Restaurants in San Juan Capistrano

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momopi_IHB

momopi_IHB

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I've been driving down to San Juan Capistrano recently to have a look. There are many fine dining restaurants concentrated by the Mission, it looks like a very competitive environment.



Does anyone have experience dining in San Juan Capistrano?
 
[quote author="momopi" date=1235715067]I've been driving down to San Juan Capistrano recently to have a look. There are many fine dining restaurants concentrated by the Mission, it looks like a very competitive environment.



Does anyone have experience dining in San Juan Capistrano?</blockquote>


I've always enjoyed the Ramos House Cafe. Their fried chicken salad is unique and very tasty. Drinks come in mason jars, if you like that kind of thing. It is located on Los Rios street, purportedly the oldest residential neighborhood in California, even older than Floral Park.



<a href="http://www.ramoshouse.com/">Ramos House Cafe</a>
 
Ramos House is great....though only open for breakfast and lunch.



We've also tried Sun Dried Tomatoes and liked that quite a bit.



Cedar Creek Inn is just OK...though it does have live music.



I like Tannins quite a bit, an italian restaurant with a wine bar. It's on Ortega on the east side of the 5.



La Fondue used to be great. I think they recently changed hands. Recent reports have been disappointing.



Bad to the Bone has the best barbeque I have had in SoCal. Pretty authentic stuff....I think the owner is from Oklahoma. It's near Tannins on the east side of the 5.



Sarducci's has disappointing food, but the location on the patio right next to the train station is pretty cool.



El Adobe is pretty traditional mexican food. Not my favorite thing, but it is pretty popular. It's been around forever.



My wife went to a baby shower at The Tea House and they loved it....very charming. Located right next to Ramos. More of a tea and scones type of place.
 
[quote author="High Gravity" date=1235715639]

I've always enjoyed the Ramos House Cafe. Their fried chicken salad is unique and very tasty. Drinks come in mason jars, if you like that kind of thing. It is located on Los Rios street, purportedly the oldest residential neighborhood in California, even older than Floral Park.



<a href="http://www.ramoshouse.com/">Ramos House Cafe</a></blockquote>


I visited this nice cafe over the weekend. Unfortunately they only serve $35 brunch and the regular lunch menu was not avail, so I wasn't able to try the salad. I saw a few patrons order the bloody mary and thought it looked really interesting. @_@ salad on top of drink? hehehehe.



The brunch includes drink, starter, and main course. I liked the cucumber in ice water, though it was a nice tough.



For the starters, we had the basil cured salmon with toast, and cinnamon apple beignets. The plating looked really nice and everything was cooked to order. However I thought maybe they should consider putting something under the sliced salmon, it stuck to the plate like glue LoL. The apple cinnamon beignets... yum... they should consider selling it by the train station. I want to sneak into their kitchen and steal this recipe.



For the main course we had the crab cake with eggs on top, and something that looked like crab cakes but made with duck. I'll need to find their menu paper to check the dish names (the web site version is obsolete). I'd give both dishes a B+, good, but not necessarily exceptional as far as crab cakes go. The "plus" is given for the extravagant portions. We could only eat half of it and had to box the rest to go. Thank goodness we didn't have breakfast. Unlike many "fine dining" places where you get tiny portions on a large plate, you get a large stack of food on a large plate here. That was a lot of eggs!



Overall, I'd give them a thumbs up! Photos to follow whenever I get around to downloading them...!





Ramos House Cafe

31752 Los Rios St

San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675

(949) 443-1342

<a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/ramos-house-cafe-san-juan-capistrano">http://www.yelp.com/biz/ramos-house-cafe-san-juan-capistrano</a>



Note the public parking lot across from the cafe is not done yet, so you want to park by the train station and just walk across the tracks (turn right).
 
While on the architectural walking tour the SJC historical society does Saturday mornings and learned that several of the newer restaurants there were not doing well. There was a greek place on the main strip there that closed recently - I don't think it had been open that long.



La Fondue is wonderful in my opinion. But I've learned to skip the meat/entree course and have the salad, cheese and chocolate fondue instead. Otherwise its wayyyyyyyyy too much food and really fonduing meat/lobster/etc. doesn't do much for the flavor. They do let you cheat and grill the meat course if you want too if you really have to have it.



Sun Dried Tomato cafe was also very good and reasonably priced for lunch. I think they have a location in Laguna beach too.
 
I've been to Tannin's a couple of times now. I have never been very impressed. The club upstairs makes for a VERY akward atmosphere and the thumping feeling through the roof if it is a Friday or Saturday night. For the money, there are countless other places that I would suggest before Tannin's.



On a COMPLETELY different level, for truly authentic Mexican food, I would try EL CAMPEON. This is not a nice sit down restaurant. Very casual walk-up Mercado/restaurant.



However, this is SOME OF THE BEST MEXICAN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. The food is flavorful and truly represents the bold flavors of Mexico.
 
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