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The Oceanfront
of
Orange County, California: A Personal Journey Part 2 Text and Photography by Eric Anderson
Those who live in this county are quick to point out its charms. They’re emphatic they don’t need Los Angeles, they have all the sophistication they might want in Orange County and additionally they have this benevolent, comforting coastline, what they call “The Oceanfront.” It’s hard not to rhapsodize about this little collar of land washed by the blue Pacific especially when it chooses to have a half dozen travel writers as its guests for two days as part of a preview of a forthcoming 2011 sweepstakes to be called the Ultimate Guy's Getaway. It will start February 1 and end May 31 - just in time for Father's Day. Part 1 of the “ManFam” experience can be seen at our previous TravelingBoy article on The Oceanfront. Our preview includes a mixed bag of attractions like paddleboard, surf and Segway tutorials and a (literally) hands-on lesson in falconry (the "green way to control pests”). The sneak peek of what the winning package of the sweepstakes would look like swings from macho activities like bourbon sampling at the Sand and Surf to “explorations of your feminine side, guys,” namely spa treatments at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort and Spa. I wasn’t sure how bourbon sampling would work for an ex-Scotsman. I recall the night of my medical school graduation party in 1958. The chair of surgery in Edinburgh was held then by Professor John Bruce; he would be knighted by the queen five years later. He died in 1975 as one of eleven professors of surgery at Edinburgh who had occupied the chair since 1803. At our party he had been department head for only two years and was in full swing. He was chatting with three of us when the waiter came up to ask if we wanted drinks. “I’m buying for my young friends,” our professor called out to the elderly, stooped-over waiter. “Three whiskeys, please!“ “Small or large, Professor?” faltered the waiter. “Bottles, man, bottles!”
And so that evening progressed half a century in my past. Whiskey always meant Scotch, that golden nectar for the heather clad hills. How would I handle bourbon? We sit in Splashes restaurant at the Sand and Surf Resort in Laguna Beach as the surf crashes below us. It’s an older resort, long established and successful. It’s part of JC Resorts with its great golf resorts at Temecula Creek Inn and at the Ranch Bernardo Inn. The group also has the 14-room La Jolla Scripps Inn. A tile mural beyond the pool at Laguna shows how little the coastline has changed in all those years. The bourbon tasting is a surprise. As a young man I would prefer bourbon to Scotch only because it was cheaper. I have never tasted expensive bourbon before but in this Walter Mitty-like experience I am having I can’t believe how smooth a single malt bourbon such as an 18 year-old Yamazaki can be; I didn’t even know it existed. I hear someone say the recipe of this had been lost in New Orleans then discovered by the great-great grandson but I am more enthralled with the taste than the story. We sample Hudson, a white bourbon with “a clean taste of the cornfield,” and Bulleit that is “sweeter and more smoky,” but the bourbon with the cherry-like spicy flavor and the unexpected Japanese name is the winner even if I’ve never heard of it while living for four years in the sophisticated rural, remote reaches of Texas. We move a short distance for lunch to the Montage Laguna Beach. We eat overlooking its artistic mosaic pool, another reminder Laguna Beach has been an artist village since the 1960s. This is going to be lunch with a difference. We are going to cook it ourselves (Ha!). We will be trained to make one meal for the women in our lives. There is a problem: we draw lots: I am going to be the chef but the writers catch my British accent and launch, of course, into ”Hell is a place where the police are German, the politicians French, the engineers Italian, the lovers Swiss – and the cooks British.” So the hard work made easy is done in the Loft restaurant by executive chef Rob Wilson. His recipe for “Coffee Rubbed New York Steak is deceptively easy: 27 words, so simple even guys can do it. “The coffee rub is one part finely ground coffee, one part kosher salt, two parts brown sugar. Mix well. Coat the steaks generously with the coffee rub. Grill.”
