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=)

 

The Best Dessert I ever Ate - Bacon Chocolate Bar with S&P Ice Cream

We don't go to Los Angeles (LA) as often as we want to due to couple reasons (far distance from OC and the horrible traffic and parking situation).  We felt that we did miss out a lot in LA - all the bar scene, fancy and classy restaurants, interesting and unique places and museums...  About a month ago, we decided to take a mini weekend get away trip in West Hollywood area to explore the city and escape our normal busy lives in Orange County for a few days.

The highlight of the trip to me was visiting Animal restaurant, located in LA, by the famous Melrose neighborhood.  I have heard so many positive comments and impressive compliments about this place on different media.  I was beyond excited when we got there.  We didn't make any reservation, so we waited for about an hour and half for our table (not bad for a busy Saturday evening at a hip restaurant like this in LA).  We ordered five small dishes (Pork Belly BBQ Sandwich, Fois Gras with maple sussage and home made biscuit and gravy, Halibut with Peas, Churrizo with Melted Cheese, Marrow Bone with Chumichurri Sauce) for the two of us.  Everything was amazing and I could taste the freshness and well-preparations in each dishes.  Of course, we could not leave the restaurant without having some sweet to end our meal, so we ordered their signature bacon chocolate bar with salt and pepper ice cream and Dulce De Leche.  The Dulce De Leche was average, nothing really special about it.  However, on the other hand, the bacon chocolate bar and the s&p ice cream was delish!  No wonder it was featured on Food Network's show, The Best Thing I ever Ate. 

 

Let me tell you the presentation of the dessert - Very elegant and modern looking presentation.  And the bar looked like a piece of bacon with different kinds of chocolate in between.  The saltiness from the bacon mixed with the bitterness from different kinds of chocolates and the perfect sweetness from the creamy and silky ice cream was a perfect harmony; it was undescribably incredible. 

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.

Max Brenner Chocolate Restaurant (Las Vegas, NV)

Mr. G and I go to Las Vegas quite often in the past few years.  Sadly, we have not yet got chance to visit Vegas together this year due to our busy work schedule, friends' weddings and other family events since our last visit in September 2010. 

During our last visit, we stopped by Max Brenner Chocolate Restaurant (located at the Forum Shop at Caesar Palace in Las Vegas).  The atmosphere of the restaurant is very casual - good for a quick bite, a coffee break, an after-dinner-hang out-place, a desert place for couples, a casual family dinner or a fast and decent brunch.  However, the shop is relatively small compared to most of the restaurants in Vegas though, if you have a big group of people (more than 6), that would not be a good fun place to dine together.

Their famous hot wings

Mr's G hang over breakfast

My chicken panini sandwich

My pren-go friend told me chocolate and pinkle are a great combination!  She didn't lie; they were pretty dang good.

My strawberry white chocolate milk shake

We went there on a Sunday morning for a brunch before leaving Vegas.  We got there at the perfect time because they offer both breakfast and lunch menus; the menu is short but "sweet".  They offer mostly American classic food (sandwiches, wings, burgers, and milk shakes).  They provide good size food portion; the taste of the food is great and price is reasonable.  We will definitely go back again to try more stuffs the next time.

Although their breakfast and lunch menu are small, but they do have an extensive dessert and drink menu.  Since only two of us, and Mr. G was not ready for something too sweet in the morning, so we didn't get chance to try their dessert.  We did order a strawberry white chocolate milkshake and a hot chocolate for our drinks though.  Both of them are so tasty, and you could not miss them!  Their signature chocolate pizza has been featured on the Food Network Show's The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Pizza.  They have a little To-Go counter just right outside the restaurant, if you just want to grab a slice of the chocolate pizza of some cookies, you could just order it from the To-Go counter.  They also have a little gift shop inside the restaurant.  You could take home some cute gifts for your family and friends or just pick up something "sweet" to reward yourself!

You could order the chocolate pizza by slice.

Chocolate bar

Pipe full of chocolate

Picked up a mike shake glass and a mini fondue set for myself.