＜ＯＣ＞ Girl's Night Out @ Mesa

As we get older and have our own families, it's harder for all friends to get together, especially for those who already have kids. Sometimes it would take a long conversation to just decide on "save the date". IMO it's crucial to have someone in the group to be the reminder, to give everyone a little push to meet up and catch up.

This past Saturday me and some of my good friends finally had a girl's night out, which was long overdue. The location was at the CAMP in Costa Mesa. It's a big plaza with a lot of stores, and a good place for friends to spend time.


Actually the girls went to a watch the movie "Magic Mike" first, but I had to take care of some personal stuffs so I met up with them directly here. It's a restaurant lounge called "Mesa". The parking lot is almost always full on weekends, lucky for me, I was able to spot someone leaving and got a space. If you really can't find parking, the restaurant offers valet at a cheap price, if I remember correctly the valet costs $3.

This is the entrance to Mesa, modern, sleek and simple design.


The interior is decorated with lots of black and white photos, there are also a few large murals, quite artistic.



This place is pretty popular, if you come here during the weekends, a reservation is always recommended, otherwise the wait for a table could take a looong time...and...there is a dining time limit of 2 hours!! This is the first for me, I have never dined at any other restaurants in So Cal that has a time limit.

Better order appetizers quick haha.
These are what we had:
Shishito peppers -
Pickled peppers, the green ones are not too spicy, but the big red one is the one to watch out. One of the girls chewed on the seeds and had to gulp down her cup of water.

The lighting here is very dim it was hard to take nice pictures of the food.

I tried 3 times using different lighting settings,
first time I took the picture while another friend fired her flash.
second time I used my own camera's flash
third time I used the "no flash" setting on my camera


After I took a few peppers to my plate, I tried again with the candle light, still didn't turn out good...
Oh well...


Cast Iron Skillet Mussels -
I think this is considered their house special, however, I do not eat shellfish, wouldn't know how they tasted.


Farmhouse Cheeses -
Cheese lovers should order this, but portion is rather small for us 6 people to share.


We were too hungry and talked too much, we didn't order our main entry until after we finished the appetizers lol. I just randomly took a few pictures of the plates around me, they are not good at all so bear with them :)

Roasted  Beet  Salad -


Grilled Angus Steak -


WOOD OVEN PIZZA - Sweet  &  Spicy


Pan Roasted Local Halibut -
This was what I ordered. It actually tasted good, the Beurre Rogue Sauce is very well made, and the crispy parts of the fish was my favorite. The only thing was that the risotto was a tad under cooked. Regardless the sauce still made it quite tasty.


Shoestring fries -
For everyone to share.


Since there will be another party coming for our table, we had to wrap things up before 10pm. We thought about staying here for drinks, but considering that we all wore high heels, it would be painful to stand in them while waiting for another table, and who knows how long that's gonna take...so we decided to go to a different place.

3 Lamborghini lined up right outside the restaurant.
(hmm I wonder if I can pretend to be one of the valets and just go for a short drive.....)



So we drove to another lounge just 5 miles away - OPM restaurant lounge.
This place was pretty big, has a nice vibe with all the cool purple lights, the seats here were more comfortable, too.



But...it's kinda dead here...a lot of empty tables.
We asked our server if it's like this on weekends. Our server told us that because they were relatively new, and that because it's the last OC County fair weekend, people all went there, otherwise it's usually lively during weekends.

Hmm I didn't know OC fair runs late into 10pm at night? Anyways, we sat there and were feeling a little bored, and guess what? The server from Mesa called and told us that they have a table for us! Almost immediately we all got up and left OPM, and drove back to Mesa :P



Too bad for this place, ff it weren't so quiet and empty it could've been nice.

OPM Restaurant & Lounge
8901 Warner Ave
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
(714) 848-1188
opmhb.com

So here we are again, what a big difference! Mesa was packed with people and the DJ was spinning upbeat music, it just feels more fun here.


Besides the drinks we ordered a couple more bites:
Tempura Green Beans -
This forcefully reminded me of a Chinese green beans dish that I really liked.


The dessert that my friends wanted was not available (I think she wanted the bread pudding). Therefore instead we got 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream (we already ate one scoop)
These are some really expensive ice cream haha


But the most important thing is that -
We all got together and had lots of fun! Can't wait to do this again :D

Mesa
725 Baker St
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 557-6700
mesacostamesa.com