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| - I had the pleasure of dining at Hotel California this past Friday and let me just say, for all you past reviewers who tried the HC in their beginning phase, you NEED to go back. There is a beautiful new menu, all laid out complete with a separate vegetarian section (which is awesome since it's something I'm grappling with)! But let me just begin with the ambiance. This is a beautiful restaurant both inside and out. I could probably talk to you about the bathroom alone for another page (however I won't) but the furniture, the decor, the set up and the music are all pretty amazing. The patio sections are laid out just as nice with couches, MISTERS (perfect for BOTH happy hours on the patio!), and a cabana-style feel to it. We sat at a table inside which worked out to our benefit (I will explain why later on).
So let's get down to food and service, both extremely important. Almost as soon as we sat down, our waitress Colleen came over to greet us and tell us about the seafood specials which all sounded pretty great. It was honestly soo hard for me to choose with this new menu. So many items, so little time. Almost at the exact same time, someone came over with chips and salsa. You can just tell that this was made fresh in the restaurant, it was just fantastic. I think I ate too much of it therefore leading me to be kinda full by the time our entrees came out. Colleen suggested the Raspberry Mint Margarita so my friend ordered one of those and I got the sangria. Let's just say I was pretty jealous of that marg when it came out and ordered one for my second drink. I eventually narrowed down my selection to the Camarones Rancheros while my friend got the Camarones Negros (the newest item on the menu we were told...I was skeptical because it came with a Mango Beurre Blanc sauce and I'm not a huge fan of fruit and seafood but I let my friend be a guinea pig). I was also offered either the soup of the day or a house salad and I ordered the salad which came with a herb house vinaigrette that was pretty delicious. All the while, someone kept coming over to check if our drinks were ok, filling up our waters when they were 3/4 full and bringing us more chips and salsa. SOOO attentive, I'm not sure where these bad service reviews are coming from but if they do one thing right (and they certainly do more than one thing right) its the service. So an A++ for that!
Finally, the entrees. Six big shrimps with sauteed peppers and onions with a creamy tequila-jalapeno sauce on top of rice. Hello, amazing. I would have liked the mushrooms that were supposed to come with it but hey, that's ok. We told our server and she said that mine was also a newer dish they were working on and promptly offered to take it back. But it was so good, I had already eaten half of it by the time she was done talking haha. My friend's dish was surprisingly good! I didn't want to tell her how skeptical I was but I'm happy she didn't change her mind last minute because the mango sauce was great! It really complemented the ancho-covered shrimps quite well. So overall I'm gonna go with an A- for food just because of the missing mushrooms and we were supposed to get beans (though I certainly didn't need them, the food we received held its own).
BUT WAIT! We aren't done here. Desserts? Of course! So we couldn't resist the bananas foster which is made at your table! They bring out a bowl with vanilla bean ice cream and some tall guy comes to our table with a rolling cart topped with a huge bowl of butter and brown sugar and starts explaining how he makes Bananas Foster. Who was this mystery man? Not sure because he didn't look like a server but he makes one mean Bananas Foster (also comes in peach variety but so glad I chose banana), complete with flambeé and all! It was an experience to be remembered for sure and this was why I was glad that I sat inside. I am going to give the patio a try one of these days because they do fajitas out there and they smelled pretty amazing as we were walking out (though I was about to bust out of my jeans).
All in all, a night to be remembered and hopefully repeated in the near future! Thanks Hotel California!
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