Veladora Restaurant Review (Rancho Santa Fe)

Hit Veladora for a post-Valentine's Day dinner.

REMODEL: Beautiful.  Feels like a secret getaway far away, not a few miles off the 5.  Love the art. Tables are well-spaced. Totally different than its previous golf club look. Beautiful courtyard and lighting.

TABLES: Nice looking, but we agreed with folks on Yelp or Open Table who said they were not 100% comfortable. We were kind of too far from the table, had to lean forward.

SERVICE: Very friendly. Attentive at first, but then slower than we would expect at these prices.

FOOD: Very good, cutting-edge. Eric Bauer (formerly of Anthology) has gone crazy here with Chino produce and innnovative flavors.

BREAD
 --Decent warm rolls, kind of interesting combo of EVOO-balsalmic-parmiagano reggiana

DRINKS
--Got a mocktail of organic strawberries, agave nectar and lime juice. Perfect! (and they only charged me $6 instead of what it would cost with alcohol - bonus!)

AMUSE-BOUCHE
--cute little deep-fried kale and parmesan soup (spoon of soup deep-fried = hollowed-out tasty fritter). Even CH liked it, and I don't think of him as a kale fan.

APPS
  --CH got the carrot and squash soup with spiced mascarpone and some other yummy components. We both thought it was terrific. He saved me a few spoons.
  --I got the market vegetable salad. In a sense it was more "boring" than his soup, which showed more cooking flair and a more complex flavor profile. HOWEVER, it was incredibly light, refreshing and tasty. The vegetables were all shown off beautifully. I ate every morsel up, including the crème fraîche, herb pesto and "beet soil" at the bottom. It was certainly tasty and virtuous. Would probably get the soup next time.

ENTREES
 --Cute Husband got the cap steak ($45).  He enjoyed it - said it was "very good." He substituted smoked carrots for the brussels and thought they were delicious. His plate was substantial.
--I got Squash Tortellini with Umami Consommé in an entree size. It was very tiny for $29. However, it was extremely tasty and innovative. Ate up every morsel.

DESSERT
--CH was not hungry, since he had a substantial soup and a large entree.  I was starving, since I had a light appetizer and small entree.  I bypassed a very yummy sounding ricotta cheesecake with salted caramel ice cream and chestnuts for a tarte tatin, which I was somehow more in the mood for.  It was as I expected. Wasn't anything innovative (in fact, it wasn't as good as the strudel I had at Crush last week). BUT it was tasty, properly made. Warm stewed caramelized apples, with nice pastry, nice crispy thing, and good vanilla bean ice cream. I happily ate it up. On another night I'd be in the mood for something more innovative.

BONUS DESSERT
--Little plate of mignardaises: salted caramels and passion-fruit jelly. Jelly was fine. Caramels were excellent - too bad there were only 2 of them! We could have eaten more.

Will we return right away? Probably not. Not cheap, and would have liked more attentive service. But it's beautiful, and the food is very yummy and certainly innovative in places.  It will be worth another visit in a while!  (Am planning my next visit to Grant Grill, though, which still has my crown for the combo of FANTASTIC cocktails-elegant atmosphere-terrific service-very good food).