A.R. Valentien

I’m many weeks late and probably a couple of dollars short, but to recap the Sandy Eggo Restaurant Week I’ll start off with our first of two restaurants we tried out: AR Valentien at someplace called The Lodge at Torrey Pines. Someday I’ll get around to Arterra.


We sat down and I said bring all the food I can eat for forty bucks. Instead we got menus. WTF? Anyhow I thought I should probably play along. This is not my normal way of ordering food. I mean, at Carl’s Jr. I can ask for $40 of food and they WILL bring enough hamburglars and chicken nougats to stuff you up.

So we got glasses of water poured out by the water guy, bread served up by the bread server guy (with 3 choices including corny muffin) and we got a bowl of olives (I can’t remember if it was from the olive server-up guy or just one of the other guys) and a fancied-up deviled egg amuse-bouche.

I’ll lay out what we had as copied from the SDRW website on the internets:

Charcuterie Plate with House Made Pickles
Tuna Carpaccio, Crispy Capers, Parsley, Horseradish

Braised Beef Shortrib, Roasted Vegetables and Anson Mills Polenta
Swordfish with Manilla Clams, Toasted Orzo and Tapanade

Chocolate Pound Cake, Ice Cream
Chamomile Panna Cotta, Caramelized Pink Grapefruit

The charcuterie plate (try saying that 5 times fast) was the winner here that had three nice sized squares of meaty sausage, hammy something and a pate square along with some toasted bread and pickled veggies. (Have I warned about my run-on sentences yet?) The tuna carpaccio was sliced thinly across the plate, topped with herbs.

I had the beef shortrib - yum, on the bone, comfort food! The swordfish had tapanade spread on a small toasted bread slice along with an anchovy. In addition they served up a complimentary side dish of sautéed tiny turnips. Dessert was nicely done and delicious.

Then along with the bill just because we weren’t full enough, they set down a little plate with a couple of berries and 3 small cookies (one with a tiny section of citrus on it). We had also bumped up the bill by going for wine pairing at $25 extra a person - California wines, with an icewine for the dessert course. Service was professional – friendly and no stuffiness detected. In case you are wondering, no automatic gratuity added.


http://www.lodgetorreypines.com/