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I don't go to Sunday brunches all the time, but there are a few that get my attention, simply because they do it so well.
We just spent a leisurely midday trying the excellent presentation of food at Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach. This brunch is made all the more enticing by the enjoyable old standards played for you by pianist extraordinaire Gerard Barbut as you sit in the lovely gardenesque Accents restaurant that overlooks a reflecting pool sided by a row of graceful fountains.
To start with, the layout of this brunch is so sensible. Up a couple of steps from the seating area are distinct food stations that keep your mind from craving too much at one time. The breakfast pastries, breads and fluffy croissants have their own stage, and this being a hotel that has always been dedicated to food of the highest caliber, they deliver remarkable flavor and texture, rather than being a fill-in item just because it's a brunch.
On my first plate, I took one of the croissants and then did the incongruous thing by ignoring all else for the moment, except for the seafood table. So beside my buttery crescent I put two oysters on the half-shell that sat shimmering and fresh. They had some smoked salmon and cured salmon (gravlax style) too. So I took a morsel of each of those. Seafood pate came in just the right size little square.
Alas, I walked around the rest of this foursided food station and came upon a heap of crab legs. Well,...