The Gossiping Gourmet: Good Eats at Hotel Irvine’s gastro pub

I remember a time when hotel restaurant food was traditional, fancy, expensive and not particularly good. But times have changed, and many hotels are serving wonderful and inventive food.

I don’t know exactly why things mutated, but the fact that great chefs from all over the country, chefs who had their own restaurants, decided to open new eateries in hotels in Las Vegas could have been a factor.

My companion and I have recently had some very fine and fun meals in hotels. Our latest venture was in the new remodel of the Hyatt, just off MacArthur and Jamboree. It is now called Hotel Irvine and it is very attractive. The huge lobby contains the Red Bar, which has a nice menu of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and pizzas and serves breakfast and lunch.

Inside the main restaurant, Eats Kitchen & Bar, is large dining room with a lounge and bar area as well as a very nice tree-shaded outdoor dining patio complete with fire pit.

The chef is Jason Montelibano, previously the head chef at Chapter One: The Modern Local in Santa Ana. He has conceived of Eats as a gastro pub, which might be defined as a bar with food. But since the inception of this concept in London in 1991, the food has become equally as important as the booze.

As is the custom in many places these days, the menu categories are varied. Here they are described as small bites, shares, greens, flatbreads, dinner plates and sweets.

I confess, again, that I have a weakness for pork belly, and Eats serves the high-quality Niman Ranch variety in a Chinese steamed bun. The pork belly is very meaty with just a bit of fat and glazed with a tasty sweetish sauce. On the side was the chef’s special kimchee.

I know there are many variations of kimchee, but his was one of the best I have ever tasted, adding a perfect amount of heat to the little sandwich. Also on the plate were chopped scallions and a breaded and fried spicy strip of jalapeno pepper.

Something called a Filipino egg caught our attention on the shares menu. The actual definition of this (called a balut) is a duck embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell. What we had was not this but something akin to it, a Scotch egg, typical English pub food. It was quite good. The inside was a boiled egg, which was then covered in house-made finely ground longanisa sausage and fried. It rested on frisee and a sweet tamarind reduction.

From the dinner plate menu, we tried the confit fried chicken. Confit means that the bird is fried covered in its own fat. This leaves the skin a beautiful dark mahogany color and the interior very moist. It rested on a bed of risotto that was accented with ginger. On the side was braised kale studded with fried garlic. A sweet ponzu sauce was available for dipping. This was really good.

Wonderful smoked cheddar grits were covered with a rustic, spicy, salsa borracho with tomatoes, chilies and tequila, which made a bed for juicy jumbo prawns. On the bottom of the plate was a pool of Anaheim chili oil.

The restaurant offers four desserts and we chose the apple tacos, which came with very crispy phyllo dough crust shaped like a taco shell. The filling consisted of cubes of apples resting in apple jam and drizzled with crunchy bits of caramel streusel.

A few other items that piqued our interest, to be tried on another visit, include smoked duck salad, three delicious-sounding burgers and the lamb gnocchi with heirloom carrots, fried kale, gremolata feta and spiced granola.

Chef Jason has created an eclectic menu, but everything seems to work.

TERRY MARKOWITZ was in the gourmet food and catering business for 20 years. She can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].

Eats Kitchen & Bar

Where: 17900 Jamboree Road, Irvine

When: Breakfast: 6 to 10:30 a.m. daily

Lunch: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily

Dinner: 5 to 10:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, 5 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Prices:

Appetizers and shares: $4 to $12

Entrees: $9.50 to $22

Desserts: $4

Wine:

Bottles: $13 to $39

By the glass: $7 to $20

Information: (949) 225-6780 or eatskitchen.com