this post will feature the food we had for my pre-bday dinner at Irenia in Santa Ana...
We had arrived right when Happy Hour started at 5 pm where there were some drink and food specials. We made sure to take advantage of that, ha ha.
Bert's San Miguel beer:
Always a classic.
Happy Hour menu:
Dinner menu:
Cocktail menu:
Bert's Manila mule (lambanog, lime, ginger beer + bitters):
The Filipino take on the Moscow mule using lambanog, a strong native liquor made from coconuts.
This was my Emerald City cocktail (Green guava infused vodka with lemon and basil):
Very refreshing!
Sparkling calamansi for TC (calamansi juice + sparkling soda water):
As refreshing as it looked.
Pulutan, or finger foods eaten with beer usually includes this classic fried fish appetizer called
Dilis, which are fried baby anchovies with sukang sili (vinegar with hot chilis).
Awww, look at their beady little eyes...So delicious.
We had to try their Lumpia - ground pork with carrot and daikon served with vinegar and sweet chili sauce. This was just okay. Nothing really exciting here except for that dip which had a sweet but spicy kick.
One of their more interesting offerings was a rice bowl with fried fish. Beow, the Pinirito - rice bowl with fried mackerel seasonal vegetables and spicy gribiche ( a mayonaisse like sauce with a herb and pickled component):
I really liked the vegetables underneath. The fish had a nice crispness to it. I liked the crunchy skin covering the thin layer of fat near the belly.
Another classic pulutan is boiled peanuts aka 'mani'. Their version had quite the kick!
Mani - harissa, muscovado vinegar and sea salt:
To be honest, I only had a few pieces. The sauce itself was pretty good but I didn't like touching the sauce covered peanut shells. Bert and his brothers enjoyed these boiled peanuts with a kick.
One of the more interesting twists we had this evening was the Milkfish Caesar salad - market lettuces, milkfish tonnato, blood oranges and anchovy crumble. Tonnato is a fish infused mayo
The blood oranges gave this salad a bit of brightness, cutting through the saltiness of the anchovy crumble. I really enjoyed the textures in this salat.
Their cocktail menu called this the "Purple Drank". I couldn't bring myself to call it than and used the word "drink" when ordering it. Sorry, but I am not of the generation that uses that word, ha ha. That being said, this vibrant cocktail included gin, coconut rum, ube and pineapple. The ube was quite evident in the bright purple color. My only gripe was that the drink was way too sweet.
I also ordered this next dish to we could say we had some vegetables, the Kamote - fried Japanese sweet potato, Fuji apples, arugula, spicy peanuts, coconut cream and fermented calamansi:
Lots of great textures and flavors in here for sure.
Kinilaw with prawns - Ridgeback prawns, Hope Ranch mussels, avocado cream, winter citrus salad and calamansi vinaigrette garnished with fresh herbs and chive flowers
The kinilaw was one of my favorites. You can hardly see them in there, but the shrimp was just barely cooked with the bright calamansi dressing. The edible chive flowers on top were a nice touch.
Because it was almost my birthday, our server said we had to have a noodle dish (noodles are eaten for "good luck"). Below, their Pancit - canton noodles with mushroom sauce, heirloom carrots and Blue Lake beans garnished with scallions.
I am normally not a fan of canton noodles (I prefer bihon or bean thread noodles), this was a hearty dish with lots of savory goodness from the mushroom sauce. Quite a different take on pancit than I'm used to.
One of the favorites this evening was the Roasted pork belly - adobo jus, monggo, braised greens and spring onions
The meat was so soft! I never would have thought of pairing this cut of meat with mongo. Usually my mom or brother use pork rinds or shrimp.
The other hit of the evening was the Bistek - NY strip, toyomansi jus, onion soubise (a Bechamel sauce with onion and rice), pickled red onion and chives. Toyomansi is a mixture of soy sauce ("toyo") and calamansi.
That meat so so tender. I even ate the onions. This didn't last too long at the table!
For dessert, we ordered three of the four on the menu. Of the three, the Ube pie was the best. This should be called crack pie, this Ube pie - Ube halaya, oat cookie crust with brown sugar custard
More please. I will gladly take another trip up just to have this or order a whole damn pie.
Bibingka - coconut rice cake with candied peanuts, caramel and cured egg yolk
I was not a fan of their bibingka. It was way too soft in texture and too eggy.
This next dessert was a mashup between turon and a churro, called Churron -brulee banana egg roll, jackfruit an cinnamon sugar with lemon cream
It was a bit on the hard side. I can see what they were trying to do but I didn't really enjoy this as much as the Ube pie.
Article written by the late Jonathan Gold, food critic for the LA Times
"Jonathan Gold reviews Irenia in Santa Ana which is reinterpreting traditional Filipino cuisine" LA Times, Feb 24, 2017
OC blogger reviews:
Kevin Eats - July 2016 & more recently, March 2019
Irenia
400 N. Broadway
Santa Ana, CA 92071
(657) 245-3466
www.ireniarestaurant.com/fb page + reviews from you know where & tripadvisor
This was truly an epic dinner! The decor,ambiame, service and their elevated take on Filipino food is what made this a memorable evening.
My real birthday would have us visiting three other Filipino places serving their take on modern Filipino food...
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