C’est La Vie offers tasty French cuisine

DINING OUT

With an impressive two decades of success to its credit, C’est La

Vie is unique in Laguna Beach.

This is the only local restaurant offering a full French bill of

fare, ready to enjoy in the spacious split-level dining room or on

the beach-front terrace upstairs.

This unusual restaurant boasts its own bakery, a full bar and

all-day dining starting at 9 a.m. weekends, plus views of Main Beach

and entryway seating overlooking the fascinating parade of people and

traffic in Downtown.

A welcome option, especially for the sizable tourist contingent,

is breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch as late as 4:30 p.m., after

which dinner commences.

Offered are early-day sandwiches of boeuf francais, le croque

monsieur, le Monte Cristo and grilled ahi, all in a $10 range, on

Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Brunch features a variety of egg

dishes, each less than $14 and including a glass of champagne.

To preface dinner, one may start with Beluga or Oesetra caviars,

with escargots baked with garlic, butter and Pernod, or with

traditional French onion soup laced with gruyere cheese. These start

at $6.95, going to market price for the caviars.

Salads of anchovy-strewn Caesar, mesclun greens with toasted

almonds and truffle oil, roasted pear with organic baby greens and

caramelized walnuts in sherry hazelnut vinaigrette are $6.95 to

$9.95.

A quartet of pastas start at $15.95 for penne provencale tossed

with roasted eggplant, Kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, broccoli,

peppers with olive oil and parmesan cheese, going to $22.95 for

fettuccine lavishing brandy-sauteed shellfish and finfish.

Entrees, at $15.95 to $24.95, are served with the vegetable du

jour and basmati rice or choice of potato. These include veal

sweetbreads with roasted garlic in muscadet tarragon; duck confit

with wild rice and caramelized pear in a port wine reduction; veal

osso buco with herbed fettuccine and vegetables; and shellfish-laden

bouillabaisse perfumed with saffron, garlic, Pernod and cognac.

Cuisine doesn’t get much more French than this.

C’est La Vie also offers a weekly dinner menu of appetizers and

entrees sans listed prices. A monthly selection of reduced-price

bottled wines may showcase such deals as a $48 Marcelina caberet for

$36.

The incredibly tempting showcase of luscious pastries, which

welcome guests at the entrance, are the perfect complement to these

French repasts. At $6.95 each, the delectable fantasies are an

appealing temptation to take home for the folks you left behind.

* GLORI FICKLING is a longtime Laguna Beach resident who has

specialized in writing restaurant news and views since 1966. She may

be reached at 494-4710, e-mail ghoneywest@aol.com.