Z Tejas is a southwestern delight

Deirdre Newman

Z Tejas is an oasis of calm in the bustling South Coast Metro area.

The restaurant, at one of the entrances to South Coast Plaza,

features an outdoor patio and mellow music, creating a relaxing

atmosphere that makes patrons want to linger over their meals.

While the location and ambience are a plus, the flavorful food is

its most alluring asset.

“Taste without borders” is how Z Tejas touts its cuisine. The

influences include from Cajun, Southwest and Asian-influenced Pacific

Coast. The results are tasty combinations that dazzle your taste buds

like the Southwestern BBQ spring rolls, filled with smoked duck,

roasted sweet corn relish, shredded jack cheese and ancho

(chile)-honey barbecue sauce.

The eclectic menu offers appetizers, entree salads, entrees, Z

specialties such as “Voodoo Tuna” and scrumptious desserts. It also

boasts an array of award-winning margaritas.

“Our chef is a master of combining contrasting flavors with a wide

range of ingredients,” partner Russ Klop said. “Our chef team is

phenomenal. They’re constantly walking up to me and shoving a spoon

in my mouth and saying, ‘Taste this!’”

The restaurant, which opened on Sept. 20, 2001, caters to

shoppers, business people who work in the high rises across Bristol

and patrons of the Orange County Performing Arts Center and South

Coast Repertory.

“We come here at least once a week,” said Lisa Bennetts, who was

dining with colleague Annette McEnery on Wednesday afternoon. Both

work across the street.

Each meal starts with warm cornbread, made with pieces of corn.

The bread is softer than you’d expect and hard to resist, especially

for the sparrows that hang out on the patio. If you leave the

cornbread skillet unattended for too long, the sparrows will swoop in

and start nibbling away -- a good thing if you are trying to save

enough appetite for the rest of the meal.

Z Tejas offers exotic appetizers such as catfish tortilla rolls

and traditional ones such as the Four Corners quesadilla, which comes

stuffed with smoked chicken, shredded pork or grilled vegetable.

The Southwestern BBQ spring rolls offer a dramatic presentation.

The rolls are served upright in the shape of a tepee with a large

corn husk in the middle. Surrounding them is a colorful chile-honey

barbecue sauce. The first bite makes the tepee crumble, but the taste

exceeds the aesthetics of the dish. The soft smoked duck is enhanced

by the tangy, sweet sauce and the light crust.

The entree salads are hearty portions filled with chicken or

trout. The pecan-crusted chicken spinach salad is good, but after the

duck, the chicken pales in comparison. The pecan crust is incredibly

tasty, though, and a dollop of goat cheese is the glue that blends

all the flavors together.

The lunch entrees include the Z burger, house enchiladas, a

smothered burrito and the blue corn chicken club Sandwich.

The sandwich has a unique twist with a blue corn tortilla in place

of the traditional center toast slice. The sauce is the best part of

the sandwich -- a sweet, red pepper mayonnaise that complements the

other ingredients.

City Editor James Meier tried the Sante Fe house enchilada with

smoked chicken, jack cheese and red chili sauce. He had various

reactions to the degree of spiciness.

“The keyword at Z Tejas seems to be spicy,” Meier said.

“Everything in the Santa Fe enchilada meal has spice to it. The

enchilada itself -- chicken its main ingredient -- has a delayed

spiciness. A nice cola helps cool the spice, as well. It’s a decent

enchilada, but nothing too special. The rice is great, though. It has

just the right amount of spice to make it interesting. The black

beans have a slight spice to them, as well, but it doesn’t do them

any justice.”

When you are presented with the dessert menu, you are even more

grateful that the sparrows ate some of your cornbread, leaving more

room for scrumptious concoctions such as the ancho chili fudge pie,

the peanut butter pie and the fresh fruit cobbler.

The cobbler is a meal in itself and a masterpiece of a dessert. It

comes in a skillet as fajitas do, with the bourbon-ginger caramel

sauce sizzling like lava. The sauce surrounds two hearty scoops of

vanilla ice cream with seasonal fruits such as peach and blueberry

and cobbler topping mixed throughout.

It’s the kind of dish that makes you feel like you’re in dessert

heaven.