Brunch 06.22.2013 - Four Generations of Fabulous Ladies

Plums Café, Costa Mesa

Good morning Darlings!

I hope you slept well.  I slept like a baby for 10 hours which was desperately needed!  The last few weeks of hard and fast living have caught up with me (HAHA!  More like a busy schedule without an adequate amount of sleep).  I've got more than enough on my agenda this weekend to keep me busy...unfortunately it does not include Brunch.  Though I can relive Brunch last weekend to get me through it as it was fab - naturally.

You know that something is important to you when you wake up early on a Saturday.  And last Saturday, my alarm went off at an uncivilized hour for a weekend.  But there was much to do - my schedule was filled with some of the most fabulous ladies I know.  Ladies spanning four generations!

I started my day by driving down to South County to visit one of my best ladies, Stephanie, and her brand new baby, Avabella.  And when I say brand new, I mean BRAND new.  Avabella was born on the evening of June 17 and while I had popped in for a quick visit the next afternoon at the hospital, I wanted to check in on them again.  The Day 5 check-in is VERY important!  While she is very tiny and very new, I can already tell that she will be a beauty - just like her Mommy. Stephanie has made the decision to keep photos of Avabella off social networking sites, so this will probably be the only photo I share with everyone...at this age babies don't look that much different.  I just wanted to share how excited I am that my niece has FINALLY arrived!

As with any new parents, Stephanie and her husband are in the process of figuring things out, but they are such a great team that they are making it look easier than I've ever seen - at least to an outsider.  Since they are establishing routines at this point, I decided to pop in for about an hour before I headed to Brunch - I didn't want to get in the way.

After that visit, I headed into Costa Mesa to meet my friend Britni for Brunch.  Since you have to go through Costa Mesa to hit Newport Beach and it was a beautiful day, everyone seemed to be headed for the beach and traffic was TERRIBLE!  I had never been to Plums Café before and one of the reasons that I picked it was that they take reservations.  In any coastal area - especially on nice summer days, this is a huge plus!  What impressed me about this place was the fact that they were also very accommodating when I called and told them that we were stuck in traffic, though they probably get that a lot!

I was surprised when my GPS routed me to a tiny little strip mall with an inconveniently small parking lot.  Plums probably gets a lot of phone calls from people pushing their reservations back while they're trying to find parking.  I highly recommend this place, but consider yourself warned!

Braving the beach traffic and the teeny-tiny parking lot was totally worth it once the drinks and food started to arrive.

Check out the fabulous menu!

Plums will turn any entrée into Brunch for the piddly amount of $8 which adds bottomless coffee or tea and an adult Brunch beverage!  Britni ordered the Oregon Berry Belini and I ordered a Mimosa.  We were both happy with our choices!

And then there was the food.  Everything.  Was.  Spectacular!  I ordered the Smoked Salmon Hash which was out of this world!

Britni ordered the Apple-Honey Sausage with Eggs which she was very happy with.

As we have learned, everyone loves a little sweet to go with their savory, so we also split the Willamette Hazelnut Pancakes with Marion Berry Compote.  I previously posted about the Klondike Sourdough Pancakes at Bubby's in New York...these hazelnut pancakes tied with them as the best pancakes I've ever had.  If you visit Plums, you MUST try these!

After we ate, we continued catching up over a second round of cocktails, and this time, I also ordered the berry belini.  That was delicious as well.  Based on the Yelp reviews and our experience, everything here is delicious!

I had a fabulous, albeit short visit, with Stephanie and then a fabulous Brunch with Britni.  After we parted ways, I headed over to Oma's.  My mother joined us and while my plans to start getting Oma's stories on film for the documentary were thwarted by the fact that her hair was in rollers, we had a fantastic afternoon!  She pulled out a book that had a photo of my paternal grandfather as a young man.  He was a musician in Germany that performed all over Europe - even performing for the King and Queen of Sweden at the royal palace.  Too bad neither my sister nor I inherited his musical abilities...  This photo is of him in the Musikkappelle in 1929!

Throughout the course of the day, I spent some amazing quality time with some fabulous Ladies!  It's not uncommon for me to spend time with three generations, but with the birth of Little Miss Avabella, this was the first day that marked FOUR generations.  And that, Darlings, is fabulous!

Here's to all the fabulous Ladies I know, spanning the generations!

XOXO