Brunos Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Brea

Our first visit was during OCRW. Our 2nd visit was the week right after when they announced they're extending OCRW Menu.

Woooooot!

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Each meal comes with a wine of choice and since I'm horrible with wines, I only remember what I got which was a Santi Moscato. It's a distilled Moscato so it was heavier than I was used to. Basically any choice after that is even heavier so be forewarned!

APPETIZERS

Salumi Misti - I love all things salami + bread + olives so this is exactly what it is minus cheese. The bread unfortunately was grilled too much and was hard. But the salami was great in that it comes in 4 varieties and the olives......omg YUM. There wasn't a bitter on in the bunch!

Arancini - 2 fried risotto/cheese balls on marinara sauce. I didn't think this was all that special and wouldn't get it again.

ENTREES

Bruno Pappardelle - This was really comforting. Thick pappardelle noodles mixed with super tender braised pork. However, halfway through, I got tired of the same "taste." Might be the Asian in me, but I need to have some sort of pickle taste periodically when I'm consuming rich foods.

Flat Iron Steak - Wow this was ultra tender good! It came with polenta (yum!) and acidic mini onions that make your eyes go O___O when you eat it by itself. But if you pair a bit of onion with some steak and polenta, then it makes an AWESOME SAUCE combo of flavors :D

DESSERTS

Budino Caramello - RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR. The texture, the taste...it's heaven! I'm not a fan of caramel in general, but this was absolutely stunning. The chopped nuts on top is a great touch!

Panna Cotta - I usually love love panna cotta, but this paled in comparison to the Budino. It was still delicious with the strawberries and balsamic reduction but Budino wins for sure.

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We were seated by the owner, who told us that the OCRW menu was wildly popular and they got slammed on the weekend. They're tinkering with making a similar $30 menu permanent on specific days, so we were excited to hear that! :)

APPETIZERS:

Salumi Misti (again) - The only difference this time was that they COOKED THE BREAD properly! No grill marks, no hardness :D

Cozze - Yummmmmmmmm. A large bowl of mussels in this green magic sauce that became even more amazing when you dip bread into it. My BF polished off 2 bread baskets dipped in this magic sauce.

ENTREES:

We both got the Flat Iron Steak this time :) Ordered Medium Rare but they came out Medium but the situation was quickly rectified. Appreciated!

DESSERTS:

Budino Caramello (again) - I was already drooling over this before dinner. It was Heaven revisited.

Torte De Pesche - This was a Peach Almond Cake with ice cream on top. Again BUDINO winnnnnnnnns.

We had the same rockin' waitress both times. Unfortunately forgot her name but she's a platinum blonde in a pony tail...

The North Orange County unfortunately does not boast a plethora of good quality restaurants, so when I came across reviews for Bruno's in Brea as amazing, I thought, this could actually be good. The restaurant opens at 4:30pm and after arriving there at 5pm and finding the place already rather full, I felt confident that we would enjoy a good meal. Unfortunately, upon being seated, we wondered how food and drinks would fit on such a small table and had to do some major manouvering once the food did come. When we asked the waitress, who certainly was courteous, to make some recommendations and when I heard her mispronounce the names of some very common Italian dishes, I started having doubts. Not that knowing how to correctly say the names in Italian will determine how the food will come out, but it did make me wonder how seriously they took their food, its' preparation, and the authenticity. Pronouncing the appetizer, bruschetta as if the "sch" is pronounced like an "sh" just displays pure ignorance. We ordered the Arancini, which, were acceptable but not very impressive, followed by a Caesar salad, which was unfortunately somewhat lackluster. We also ordered 3 main courses: Cioppino, which again, was acceptable but did not knock our socks off, papardelle with shortribs, apparently their signature pasta but came out on the salty side, and rigatoni alfredo, which by all accounts was not bad. I ordered a glass of red cabernet sauvignon, which was served in more of a water glass than stemware. We declined dessert and asked to have the leftovers packed. They came by with 3 containers and with so many things on the tiny table, it was nearly impossible to get the food from the dishes into the containers without something falling on the floor. The overall experience left much to be desired. The place was loud, the service, at least with respect to the lack of table space, not up to par, but when you read these raving reviews about how awesome the food is and you are not experiencing that awesomeness it is quite a let down. You live...

Came here for mothers day. We had a reservation but apparently cannot choose between a regular table or a high top. We had a party of 5 adults and 1 small child. We asked if we could be moved to a regular table to reduce the risk of the child falling and they said no. There was a standard table with 8 seats right next to our high top that we also asked about, but was told that table we being held for another reservation.

For starters we had the fritto misto which we all enjoyed, it had a good variety of items and was nice and crunchy. Also for the carpaccio which I did not particularly like. The meat was sliced super thin and put on a plate and topped with arugula and olive oil. The meat was so thin it just sticks to the plate and shreds into little bits when you try to eat it. The strength of flavor from the arugula and capers was very overpowering for this dish. For my main I got the branzino. The fish itself was good but a little on the salty side. The spinach was overcooked so it just turned in to a mushy blob, and it was extremely over salted, totally inedible. The potatos were bland and flavorless. For dessert I got the cheesecake which could have been good, but they added so many toppings that is really just masked the cheesecake itself. Less is definitely more in this situation. They have a good wine selection, we ordered a few bottles. Any happy hour specials they have do not apply in the main dining room, only in the bar. Parking is atrocious, you'll end up walking several blocks to get here. Halfway through our dinner they sat a group of 6 adults at the table with 8 chairs. So we they technically could have sat us there, since we had a table for 6 as well and since you apparently can't specify high top or regular during your reservation....

Overall I was really unimpressed and don't think I would...