This week, at three of our Laguna Beach restaurants – Maro Wood Grill, Slapfish and Tortilla Republic – you have (as the Grateful Dead quips) “trouble ahead … and trouble behind.”
Trouble ahead?
Each of these restaurants is participating in this week’s O.C. Restaurant Week (thru Saturday, March 7th) with fantastically affordable prix fixe menus. If you’ve staved off for various reasons, now’s your chance to enjoy absolutely superb cuisine at these restaurants, each of which will spoil you to the core.
Trouble behind?
Well, while each is also providing a dessert option as part of their Restaurant Week menus, these three in particular have ganged up with the real delightful trouble in this world of ours – Girl Scout Cookies.
That’s right. You thought you’d managed to stoically avoid all the grocery store, coffee shop, school athletic event and even “drive through” Girl Scout cookie booths (from a most inventive group of Girl Scouts on Short Street just across from the high school). We’re at the end of the selling season, and you thought you’d emerged – with your waistline – unscathed.
Sorry, my friend. Trouble still awaits. This year, the Girl Scouts joined forces with several O.C. restaurants participating in the weeklong Restaurant Week to co-create a dessert that includes Girl Scout cookies.
And the Chefs are enthusiastic! Last week, Chef Debra Sims at Maro Wood Grill invited a Girl Scout Troop into her restaurant to not only celebrate the coming dessert, but also tell the girls about what being a chef is all about. Chef Debra walked them through her personal story of arriving at the decision to be a Chef, took the girls on a tour of the Maro kitchen, and then had each of the girls put together dessert sundaes just as she had designed with the Girl Scout cookies.
Chef Debra chose the new Gluten Free Girl Scout Cookie – the “Trio,” which includes big chunky chocolate chips. Officially naming it the Girl Scout Cookie Crunch Sundae, Chef Debra created handmade vanilla ice cream to which she’s stirred in a healthy serving of “Trio” crumbles. She’s then whipped up a homemade peanut butter ice cream and, with the two scoops serving as her base, she’s added in chocolate fudge sauce, whipped cream, dark chocolate shavings and more cookie crumbles to top it all off.
All in all, enthusiastic approval from the Girl Scouts present, especially as they were able to create their own in a step-by-step process.
The Sundae will be available through next Sunday on both of the Restaurant Week menus at Maro Wood Grill.
Other Girl Scout cookie desserts are lurking …
At Chef Andre’s Slapfish in downtown Laguna Beach, look for Caramel DeLite ChipWich with Thin Mint studded ice cream on his Restaurant Week menu. And at Tortilla Republic, Chef Chris Tzorin is featuring the Girl Scout cookie, “Lemonades” with a Strawberry and Guava Parfait.