Onotria Wine Country Cuisine in Costa Mesa

An Italian restaurant in Costa Mesa, it has a couple of function rooms. There is courtesy valet, no self parking available. Nice setting and friendly service. After we ordered our dishes, the waiter pushed a trolley of tapas for us to choose an extra. Their special were wood fired pizza. The linguine was nice but without much cream sauce. The risotto was very tasty and delicious. Overall, we were impressed with the restaurant.

Marie Callender's Restaurant & Bakery

They have a $10.99 special on Shepherd's pie or Chicken pot pie that comes with caesar salad and a slice of marie's pie as desert. We ordered one each. They also served us warm corn bread as starter. The shepherd's pie was not authentic as they don't use mince beef and there was no pastry on top. Pastry crust on the chicken pot pie was thick and dried. Rather disappointing. Then we ordered apple pie and double cream blueberry pie. That redeem itself. Overall, a place supposes to be famous for pies (according to advert), it ain't so. Two people for $30, not worth the price and won't be coming back.

Olive Garden in Irvine

An Italian chain restaurant. Most dishes come with refillable free soup or salad. I ordered Seafood Portofino and my wife ordered half sided panini. The spaghetti was slightly salty. $37 for 2 people. For the price we paid,  food was okay and we had plenty of leftover to take home.

Buca di beppo in Irvine

An Italian restaurant recommended by my brother, located in Irvine, close proximity to Tustin Marketplace. When we first entered the restaurant, we had to go through the kitchen area before you arrived at our table - that's certainly a different experience. Decor is kind of European style, with Italian photos and artefacts on the walls as well as inside the restrooms. They had 2 portions size for most dishes - small (feeds up to 3 ppl) and large (feeds up to 5 ppl). They used sweet red peppers cans as stands for pizza plates. In fact these cans ain't empty, wonder whether red peppers are actually inside or not. We ordered margarita pizza and seafood linguine to share, plus a small cesear salad. Food was tasty, cost us $44. Likely to go back for more.

Romano's Macaroni Grill in Cerritos

Second time we came to this Italian restaurant in Cerritos. They have an open kitchen where you can see how their food is made. We ordered meatball spaghetti, pepperoni pizza, Romano's sampler (some deep fried seafood stuff) and grilled prawns. Food was okay, nothing spectacular, service was a bit slow. Atmosphere was good, there's a guy who sang 'Happy Birthday' in Italian for birthday boy/girl. $75 for 3 people. I doubt that we will return to this restaurant in future.

The Cheesecake Factory in Irvine

We had lunch at the Cheesecake factory inside the Irvine Spectrum today. Service was good and the waitress was very friendly. I had fish and chips for the first time since I left England. It's certainly different to the fish and chips that I used to have. Instead of a single fried cod, the fish was given in several portion. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the dish and the colesaw was fresh and good. My wife ordered the meat loaf. It's also different to what we used and it didn't taste that good. Mind you the brown bread was soft and the best so far. If we come back to Cheesecake factory again, we definitely stick to desserts haha.

Alejo's Presto Italian Restaurant in Westchester

My uncle brought us to this fine busy Italian restaurant in Westchester. We were served bread with garlic, which's different to those that served olive oil. House red wine was good too. Their Pizza weren't the typical American deep pan pizza, they were just like what we used to have in Europe - thin crust. The Spaghetti was creamy and delicious. The photo didn't do justice to the food. Halibut was a let down though, dry and rather fishy. All in all, good service and we will come back for more.