Avanti In Motion

By the time this blog is published, it will be the end of an era for Avanti Café on 17^th Street in Costa Mesa.  We have sold our restaurant location and are entering a new and exciting new phase for Avanti Natural & the Avanti Natural Kitchen. 

Starting in late summer, we’ll be doing culinary consulting, recipe, menu & product development as well as creating Avanti Natural Lifestyle content for our Avanti Natural YouTube channel.  We look forward to engaging w/ members of the Southern California community that share our interest in all things environmentally conscious and naturally delicious.  If you have a topic or guest suggestion for our youtube talk show, please contact us.  We’re excited to broaden our scope and talk on a wide variety of subjects w/ active people interested in creating a better environment for us all.  

Our other big project will be the Avanti Natural Kitchen cookbook, which will feature many recipes you’ve enjoyed here at Avanti Café.  The book will launch as an ebook in a whole new concept geared toward serious foodies and beginners as well.  All recipes will have complete tutorials, ingredient info and culinary nutrition tips.  And all will be based on the Avanti Natural philosophies of natural cooking & living. 

Make sure to follow Avanti Natural on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram and like Avanti Café and Chefs Mark Cleveland and Tanya Fuqua on Facebook too.  You’ll find everything that is going on w/ us posted daily. 

We’ll also be doing catering, events & pop ups locally.  And feel free to send new and exciting opportunities our way.  We plan to take the Avanti Natural concept of creating food that is BOTH Healthy AND Delicious to restaurants, delis & quality food purveyors far and wide. 

Our nine-year run here at Avanti Café has been the high point of our careers so far.  And now it’s time to take the skills that we have honed within these four walls to a wider platform and larger audience.

As we bid everyone a fond adieu from the Avanti Café restaurant location here are a few photos of some of our culinary triumphs

Avanti Famous HOT Tacos (photo: Anne Watson Photography)

Two organic sprouted corn tortillas stuffed w/ garlic pate, lime dressed napa, green & red cabbage & topped w/ a selection of our original seriously HOTsauces

Summer Omelette Brunch Special (photo: Avanti Natural)

Summer vegetable filled omelet w/ tomato basil cream sauce & fresh citrus, cilantro, basil & dill pesto + golden & red cherry tomatoes w/ sake simmered scallion & edible petals

A classic from our Holiday Menus (photo: Anne Watson Photography)

Roasted whole kabocha pumpkin.  Stuffed w/ garnet yam, white bean, brown rice pilaf, chives & your choice of pistachio or gorgonzola

The full on amazement of the Avanti Margarita Pizza (photo: Avanti Natural)

Avanti tomato cumin, garlic shallot baby arugula & spinach, Avanti cheese blend, fire roasted tomato sauce, smoked mozzarella

And of course the line up of Avanti sweet treats (photo: Avanti Natural)

Featuring the mighty Avanti Chocolate walnut brownie, the very best Snickerdoodle in the galaxy, superb Tangy oat chew, epic Chocolate chip pecan & uber chocolaty Chocolate truffle cookie

Eating Healthy & Delicious is a Win Win Win Situation!

Eat, Live & Party Well

Blog post by Chef Mark Cleveland

Avanti is the longstanding leader in organic, sustainable, local, flavorful cuisine in Orange County, CA.

Meaning 'forward' in Italian, Avanti Natural is a culinary philosophy that integrates the best of traditional European and Asian healthful eating with the latest nutritional information for optimum health.

Our successful restaurant Avanti Café was located on 17^th St in Costa Mesa from 2005 through 2014.  Follow us on social media to see what is new and in store for Avanti in our culinary futures.

At Avanti Natural, we believe that you don't have to sacrifice taste to eat healthy; you can Eat Well & Live Well

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Positive Plate Timbale How-To

Last Monday, October 1, 2012, was a rousing evening in the Avanti Cafe dining room w/ our celebration of the Positive Plate special prix fixe dinner & blogger invitational.  The main course was a slow roasted organic tomato confit timbale w/ bucatini pasta.  To go from inspiration to plate is a tall task and an arousing tale.  Want to see it?  Here you go!

