Tonight I had dinner with a bunch of O.C. bigwigs. They included a mayor, two entrepreneurs, a ceo and a journalist. Our chosen watering hole was Kimera, a week-old restaurant that fuses California seafood with Asian and Mediterranean spices in the middle of two modern buildings housing tech geeks. Though Kimera could have easily gone minimalist to resemble an airport hangar as The Slanted Door does in its new digs in San Francisco's Ferry Building, it instead decided to look like a beach shack turned opium den. The red walls were splattered with abstract paintings and gold flecks. The bottoms of colorful glass bottles protruded from the walls. Bamboo rods hovered above our heads, as if a giant shark had overturned a sea raft, trapping us below the blood-tinted water. The hostess led us to the back for some privacy. She could have stuck us smack in the middle of the restaurant because the joint was only 5 percent occupied. There were still some kinks to work out, such as buying whole lychees to garnish the sweet lychee martinis. But I liked the uniforms, which the ceo who invited me to the dinner had designed. The black caftans with asymmetrical hems were intended to evoke Issey Miyake on the beach, she joked. Wearing the mod outfits, the servers quietly stepped in and out like ninjas to serve our food.
I had the hanger steak with a Manchego cheese fondue and grilled sweet corn. The steak was seasoned generously with paprika, salt and pepper. One of my dinnermates who tried the steak thought there was a touch of bacon as well. But I think the meat might have been cooked over a wood-fueled fire for a bit of smokiness.
Because I took photos of my food, the other journalist at the table said the restaurant was going to think that I'm a food critic for a major paper and will treat us to a plethora of free desserts. Sure enough, after our dinner plates were cleared, an army of ninja servers carried out tray after tray of sweets. This is the peanut butter and chocolate mousse.
This is the blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream and sugared ginger slices.
This was my most favorite dessert: a cheesecake with a toasted coconut crust and mango jelly topping. The journalist who sat across from me was getting into my food blogging. She even turned the plate just so that I could get a good angle of the sugar spoon. The entire table helped her figure out how to take the edible kitchenware home to give to her 5-year-old daughter. For our post-dinner entertainment, we went to the parking lot and the mayor and I compared our Priuses. I told him that next time he and I should go drag-racing.
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