The Capital Grille

It's preview week at the Capital Grille, South Coast Plaza, which for me means free food. Preview week is a new restaurant's chance to work out the bugs and have the chefs practice making food for a full restaurant before the paying customers show up. Its almost unfair to post one's experience when the restaurant isn't officially open for business yet, but in this case there was no discernible difference from a well established restaurant to this one. No hiccups at all, not one. The waitstaff were knowledgeable, friendly and surprisingly very experienced. Many of the staff we spoke with have been with Capital Grille in other areas of the U.S. for 7-12 years and have moved here to California. The menu recommendations were spot on, a special thank you to Derrick for the cheesecake recommendation and that darling gal that suggested the crab and lobster burger instead of the stuffed shrimp. The lobster bisque is not on the menu, but I'm assured, always available. The best lobster bisque I have ever had and I consider myself a bit of an aficionado. We sampled the calamari, which was very tasty. I am used to having a dipping sauce which this does not come with, but I'll get over it. The lobster and crab burger was huge. Burger being a word they use meaning crabcake, but not like one of the little coin sized crabcakes you might have had at some restaurant, not this baby is actually larger than a standard burger. It was, in fact, too big to eat the whole thing. I did have a bite of my lunch partner's ribeye sandwich. The caramelized onions that they put on the ribeye were so good, I could have eaten a bucket of them. The only blight on a otherwise phenomenal meal was the truffle fries, just say no to the fries. Way too salty and the food is too good for fries. They brought us a raspberry sorbet for dessert and it was good, but thank goodness Jimmy hooked us up with their marscapone cheesecake, Yummm-O! In my opinion the sorbet needs a kick, but that cheesecake, oh, oh, ohhhh! They do a creme brulee caramelizing on the top and that crunch is just the thing as you bite into the super creamy white cheesy filling. I will be back for the cheesecake, definitely!