Getting the dish on dish

Kathy Mader

Sustenance is food’s most basic function. Its trade, if you will.

Dish, on 17th Street in Costa Mesa, succeeds in raising the level of

its food beyond the basics to an education abroad.

Let’s get something out of the way. Yes, the name of the

restaurant is dish, all lower case. But once you eat there, you may

well agree that it should be all caps, with perhaps an exclamation

point on the end.

Tom Curran, the owner and instructor of the dish cooking school,

attended culinary school in Scottsdale, Ariz., and trained at Cordon

Bleu in France before coming to California and working as part of the

team at the renowned Aubergine. This is all good news for us, believe

me.

Tom is most notable (until you eat, that is) for his flaming red

hair, colored that way for his future TV show, “A Zany Kids Cooking

Show.” How neat is that? Dish originally started as a cooking school

and culinary retail store, but the retail side of it left and,

thankfully, a cafe took its place just two months ago.

Cooking school is kind of a misnomer, as I see cooking as what I

do, creating is what they do. But they are more than happy to teach

you the tricks of the trade. Make sure to ask for a list of available

classes when you stop in to enjoy. I’ll be enrolling in the dessert

courses for starters. Anyone who offers the new nirvana, fried

Snickers bars, on the menu must know what they’re doing.

Here’s the real dish: Brian Dobbin, formerly one of the creative

minds and driving forces behind Haute Cakes, is the new partner and

catering manager at dish. Television is in his future, too, as he is

set to depart for Miami to film his new show, a food style (as in

stylish) show geared toward the VH-1 crowd. Clearly, food is hip.

Credit must be given to Josh Opp, dish’s executive chef, the man

responsible for dish’s fascinating menu. Everything about this

restaurant -- the outdoor cafe feel, the menu and the kitchen -- says

that the creators and staff of dish care very much about what they

do.

The closest local equivalents to dish are Plums, in both

atmosphere and food, and Haute Cakes, more in the food sense. But

where Plums has that wonderful and unique inspiration of the

Northwest, dish boasts what I would call a fresh French influence. To

get a real feel for what that means, we sampled quite a few items on

the both the lunch and breakfast menu.

We went for it and ordered my new destination salad, simply called

a mixed green salad ($8.50) with teardrop tomatoes, plenty of

gorgonzola cheese and spiced pecans in a creamy but not heavily

delivered peppercorn dressing. The croque monsieur ($8.25), bufala

mozzarella and honey ham dipped in an egg batter and pan fried until

crispy, was very good eating.

Mild does not describe Grandma Helen’s blackjack barbecue beef

brisket ($8.25), served on the softest of French rolls with

provolone, red onions and tomatoes. “Mighty tasty” better describes

it.

One of the stars on the breakfast menu is the “pancake omlette”

($9), one large, slightly sweet pancake folded over crumbled honey

pepper bacon and maple apple sausage. Simply wonderful. The corned

beef hash ($8.50) is a meat lover’s dream, with chunks of

skillet-cooked corned beef and seasoned potatoes. We will be back

next Saturday morning for the crispy, creamy waffles, with bananas

and pecans baked right in.

If you are like me and dessert suits every occasion, the baked

French toast strata ($9), almost a French bread pudding with maple

syrup, golden raisins and cream cheese baked with a cinnamon sugar

crust, fills that bill.

If you just can’t decide, and need comfort food, dish is

presenting a Thanksgiving dinner to go, replete with cranberry ginger

compote, garlic-roasted mashed potatoes, brown sugar sweet potatoes,

three bread sausage apple stuffing, herb-roasted turkey, pan gravy

and pies (apple, pecan or pumpkin). Nice way to get started, I say.

I did overhear a woman next to me tell the server that dish should

put a burger on the menu to appeal to the masses. Don’t dumb them

down, I say. Food is an art form that can be both educational and

interesting, and dish seems to specialize in this.

And get this: For you true foodies, you can travel with the dish

crew once a year on a culinary tour in Europe. The last three

educational journeys have been in France, but next year is booked for

Tuscany. Ahhh, just imagine.

So yes, there is life before and after the Angels, and it must go

on. But be good to yourself, and ease into it at dish.

* KATHY MADER’s dining reviews appear every other Thursday.