It first starts w/ the exotic bucatini pasta

Bucatini is a combo of spaghetti & macaroni.  As one of our more infamous former servers used to say, in his well played up British accent 'It's spaghetti w/ an 'ole in it!'

bucatini pasta

Then there are the tomatoes.  There is a laborious process in the French arsenal dubbed >> Tomatoes, peeled, seeded and juiced. This process involves flash blanching whole raw tomatoes in boiling water for just a few seconds, cooling in lightly iced water, slipping off the skins, cutting them in half along the horizon line and working the seeds and juice out of the exposed internal chambers.  Time consuming but worth the effort when tomatoes are peak season and full of flavor.  The seeds, pulp and juice are strained and reserved for another purpose, and the firm flesh is then slowly oven roasted in extra virgin olive oil to create an organic tomato confit

Tomato confit in season is so flavorful and delicious that we don't need to add much more than a simple compliment of flavor.  Our choice, butter sauteed cipolinni onions & capers

Since we are cheese makers at Avanti, we have an abundance of organic, high protein whey in our kitchen.  It's a nutritional powerhouse and we adore it.  Our custard vehicle for these timabales is a potato & whey creme for substance, flavor & volume

Combine the above w/ organic eggs, ladle into buttered custard cups, anoint w/ hot water in a bain marie, slide into a 325 low oven and voila :::>

Now we set timers, wish them well on their journey to supreme flavor & texture town and believe they have the brightest of futures and voila, un fois encore :::>

After they cool, they chill in the fridge overnight.  Meanwhile, we toss some extremely gorgeous oyster mushrooms w/ sake, nama shoyu, black pepper, garlic shallot oil and sliced shallots.  Leave to marinate overnight, then roast in a moderate 375 oven for a brief 10 mins to bake off in preparation for the dinner.

Now we are prepped for the Positive Plate Dinner.  The timables are unmolded then reheated to crispy perfection, the mushrooms get a final roast to sear & caramelize, additional tomatoes are blended w/ some of the whey potato mix and a dash of cream to form a flavorful sauce.  Our esteemed house made organic feta is shaped into quenelles, garnished w/ our Avanti signature Pink Green Gold & Black Provencal house made spice blend & allowed to cold air dry in form for 24 hours, and a fresh batch of Avanti spinach arugula pesto is made.

Et Voila

The Positive Plate Dinner Entree :: Organic slow roasted tomato & bucatini timbales w/ house made organic Provencal feta quenelle / spinach arugula pesto & sake roasted oyster mushrooms & shallot ::

Plated entree special photo by Anne Watson

Eating Healthy & Delicious is a Win Win Win Situation!

Eat Live & Party Well 

As we say, eat w/ us several times a week and it’s likely you’ll become healthier than you already are!  And your taste buds will love every minute of it too. How many restaurants can legitimately make that claim !?!

Blog Post by Chef Mark Cleveland

Chef / Owner Avanti Cafe

Avanti Café  is a vegetarian & vegan friendly restaurant with many gluten free options [including our famous gluten free pizzas] in East Side Costa Mesa California [bordering Newport Beach].  Everything is custom made in house using the freshest ingredients.  We support local organic farms such as South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano using their fine produce in our dishes and hosting a Community Supported Agriculture site every Thursday.  We serve highest quality artisan beers in bottle and on tap, organic, biodynamic & sustainable wines, by the bottle and glass.  All of our desserts are made in house using organic whole grains, flours and sweeteners.  Always organic eggs & milk.  We make our own organic ricotta & feta cheeses in house and smoke organic mozzarella w/ bourbon soaked oak and chamomile.  Avanti is the longstanding leader in organic, sustainable, local, flavorful cuisine in Orange County.

www.avantinatural.com 

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