[Lake Forest] [Italian] Peppino's Italian Family Restaurant

Peppino's Italian Family Restaurant
23600 Rockfield Blvd
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 951-2611
http://www.peppinosonline.com

With a $50 Groupon for Peppino's Italian Family Restaurant that I got for $25, we went to the very first Peppino's in Lake Forest to try this long time local favorite Italian restaurant.  At first I thought Peppino's is a chain restaurant in OC because they have several locations.  After reading the description on their website, I realized it is a family owned restaurant that got so popular and it just started expanding.



From their website: "Our first restaurant in Lake Forest opened in 1984. Due to our customers' loyalty and love of good food, our restaurants expanded into several different locations throughout South Orange County and I think we are doing the right thing. With the help of my family and friends, I am able to grow. And of course my wonderful customers who are more friends than numbers. And above all my mom and dad. I love you Carlo and Antonetta, thank you for believing in me."




It was Friday night, and the big restaurant was packed by 6pm.  We were seated at a two people table that was so close to the other tables.  There was probably a 3 inches space between our table to the two tables next to us.  I could hear their conversation, and I am sure they could hear ours as well.  I didn't really like that.


Bread

There were two kinds of bread in the basket.  The pizza bread was pretty good, and nothing special about the French bread.  The bread would be better if they were warm.


House Chianti ($6.50)

Dr. P ordered a glass of House Chianti to go with our Italian dinner.


Caprese ($9.95)
Sliced fresh Buffalo Mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, onions, capers, romano cheese, vinegarette & basil

We ordered Caprese as appetizer, but it also served sort of like a salad dish.  Tomatoes, Mozzarella cheese, basil, red onion, and caper.  Everything tasted so fresh.  We love the vinegarette dressing.  The seasoning was done perfectly.  We love the Caprese so much that we instantly like Peppino's already.


Pescatore ($21.95)
Fresh clams, mussels, halibut, jumbo shrimp, calamari & crab sauteed in a delicious fresh garlic & red or white wine sauce. Served over Linguini.

Pescatore is a seafood linguini with clams, mussels, halibut, shrimp, calamari, and crab.  All the seafood tasted fresh and delicious.  The garlic red sauce was good.  When we ate the pasta with sauce at the restaurant, we thought it was just ok.  But the leftover next day tasted even better as the pasta soaked in the sauce overnight and absorbed all the flavor.  Portion is huge.  The pasta came in a glass plate with the shape of fish.  It was as un-gourmet as you can get for a restaurant.  But I actually thought it was really cute for a family restaurant.  It made this dish feel even more like grandma's cooking.


Chicken Limone ($15.95)
Breast of chicken sauteed in a white wine sauce with fresh garlic, onion, lemon, fresh mushrooms, olives & capers. Served with a side dish of Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.

We ordered Chicken Limone because the description on the menu made this dish sounded delicious and healthy.  Chicken breast with white wine sauce with garlic, onion, mushroom, olive and capers.  Sounded pretty healthy, right?  Well, it wasn't exactly white wine sauce.  It was more like a butter sauce.  The sauce tasted like pure butter.  It was so fat and heavy.  I could took a few bite and thought it was just too much for me.  Dr. P usually has no trouble with fatty food, but even he thought this dish was too heavy for him.  One thing that was great about this dish was that the chicken breast was really tender.  But I definite will never ever order this dish again.


Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

The chicken came with a side of Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.  Peppino's knows how to do pasta right.  The spaghetti was cooked to perfect al-dante.  The meat sauce had a very http://www.eileenlikestoeat.comy taste to it.  Next time we come to Peppino's, we are going to order a full order of it.



After applying the $50 Groupon, our dinner bill was $4.73!!!!  We like Peppino's pasta and caprese a lot.  The oily butter chicken, not so much.  I want to come back and have more pasta and try their pizza next time.

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