Orange County Register

For the reason that you can’t eat everything deep fried (bummer, I know), I decided to give the most evil of all foods, the salad, a spin around the block.

Now take in mind these aren’t the most healthy salads, just the semi-poor choices of a guy that could use some more greens in his life. And hey, at least I’m not this guy.

Because I’m often in Newport-Mesa working away on whatever it is they pay me to do, I’ve chosen to showcase two of my favorite salads in the area. Feel free though to talk up your favorite plate o’ greens in the comments section though because we’re always looking for new places and things to try.

First up is the absolute beaut in the picture above: Gulfstream’s Crabcake Grapefruit Avocado Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette ($20).

What I like about this salad, found in Newport Beach, is that it tastes so fresh. The pile of microgreens or watercress, I can’t tell the difference, is a nice neutral leaf to top the salad but the real action happens below the healthy stuff.

The hockey-puck sized crabcake is full of sweet jumbo lump crab with little filler and is cooked to be juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside. The salad comes packed with fresh herbs, avocado slices, corn and raw red onion and when it’s all combined with the sour grapefruit and sweet, creamy dressing, well, you’ve got a heck of a salad. While the price is high, I’d say it’s worth it mostly for the huge crabcake hidden within.

My other salad of choice is the Crispy Blue at Old Vine Cafe in Costa Mesa ($10).

This sexy blue cheese-laden beast features organic greens tossed with crispy prosciutto, fried onions, baby cherry tomatoes and Maytag blue cheese dressing. What’s great about this salad is that it’s a little of both worlds, the healthy veggies and the awesomely unhealthy fried onions, crispy pork and dressing.

Overall, the salad isn’t super filling (Old Vine’s lunch and dinner portions tend to be on the smaller side for a guy with a big appetite), but it was a great way to start my meal, which I ended with some Char Grilled Lamb Chops ($16).

Sorry y’all, but I was still hungry so I settled on these little guys, which are served with a dried blueberry syrah demi glace and crispy leeks. The chops were juicy and cooked perfectly, and the demi glace that came with it was heavenly. I didn’t feel bad eating the chops either because they were simply grilled meat and not, like, chicken fried steak. 

So yeah, go me.

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