Sunday Brunch Buffet Extravaganza at TAPS Fish House & Brewery (Brea,CA)

When I think of brunch buffets, I think of the expensive $70+ ones at fancy hotels with fresh seafood and unlimited mimosas. At TAPS Fish House and Brewery, however, $35.99 gets you a buffet of over 100 items and your choice of beer or sparkling wine (2 TAPS beer or unlimited sparkling wine).

The owner Joe Manzella so loved the brunch he had in New Orleans that he was determined to replicate the fun here, with a balloon lady and all. He didn't know how well it would do but now TAPS does about 700 covers every Sunday brunch.

There's a DIY Bloody Mary Bar, though for our media tasting they had gone ahead and prepared some for us, complete with pepper, olive, and a cocktail shrimp as garnish.

There are over 100 items in this buffet. Where to start? Start with the fresh oysters, of course!

In this station they also had ceviches and dungeness crab salads. Then, move on to the made-to-order omelets

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Sunday Brunch at Nola's (Downtown LA)

LA needs more Cajun places and Nola's in Downtown LA moved in to fill part of the gap. I was pretty excited to try it when they invited me in, but my schedule only allowed to come for Sunday brunch.
I didn't realize that the Sunday brunch was a champagne buffet until I got there. I was planning to try their jambalaya, gumbo, and po'boy but they weren't offered at the buffet. Oh well ...
The buffet offerings included fried chicken, fried catfish, shrimp Étouffée, red bean and rice, beignets, and fruits. Oh, and of course, free flowing mimosas.

Both the fried chicken and fried catfish were great, I went back for seconds for both of these. Since the beignets were put out buffet style, they were unfortunately not that fresh and kind of hard. I liked the shrimp Étouffée too - the good thing about having the buffet style is that I could get as many shrimp as I wanted.

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Endless Chocolate Indulgence at Oliverio's Chocolate Salon

I'm a self-professed chocoholic, and so was my companion. Yet we both had to wave the white flag after morsels and morsels of chocolate desserts were brought out to us at Avalon Hotel's Oliverio. I don't think I've indulged in so much chocolates in a while!

Photo courtesy of Oliverio

About a month ago, Oliverio started Chocolate Salon, a chocolate buffet spread out next to the pool of the Avalon Hotel every Friday and Saturday nights. For $28 per person or $50 per couple, guests can partake in offerings such as the triple chocolate truffle pizzetta, chocolate martini, white hot chocolate, spicy chocolate pot de creme, and all manners of chocolate dipped goodies.

I was invited by the restaurant's PR to try it myself, and my companion and I came ready for battle. It was raining so instead of setting up a buffet at the pool, the restaurant plated everything. We sat at the small lounge/bar area which extended from the restaurant instead of in the cabanas.

We thought we should have a light dinner before digging into dessert, so we ordered some appetizers. On one hand, it was good to have something savory first. On the other, if we hadn't we would've had more room for more chocolates.

When you go for dinner, do try the smooth and creamy Tortino di Cavolfiore (cauliflower souffle, parmesano sauce) - $14

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