HOUSE OF BLUES GOSPEL BRUNCH

I love being able to tell you of a positive dining experience, so here’s a good one I had recently—the Gospel Brunch at House of Blues.

I am shocked by the number of people in Los Angeles who think that the House of Blues is still located on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood.  It closed there in 2015, and recently re-opened in Anaheim, right near Disneyland.

I know, I know, fellow Angelenos—I’m not happy about it, either.  It has a whole different vibe down there. Now LA hipsters can’t just show up at a moment’s notice.  It’s become a total destination venue for those of us in LA.  But I am happy for Orange County denizens to have it in their midst.  Los Angeles’ loss is truly Anaheim’s gain.  [Note: The original one on Sunset was, sadly, just dismantled as I wrote this! So now we’ll have to live through more horrible traffic-creating construction on that already too-packed street, just so WeHo can have yet another overpriced hotel! Crazy.]

I had missed several HOB pre-opening events in Anaheim in recent months, because I always think of Orange County as being more than a day trip away, but I was curious to see what the new venue looks like.  So, after a month of begging, I finally talked Mr. X into driving down there for their Gospel Brunch two Sundays ago.  I hadn’t been to that particular HOB function since I was a very young ’un, doing my TV show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue.  (Your guess is as good as mine as to how I reviewed it back then—I just talked off the top of my head on-air, so no written notes to find, and I don’t have time to dig through my hundreds of recorded episodes to find it!)

So, I approached this adventure with fresh eyes. And we loved it! We had a fabulous time!

The entire enterprise, (after a snafu with my tickets at the very beginning,) was wonderful.  So firstly, I must thank Restaurant Supervisor, Jason Simmons, and Restaurant Director, Dwayne, for helping us feel comfortable after the debacle of getting in and settled.  They were very accommodating—it appears that they just want all their guests to have the perfect time.  Which we did.  In spades.

There are several super-long dining tables, and a few high-tops in the back. Every seat has good sightlines to the stage, so where you sit really doesn’t matter.

I’m going to tell you about the food first , and then the gospel show.

There are five food areas—one long hot food buffet, one with salads and cold foods, a carving station, an omelette station, and, of course, a dessert table. There’s also a bar for cocktails and other beverages, and conscientious servers constantly keep the glasses of juice and water filled. For one of the few times in my life, I never had to ask for more of those, not even once, which I really appreciated.

Because I’m a slow eater, and find it hard to be stuffing my face while people are performing, (and because skinny Mr. X thinks he’s full after a couple of bites!,) we didn’t get to try everything, but we really enjoyed the dishes that we did sample.

Mr. X concentrated on breakfast foods. He really, really, really enjoyed the brioche French toast, which he said was “somehow fluffy yet crunchy,” and even liked the basic scrambled e-words. When I asked why he would eat that basic e-word dish when there was a custom omelette station, he agreed to try one of those, as well, and was uber-impressed. He said the guy who made them was not only accommodating, but kept the line moving very swiftly, which impressed him no end. He chose one with spinach, tomatoes, and multiple varieties of cheese, and was thrilled with it. He said it was the highlight of the meal for him.

By the time we began eating, it was after 11, so I chose to go with strictly lunch foods. The bbq chicken was delish, (even when I took the sauced-up skin off,) and I love that the pan included every part you could want, even though I went for only white meat. But I went nuts for the creole chicken jambalaya, that also featured chunks of sausage. I paired it with the red rose breakfast potatoes, and am still craving that meal almost a week later! I can’t even describe how delicious that combo was!

I accompanied all that with an excellent Caesar salad, which was a spicy one. I’ve never had a Caesar with that much kick before, but it went along with the soul food theme.

There were several other dishes that we never got to try, including—hold on to your hats—the desserts! You know how unusual that is for me, but they ran out of whipped cream, and there was no way I was going to eat warm bread pudding, nor peach cobbler, without whipped cream! (They had replenished it when I asked, but I was so busy watching the show that by the time I went back to the dessert table, it was gone again!)

