We had occasion to be in Orange for a couple of errands this past Saturday, so we decided to have lunch at Citrus City Grille. We'd been there once before for lunch, and the husband had been introduced to the place by a work acquaintance when they had lunch together one day.
Citrus City Grille is a very nice restaurant that has marks of being an upscale restaurant - white linen tablecloths and napkins, good servers, nice menu - but it's not a stuffy place - on top of the white linen tablecloths is white butcher-block paper. On this Saturday afternoon, most of the people were dressed very casually, though the husband said that when he was there for a weekday lunch, it seemed to be much more of a business crowd.
It wasn't very crowded, so we were seated immediately at a table by the window. They also have outside seating in front of the restaurant.
It looks like the menu has been changed at least some because the soup that I had as a starter isn't listed on the online menu. (And no, I didn't have the soup of the day, which was tortilla soup.) I have loved gazpacho since I was introduced to it at the Catal Uva Bar, and it's especially refreshing on a warm summer's day, so I decided to have the shrimp gazpacho. There were a lot of things that looked good on the menu, but a lot of it was what I normally view as "dinner food", so I opted for the Kobe Cheeseburger with bacon and avocado. Yeah, I know, it's a little weird to have a cheeseburger at a moderately upscale place, but moderately upscale places also generally serve amazing burgers - the quality of the meat and accompaniments really makes a difference. The husband opted to start with the Citrus Caesar salad, followed by the Newporter Chicken.
We were brought a focaccia-type bread (which I liked) and a dipping liquid. I didn't try the liquid, but the husband said it was a combination of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and something else that he wasn't sure of but he thinks might have been parmesan cheese.
Our starters arrived shortly thereafter. I *loved* the shrimp gazpacho, which also had julienned cucumber across the top. The flavor was excellent, and the shrimp was a nice extra. We were a little surprised that the husband's Caesar basically had a wedge of romaine lettuce with the dressing drizzled on with capers and square slices of romano cheese sprinkled on top. We'd never seen it served that way before, but he enjoyed the salad very much.
When they brought my cheeseburger, it did certainly look like what you'd expect from a moderately upscale restaurant. The meat patty was very thick and juicy, and after I'd bitten into the burger, the juices were still running out of it. The bun is made at the restaurant, and it had three generous slices of bacon and a nice wedge of avocado on top. I don't like burgers without lettuce and tomatoes, so I was happy that they'd included three big slices of tomato (usually, you only get one or two, and they're not that big or thick), but I was pleasantly surprised that instead of iceburg lettuce, they used a spring mix of lettuce (or as we like to call them, "weeds"). The burger was very delicious indeed. Accompanying the burger was a side of what they call thin-cut fries, and they weren't kidding - these were probably even thinner than what I'd normally call shoestring fries. They were ok, but I don't like my fries quite that thin, so I didn't have as many as I might normally have. And of course, since it was a moderately upscale restaurant, they had also brought a little metal cup filled with ketchup (Here's a tangent - do you use "ketchup" or "catsup"? And is there any actual difference? I don't object to "catsup", but in writing myself, I seem to prefer "ketchup". OK, tangent over.) - no ketchup bottles on the table in this restaurant! (But they did have salt and pepper shakers on the table, though they were cute ones. At some point, I'll get around to posting about my apparent salt and pepper shaker obsession that started when we had dinner at Emeril's at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in March. Oh, wait, I'm digressing again.) There was also a small wedge of watermelon on the plate, so I really enjoyed that.
The husband's Newporter had a breast of chicken with avocado, Swiss cheese and tomato on whole multi-grain bread or as he called it, "birdseed bread". He very much enjoyed his sandwich, which also came with the thin fries and the wedge of watermelon.
The service was terrific, with the server coming by periodically to check on us without being intrusive, and our water glasses were promptly refilled.
I have very much enjoyed my visits to this restaurant, and it's definitely somewhere I'd go to again whenever I'm in the area. The dinner menu looks really good too, but chances aren't good that I'd be able to try it since I probably wouldn't be in the area during dinner time.
Parking is available on the street or in lots a few blocks away, but it's always been busy in the area the times that I've been there, whether on a weekday or a weekend, so you might have to hunt around a bit.
There are also two other locations, both in the Inland Empire, which you can reach from the official website.
Citrus City Grille
122 North Glassell Street
Orange, CA 92866
(714) 639-9600
(888) 668-7474
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2 comments:
May I add to your review?? We ate at the Corona location for the first time on Sunday morning. I thought the restaurant was very nice for the price-point.
I loved the dipping sauce for hte bread. There were definitely some spices and/or herbs in it, possibly some citrus juice. It was very yummy.
I also had the shrimp gazpacho! They use bread crumbs to thicken it. I wish I had a little more lime wedge for it. I'm inspired to try to blend my homemade gazpacho next time I make a batch.
I had the organic greens salad. I wish they had a lower price point dinner salad to make a soup/salad combination. But that's me being cheap. The prices really were not that bad.
Doc had the caesar salad with chicken. I loved the capers on it. I love capers. I'm going to add them to my caesars at home.
M had the margarhita pizza. It was huge and he only ate two slices. I think I'd try to get him to split it with his brother in the future. The little boys had cheese pizza and mac and cheese off the children's menu.
We ordered a grand marnier souffle. Something was wrong with their oven so it took much longer than 30 minutes and was a little burned. It was pretty good but The Cellar in Fullerton still serves the best Grand Marnier Souffle because I like their sauce better.
It really wasn't crowded at Sunday brunch time. I'm curious to see how long all the restaurants in this new area last. We rarely go to eat sit-down dinners there so maybe they're more crowded at dinner time.
How funny that our visits were so close together and that we got the same soup.
You know, I didn't even think about them having a kids menu, which is pretty stupid because there was a table of people a couple away from us that had a little girl, 6 years old maybe, who seemed to be eating fine.
Another table near us was sat as we were finishing, and we heard the women tell the server they were only having wine and dessert. They ordered the souffle. I asked the husband what they were going to be doing during the 30 minute wait. He said, "drinking".
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