A Delightful Evening at Z’Tejas

As you may remember, I’ve started saying the following several times each day:
“I’m Open To Receive and Willing to Accept All that the Universe has to Offer Me”
… so last Sunday afternoon when an invitation to a ‘complimentary winter menu tasting’ from Z’Tejas in Costa Mesa, CA came through my Facebook feed, I immediately sent email to ‘comments @ ztejas dot com’ (even though the posting was 4 hours old) asking if my sister and I could attend.  Later, I was pleasantly surprised to find an email from Deborah Topcik, Director of Marketing Z’Tejas Southwestern Grill saying:

“Great! We’ll see you on 1/11 at 6pm.
Have a great night!”

That evening when I called my sister to let her know of this good fortune, Barb reminded me they had friends visiting from Colorado and wondered if we could expand our party to include them and her husband too. Since she is better about making such requests, I forwarded the email to her whereupon she called Deborah, who said that was fine … so all 5 of us went to Z’Tejas last Wednesday evening and joined 6 other folks (two parties of 3) for a total of 11 to ‘test’ the winter menu together. What an absolutely delightful and positively delicious experience!

Here's a photo of the 11 of us taken that evening

What’s even more astonishing to ME, was discovering that apparently I was the ONLY (or at least the first) person to respond to that Facebook invitation even though it was 4 hours old when I saw it. I ask, how likely is that? One of the parties of 3 learned about the event on Twitter, and the other received an invitation while dining at the restaurant the previous week.

Over a two and a half hour period, we sampled everything on the Winter Menu (including the two wines and two mixed drinks) … and everything was tasty!

I absolutely LOVE ‘Tostada Bites’ Z’Tejas serves as an appetizer, but these ‘Tempura Avocado Strips with the Julienne Slaw‘ are a close second now. I’ve never had a ‘tini of any kind before and I confess I like this St. Nick ‘tini very much. I preferred the red wine to to white one. My favorite entree was the Jalapeno Cornbread Stuffed Striped Bass with the Achiote Braised Pork Ossobuco a close second, and the dessert (which we didn’t have to share with anyone else) was ‘to die for’ delicious!!! I don’t usually order dessert and can’t believe I ate the whole thing by myself at the end of the evening … but I enjoyed every bite!

Winter Spice Molten Chocolate Cake with Pistacio Almond Ice Cream, whipped cream, and caramel sauce

I intended to share some of the photos I took with my PalmPrePlus phone, but since this post is pretty long ‘as is’ methinks I’ll share those at Facebook instead and add a link to the album here later for those with inquiring minds. I wish I’d taken my iPad2 with me because the camera in it is much better than in the older Palm phone, but I’m all the more likely to switch to an iPhone4s when April rolls around and I’m eligible for an upgrade at VerizonWireless. That way I can use my SquareUp app on both to swipe credit cards when I’m attending live events and folks want to purchase a labyrinth journal.

To the lovely folks at Z’Tejas who shared this evening with us, I’d like to say THANK YOU once again right here. My sister and I eat at your wonderful restaurant in South Coast Plaza often and I’ve written of it before when I used to regularly Blog my Blessings on Sundays at Sacred Ruminations and shared other images of tasty memories like these:

My sister and I have many good memories
of delicious Southwestern lunches and dinners at Z’Tejas!