But trust me—we were totally full. And satisfied; it was not the sick kind of full, where you want to stick a pin in your stomach! We didn’t even really eat that much, but we never thought of eating again for the rest of the day. All I had later was an apple! So, I guess the House of Blues Gospel Brunch can be classified as diet food! Yay! You eat just that one meal, which does not have to even be gigantic, for the whole day!

Now on to the fabulous show.

The group we saw is Firm Soundation. And they really rocked the house! I was told that the groups change from time to time, but this one is there the most often, so there’s a good chance that you’ll be lucky enough to see them work their magic, as well, when you go there.

That was one of the quickest hour shows I’ve ever seen. And they covered it all—they did some basic gospel, some more religious stuff, some rock and roll, some contemporary songs, and my favorite number—James Brown’s Get On Up!* If they had performed just that one song for the entire hour plus, I would have been happy. *[Note: I know that song’s offical title is Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, but it will always be Get On Up to me—that’s the song my friends in Aspen would get the DJs to play to make me “get on up” and still dance when I was falling off my feet at the end of the night! Hey—maybe I should use it again these days, to get on up and exercise!]

They included a lot of audience participation, including having us stand up and wave our napkins right at the very beginning, to get us going. Everyone was happy and smiling the whole time! We got to sing and clap along in several instances, and many people just danced at their seats. And when they invited the assemblage to go up on the stage to dance during Get On Up, people were more than happy to oblige. Of course, the hit of that number was the krump dancing Mr. X, whom the group didn’t want to let off the stage! That part was a lot of fun for everyone. I loved that so many audience members, and even Firm Soundation themselves, came up to him after the show to say they loved his dancing.

The whole Gospel Brunch was an absolute positive experience, one that I can wholeheartedly recommend to everyone in Southern California. And if it’s a special occasion for you, that makes it even better. Let them know in advance, and they may even announce it from the stage. A few people were celebrating birthdays that day, and a beautiful couple right near us was having their sixty-fifth anniversary!!! Wow. (I told the wife that when I heard the singer say “sixty-five years,” I thought she was announcing the woman’s age, and I was surprised by even that because I thought she looked much younger! Maybe it’s from eating all that soul food!)

My only suggestion to HOB, (since this venue is in a new location, so all their years of success elsewhere doesn’t mean this new one is perfect—yet,) is that they do the timing of the brunch a bit differently.  The way it is now, the doors open at 10:30AM, and they say the show is due to start at 11, and the whole thing is over at 1PM.  But on our day, the show began at 11:17 and ended at 12:23.  And the lights came on then, and the food was done. Mr. X and I, who rarely agree on anything, both felt rude eating while people are performing.  And besides wanting to be polite, we wanted to give them our entire attention, and whoop and holler for their rousing show!  The singers often told us to sing along, or get up and dance, or celebrate in other ways, (such as the aforementioned napkin-waving.)   But if our mouths had been full, or if we were still using utensils, or walking around foraging for more food, that would have prevented our full enjoyment of, and cooperating with, the instructions.  So we felt that we could either eat, or pay attention to the show, but not both. So we would have rathered eaten at least most of our meal, and then watched the show.

As I suggested to Jason, the food should go from 10:30 to 11:30/11:45 straight, and then the show should come on, and go till 1, with diners being able to still access the buffet, if they so chose. That would make for a much better time for everyone. It’s hard to show your full appreciation of the music when your mouths and hands are otherwise-occupied!  (One table didn’t show up until 11:15, and they never clapped or sang or had any reaction to the hard-working singers because they were so into the food.)  So, until they figure it all out, I would get there at the stroke of 10:30AM, and start chowing-down right away!

But that’s my only criticism. The House of Blues Gospel Brunch put us in a great mood for the whole rest of the day! And when I looked around GardenWalk, the interesting outdoor mall it’s located in, I was sorry that I had made plans for later that day; I would have loved to spend some time exploring the stores. Which reminds me of more good news—House of Blues validates the parking! Just when you don’t think the situation can get any better, it does!

400 W. Disney Way   Anaheim  714-778-2583  www.houseofblues.com