New Year's Eve Menu at Fleming's Steakhouse + Win a $100 Gift Card!

Still looking for New Year's Eve plans? Well, perhaps you will be the lucky winner to a $100 gift card to Fleming's Steakhouse!

Fleming's Steakhouse is offering a special Holiday Menu prix fixe and a New Year's Eve celebration.
The $89 three-course prix fixe meal includes Fleming’s favorites: a choice of the Crab Louie Wedge Salad or lobster bisque, followed by filet mignon paired with Australian lobster tail and Fleming’s signature potatoes.

Fleming’s has also pre-selected the perfect drink pairings to complement the meal including a glass of French 75 Plymouth, JCB by Jean-Charles Boisset Brut Burgundy No 21, or Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne Yellow Label. You can get more details on the holiday menu and reserve a table here.

Don't forget to try your holiday luck and enter to win a $100 gift card to Fleming's Steakhouse below! Good luck and happy holidays! We will select the winner on Dec 27 :)

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Jimmy's Famous American Tavern in Brea

by @btsunoda

Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern, or better known as JFAT, recently introduced a new brunch menu. I was happy to learn about it and my wife and I recently visited their location in Brea.

JFAT is located next to Whole Foods in the Village at La Floresta mall on Imperial Hwy just east of Kraemer Blvd in Brea. The Village at La Floresta is marketed as the hip spot for retail shopping and dining on the east side of OC.

The restaurant is beautifully decorated and quickly set the mood for Christmas. Garland was wrapped everywhere with ribbon and bows. Christmas trees were fully decked out with shiny glass ornaments.

An impressive lighted display of super premium wines is located near the entrance. Bottles of wine were lined up on the bar and they also had a fair number of craft beers on tap. TV screens were playing live sports, but it didn’t overpower the experience like a sports bar.

The restaurant is large and spacious. It is obviously designed for people to get together and converse over a good meal. In fact while we were there, there was a group of 8 that were enjoying brunch.

Totchos are simply Tater Tots topped with melted cheese and salsa fresca. 

Simply stated, they are nachos made with tater tots instead of tortilla chips. Since I favor tater tots over tortilla chips, I had trouble eating just one bite. 

Knowing that this would be a meat heavy meal, I ordered the Charred Brussels Sprouts. This came with smoked applewood bacon, pinenuts and underneath it was some maple syrup. I scooped downwards in the dish to gather the maple syrup. This was a great combination of flavors and textures and was one of my favorite items that day.

The Buttermilk Fried Chicken & Malted Ale Waffles was served topped with a thick and creamy thyme gravy and applewood smoked bacon. 

After pouring pure maple syrup on top of it all, I enjoyed the various taste sensations, crunchy, salty, sweet and smoky. I was quite happy with this dish.

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Learning About the Wines of Georgia

I recently attended a tasting of wines from Georgia (the country, not the US state) and discovered there was much more I did not know about the world of wine! Traditionally made Georgian wines are unique, and if you've never had wines fermented in a qvevri, these wines would be completely unexpected for you. Most of the wines produced in Georgia are typically home winemakers who have been making wine for decades. There's no terroir codification and commercialization began pretty recently.

Just look at the colors, for instance:

Qvevri is an unlined terracotta vessel. They are buried in the ground and is cleaned after each vinification cycle. Since the vessel is unlined, there is air exchange happening through the pores of the terracotta throughout the fermentation. Prior to 2003, there was no commercially produced wine that uses qvevri, but then some producers decided to preserve the tradition.

Our wine tasting was led by Taylor Parsons, the sommelier from Republique in Los Angeles.

The first two wines I tasted were two Rkatsiteli from Niki Antadze. Niki Antadze is a tiny wine producer, with 3 hectares of vineyard in the Manavi, Kakheti regions. The Rkatsiteli is one of the main white grape varietals in Georgia.

Both Rkatsiteli were fermented in qvevri but without and with skin contact. You can see the colors are strikingly unique too.

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