The Gossiping Gourmet: Goodbye Charlie, hello Holsteins

I was sad to hear that Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale’s, in South Coast Plaza, was shutting its doors. This was a beautiful restaurant with excellent food and an extensive wine list.

Chef Charlie Palmer has announced that he and his investors have enlisted Block 16 Hospitality from Las Vegas to manage and operate a new and more casual dining experience.

The restaurant is now called Holsteins Shakes and Buns. It is the second branch of the original in Las Vegas, which was voted as having the best burger in Vegas. This is a hamburger joint kicked up about 20 notches.

If you have never visited this venue before, it is a lovely space and has remained so. A wall of wine bottles greets patrons as they enter. Behind the front desk is a life-size statue of a cow with pink blots. The high ceilings leave plenty of room for the large paintings of cartoon-like animal characters, especially cows. These whimsical touches help create a more casual atmosphere.

While you make your selections from the menu, a small bowl of very good popcorn arrives at your table to assuage your hunger. The “Nosh” menu contains a long list of appetizers that can be combined to make a meal.

Our server recommended the Tournedos Rossini Sliders — beef tenderloin, foie gras and arugula on two small rolls with a delicious béarnaise sauce on the side. My only complaint was that the foie gras was a mere thin sliver of duck liver that had no browned exterior and added almost nothing to the sliders.

My dining companion and I also enjoyed the Korean Bulgogi Quesadilla, a marriage of two cuisines. Marinated, thin slices of steak were stuffed in wedges of tortillas with kimchi, asadero cheese, chili aioli and kalbi glaze. They were spicy and delicious, a tasty and refreshing variation on the traditional quesadilla.

Holsteins has seven different takes on the hamburger and offers as well a turkey sandwich and turkey, lamb, seared salmon, marinated chicken breast and vegan burgers.

Our choices were the Big Fat Greek, a lamb burger, and the El Caliente. The plump, spiced lamb burger was topped with feta cream, lettuce, tomato, red onion, olive relish and a delicious tzatziki sauce. The burger was perfectly cooked and juicy. Some very good onion rings accompanied it. The rings were heavily battered but well fried and crusty. The onions were kind of lost in the mix.

My dining companion enjoyed the beef patty topped with pepper jack cheese, pickled jalapeno, avocado, pork chicharrones and tequila-cilantro mayo. The beef was perfectly medium rare and the avocado was just ripe. The sandwich came with thin, crisp fries on the side.

A number of salads can be enhanced with chicken, New York steak, ahi or salmon. Big Plates are entrée size and include braised short ribs, free-range chicken, long-horn filet mignon, Scottish salmon and firecracker shrimp.

The house specialty beverages are the Bam-Boozled Shakes. These are wild combinations of desserts and booze liquefied into drinks. Here are two, so you get the idea: Campfire Smores with Smirnoff marshmallow vodka, chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker crumble, and the Fat Boy with UV Candy Bar vodka, Reeses, pretzels, sprinkles, Cap’n Crunch, Oreo cookies and Butterfinger.

We finished off this meal with Irish coffee cheesecake and the dark chocolate stout layer cake. The cheesecake was light and came with a drizzle of Jameson caramel, a scoop of Jameson whipped cream and hazelnut crumble. The chocolate layer cake was dense and rich, and it was accented with caramelized bacon Rice Crispies, chocolate sauce and a scoop of malted milk ice cream.

This is a family-friendly place, but it may turn into more of a scene in the evenings.

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

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HOLSTEINS SHAKES AND BUNS

Location: 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa

Hours: 11 to 12 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays, 11 to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Prices:

Appetizers: $9 to $17

Entrees: $20 to $31

Buns: $12 to $16

Desserts: $8 to $11

WINE:

Bottles: $27 to $250

By the glass: $9 to $20

Corkage: $10

Information: holsteinburgers.com; (714)-352-2525