The meal is fabulous; you can cut the steak with the proverbial fork. The enjoyment of the meal seems proportional to its simplicity. The chef grills two slices of zucchini for each plate and slices and grills a large tomato “from my garden.” He prepares a simple salad with generous slices of Parmesan cheese atop it then slices the coffee-rubbed steak tangentially on top of his tomatoes. A guest drifts by with her husband to observe -- then leaves pointedly telling him in a stage whisper, “That is so easy, even you could do it!’ He murmurs, “I am not Italian,” as he leaves. But you know we could all do that. Easy. As easy as accepting a mini-spa treatment at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa. I have mixed feelings about going to a spa. It doesn’t seem macho but I’ve had three back operations for prolapsed disk and it helps. I went across Europe once writing about health spas for a doctor magazine. I overheard the spa director in Baden-Baden welcoming Prince Rainier of Monaco and saying breezily to him, “Welcome to my spa. I promise you will enter it as a prince but leave as a king!” This attempt at German humor did not go over well and the prince scowled as if his title had been trivialized. I had to bit my lip. But I found the German spa guests so unembarrassed by nudity that when I was sent to the New Otani Hotel in Los Angeles (now the Kyoto Palace) to write about a shiatsu massage, I undressed completely, put on my robe and went downstairs. The Japanese masseuse turned her back on me and asked me to hang up my robe then lie down on the sheet on the floor. I did. She bent over me then did a double take. “You bad boy!” she exclaimed and slapped me on the bottom. “Go upstairs and put on underpants!” And I thought I was being so suave. I’m not convinced that I get any lasting benefits from massage but it sure is self-indulgent and the Laguna Cliffs Marriott is beautiful. We glance at some of the books on the spa shelves: The Lotus Effects,” “Pleasure Healing,” “Mindful Affirmations,” and one perhaps more suitable for guys: “Leave Your Mind Behind.” We are shown the “couples room,” clearly one of its special attractions and the staff seems very comfortable dealing with a bunch of somewhat sheepish men. I remember when Fairmont took over the Scottsdale Princess and created a new spa, Willow Springs, in its group of resorts. This was an important step because the hotel group publicist said Fairmont was going to spend more on spa development in the next few years than hotel growth. It was the future. She said Fairmont had commissioned several psychologists to go across the United States to live briefly with different families and find out why the American male was so hesitant about accepting spa treatments as we apparently are. The answer was males accept spa treatments if they are rewards for behavior, such as the tennis player’s massage, the golfer’s special and so on.
The Marriott has a nice touch, a 1940 “Woody” Ford beach wagon on display as if “This Way for the Surfer’s Special!” We spend the night at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel. I stayed at it the month it opened 26 years ago. It was the first grand resort built on the coast of California for 35 years and I’ve long felt from several stays it was the best hotel in the state especially when it spent $40 million to freshen up about six years ago. I remember the general manager saying the unexpected asset they found in their valet parkers was the personality of local young men so used to family wealth they were comfortable around guests with the poise to charm them completely. The first difference now from the past is the bed of the luxury hotel. Upscale hotels today all have magnificent beds, the kind you would love to have delivered home, the type you sink into and are asleep in before you even fluff the pillow. The other cultural change is in how hotel guests dine. There was a time only 10 to 15 years ago when guests would explore the neighborhood for their dining delights; they would seldom think of dining all the time in the hotel. How it’s changed. Most upscale hotels now have such wonderful restaurants people who are not staying at the hotel will come because of the hotel restaurant’s reputation.
Our group has dinner at the Ritz-Carlton’s Raya, a new “Chef Richard Sandoval concept of Pan-Latin Coastal Cuisine.” He and chef de cuisine Greg Howe say they are inspired by the “vibrant ethnic communities across Latin America.” We all try the smoked swordfish dip with its tang after-taste, and the sweet corn soup with truffled masa dumplings and crab, clams, lobster and avocado. Says our youngest writer really diving into this dish, “I bet this is better than what the Soup Nazi offered on Seinfeld.” Bet it is, too. The restaurant serves more than a thousand of this item a month. It is the most popular seasonal dish. The favorite appetizer is the lobster taco and the most ordered entrée roasted halibut. Raya makes a point of protecting the future fish supply in the world’s oceans by subscribing to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. The other outstanding dinner we have is at another new restaurant, Seasons 52, a fresh grill and wine bar at the South Coast Plaza, a shopping venue with more visitors every year than Disneyland and Universal Studios combined. Seasons 52’s point is not just that everything is fresh but that none of its entrees exceed 475 calories. This captivates those in the restaurant as if you can dine without guilt. We do. The choices are legion: from grilled clear springs boneless rainbow trout and caramelized sea scallops to wood-fired maple leaf pork tenderloin to mesquite-grilled filet mignon. The restaurant is very busy. Says a waiter, “People are always looking for low calories but they get tired of tiny portions. We have lean meats, fresh vegetables and we season with herbs and spices; we don’t flavor with oil.
The Seasons 52 is a remarkable memory from our Ultimate Guy’s Getaway, that food can be so tasty and satisfying yet reduced in calories. This will become an interesting restaurant group to watch in the future. Related Articles: |
drive south from Los Angeles to 
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