Avant Restaurant

It's a nice place overall, bar staff is great. The food happy hour menu though leaves a lot to be desired. The items, though at a discount, feel like they were made at a discount compared to their full price menu equivalents. The burger was kind of a joke. The (2) shrimp cocktail was just kinda weird served with seaweed salad that added to the fishiness. A classic shrimp cocktail would have been nicer.

The Parker House Rolls with the chef made butters are to die for. I’m going to have sweet dreams about those rolls. The food, service and mocktails were delicious. The scene is upscale, relaxed and has its own vibe. Pure Essence of Excellence. You are not going to want to leave. From the Hostess with the mostest to the wait staff the experience was unforgettable. AVANT made my stay in San Diego EXTRA-ordinary!

I am with San Diego Foodies and Carlsbad Foodies and our Table of Four. Tonight we are at Avant in the Rancho Bernardo Inn. This is certainly a date night place. Soft lighting and great ambiance. A special Thank You to Sue who gave us these beautiful pix! Gougères arrive as 'first bite'. And what can be any better? A round pastry with a parsnip and brie mousse inside, topped with a gooseberry gel and a Sorel leaf on top. World famous Alain Ducasse creates his Gougères with Gruyère cheese, and each are equally good. There are a few ‘stars’ in our meal tonight. The first two come in our ‘appetizer’ delivery. Parker House Rolls and Wagyu Beef Tartare. The Parker House Rolls are with choices of butter: a horse radish crème fraîche and another with several interesting ingredients including honey, anise and fennel. And at this point I am thinking: “If this is what they do with their bread, I can only imagine what they will do with the food”. Dari says: “One of the butters has a lemon taste and the other is more earthy. Both different. Both tasty”. Sue takes a bite of the Tartare and looks and me and says: “This melts in your mouth”. Dari is in ecstasy as she eats some herself. She says: The crunchy rice paper that tops it, which brings the beef tartare to life. Sue adds: “I’ve had tartare with a lot of friends, but this is just amazing. Dari chimes in: “just melts”. Next comes the Duck. “Quack Quack” I say. Lol This comes with some delicious root vegetables. We ordered, along with that, foraged mushrooms. “The duck” Dari says “is amazing". Sue says: “I think because it’s aged”. Dari says: “I would eat that any day of the week ....... any day of the week” she repeats. So when you come to Avant, please make sure you order the duck. Very impressive that this restaurant grows their own vegetables. Noticeably good. Now we are finally getting to the foraged mushrooms. Sue is talking about trying to cook Lions Mane and how hard it is to bring the flavor out. This foraged mushroom side dish makes three different mushrooms cooked, work perfectly together. “This is lovely” she says. And I agree. I tell them all that mushroom gets a bad rap. In addition to helping with inflammation and providing vitamin D they are also mostly fiber. You can let mushrooms be your Metamucil! Lol Our recommendations for dining: the three things to make sure you order when eating at Avant are: The Parker Dinner Rolls, which are better than any, and I mean any dinner rolls I’ve had. Good idea to order the side dish, a forage of mushrooms and their duck as a main. Our chef came out to greet us. And we left saying we think this was a really nice Saturday night out with good company, good wine and good food. We recommend that you try a night out here.

I have been to Avant before, and this time we went to do the chef's tasting menu. It was $95 a person and another 55. If you wanted the wine pairing. We decided just to get a separate drink. The tasting menu was an 8 out of 10. In my opinion. The things that were good were really really good. The only disappointing part for me was the sculpin which was my main entré. Unfortunately. It was under seasoned and the relish style side was not complimentary to the fish at all. It was very bland as if the fish was not seasoned at all. It was however, cooked perfectly as was everything else. Everything on the menu was beautifully plated, thoughtfully crafted and we really had a wonderful time. The German chocolate cake dessert was amazing. The rhubarb dessert left something to be desired. It was essentially some fruit scattered on a plate. In comparison to the German chocolate cake log, that had a chocolate mousse under the chocolate shell, it really needed something else to even be on the menu in my opinion. Before we left they brought us a spiced rub to take home and use on fish, chicken, steak, etc... I use it on salmon and it was absolutely incredible. If that's how the sculpin would have been seasoned, I would have lost my mind in a good way! Thanks again to the chef!