to try something different and unique, you NEED to come to here.  You won't be disappointed by the quality and creativity of their dishes. 

Their signature burger is beyond awesome.

From their Large bite menu - 26oz ribeye steak.  It's really flavorful and juicy.

Broccolini with black vinegar reduction

Pork loin with pineapple and mango salsa

Smoky chicken wings

Scallop sashimi with citrus and greenapple slices
with hints of yozu dressing

I just read an article about Chef Jason Quinn on the OC Weekly.  That truely inspired me about how I should decorate my cupcakes in future.  One of his rules is "No Ketchup" at his restaurant; he explained,

"Everything [I make] is made from scratch and is beautiful, so how can we say, 'Hey, we worked for eight hours to make these French fries, but we're gonna serve you ketchup that we got out of a can?'" he says. "Those things do not equate with each other."

That makes me think about this theory should apply to my cupcake works too.  I used great ingridents and baked them with love.  Sometimes, they got ruined by those overly-sweet fondant, gumpaste and not so tasty spinkles.  These lovely stuffs somehow downgrade the taste of my cupcakes.  His article pushed me to set an additional goal for this year - decorating my cupcakes using different edible ingridents to make the cupcakes pretty and enhance the flavor of the cupcakes.  But no worries, I am not going to ditch the lovely fondant, gumpaste and spinkles because they still make the cupcakes pretty. I just want myself to experiment with more different ingridents and media for decoration.