>Brasserie Pascal — the very sad happy hour

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Pascal’s Patchwork

It was so unfortunate that I came down with a cold on the first day of OC Happy Hour Week. I had no appetite and my taste buds were shot for a good 5 days. I had no stomach for dinner 4 of those nights and by Friday, I was 98% well and ready to come back with a vengeance to make up for lost time. My friends and I had perused the menus and decided that we wanted to check out Brasserie Pascal’s happy hour specials.

It was packed when we arrived but the hostess was nice enough to find us this table behind her podium and get us an extra chair. Our server came over after about 10 minutes, introduced herself and took our drink orders. She then disappeared while we perused the menu and as we watched our champagne cocktails served up ready to roll at the counter, our server nowhere to be found. She finally stumbled her way through the dining room in her high heels and made her way to the bar to get our drinks, but our anticipation were met with lackluster results as our uninspiring cocktails touched our lips.

We decided to ordered the Pascal’s Patchwork, an array of appetizers for a mere $10. I guess the price tag should’ve been a hint and a half to what would grace our table 10 mins later, but of course, hindsight is 20/20. When our platter arrived, everything was cold except the french fries topped with thyme. My first bite was the onion ring and it was soggy and cold and looked miserable sitting on the plate with the rest of the rather sad appetizers.

The grilled cheese sandwich was cold and tasted like it’d been prepared hours ago. The beef sirloin sliders were said to be served on a brioche bun but instead came on two slices of country style bread. Grilled vegetable pizza and tart flambe tasted like cold frozen pizza — in fact, I’ve had some frozen pizza which tasted better than this. The home made pate and cold cut were okay and the pickled vegetables were average.

French Onion Soup

What I don’t understand is why a French restaurant would serve pizza, grilled cheese and onion rings? And on top of that, serve them cold! Was this an extra plate they had made for another table only to be sent back? The mind boggles.

I also made the mistake of craving French onion soup. OK, so I expected a French restaurant to serve up at least somewhat decent French onion soup — am I wrong to have expected that? The broth was watery and bland. The onions weren’t caramelized enough. The whole thing was a disaster. Sadly, I’ve had better French onion soup at Boudin SF and even my mother makes a better French onion soup and she’s old school Chinese, go figure!

I think we were all thankful we didn’t order more food. We promptly got the check and moved on to another location so we could bring our palates some redemption.

Brasserie Pascal, 327 Newport Center Drive (at Fashion Island), Newport Beach, CA 92660. Tel: 949-640-2700