Sapphire

I had the chance to have lunch at a restaurant that I had no idea existed and went to on a recommendation from my mother. Yes, my mother. The restaurant is Sapphire Laguna Restaurant & Pantry in Laguna Beach.





I walk in and I'm greeted immediately by one of the 2 hostesses. Both seemed very upbeat and that they loved working there. As I was shown to my table, the hostess kindly asked me for my name. I suppose it was so they can make it seem more personable. She saw that I had my camera with me so she stated the obvious fact that it was such a nice day out to take photos. After she left, I was almost immediately approached by who I'm assume was the floor manager to take my beverage order. I got iced tea. My server returned with my iced tea and a little ceramic pitcher which contained simple syrup. A nice little change from the typical packets of sugar and sweeteners, which he brought as well. I still was looking over the menu and he went off to come back a couple minutes later.

A lot of the menu choices looked pretty decent, but nothing really seemed to stick out. Down at the bottom was where I saw the Kobe Burger with havarti cheese, caramelized onions and arugala. That seemed to be the only dish where all of the components I really liked and could have any meal. It came with a side of shoe string fries.



The service here was pretty good. If you read some of my other reviews, you'll notice how much of a stickler I am for good service at a restaurant. Never did I ever have to ask for more iced tea and I seemed to have enough simple syrup to last me the several refills. My food came within a good time from being ordered and came open faced, with the top bun sitting along side the patty. The 2 slices of tomato staring right at me noticeably had salt on it, which tells me they season all components of their food. That's a good thing.

Again, everybody here seemed very nice. During my meal, my server came up twice to make sure everything was ok and to see if I needed anything, and even the executive chef went from table to table to see if everything was in order. It's good to see the executive chef take a moment to do something like that. And then after I finished my burger and fries and my plate had been cleared, the other hostess came up to talk to me because he thought she had seen me somewhere previously. I kindly corrected her but then we got to talking about how I'm in the industry and that most recently I was the pastry chef at Scott's Seafood in Costa Mesa. She excuse herself and as I was ordering dessert, my server asked me about Scott's and said he helped open the Costa Mesa location back in 1981. I'm saying all this because it wasn't like they were bugging me, but they were all nice and pleasant about it.

Anyway, dessert. I ended up ordering the warm Valrhona chocolate cake. Served with pistachio ice cream, chocolate sauce and caramel sauce. Again, nothing to really rave about but you can't really go wrong with a warm chocolate cake.



I would definitely come back here again. On a nice day, it's perfect for lunch. I could imagine it'd get a little colder at night being right on PCH in Laguna Beach and I didn't take the time to notice any heat lamps. I'm sure they do.

A very pleasant restaurant considering it was on a relative whim.