Dinner at Seasons 52 Fresh Grill

If you’re anything like me, you get excited when you receive gift cards. I’m all, “Sweet, I get to ____ for free!” However, this excitement usually wavers by a lot when that gift card is to a big chain restaurant.

With the exception of Panera Bread, Chipotle, and PF Chang’s (whose food I enjoy, but want to croak on the food in my mouth when I check out their menu’s nutrition content!), I just do not like chains. If they’ve got more than a handful of restaurants, chances are I don’t care to eat there. I’m typically all about the local joints. That’s some brutal honesty for my loved ones who keep giving me Applebee’s gift cards. 😉

What tends to happen is that gift cards that I’m not crazy about will sit in my wallet for a couple of years before the right day comes around to use it.  This was the case last weekend, when I found a Darden restaurant gift card. The gift card included Red Lobster (no thanks), Olive Garden (ditto), Longhorn Steakhouse (I suppose I could go and get a salad…) and Seasons 52 Fresh Grill.

 

Huh, what’s that last one? I looked it up and there was a Seasons 52 location nearby in
the beach town of La Jolla. Not only was it nearby, it looked like my cup of tea: a fresh grill and wine bar with a seasonally-inspired menu that often changes. Last Saturday after a happy hour at home…

…my hubby and I were off to try out some dinner there.

Seasons 52 has an elegant piano bar kind of feel to it. Actually, there was live music with a pianist singer while we were there, which I enjoyed. He happened to start singing our wedding song right after we sat down (John Legend’s “Stay With You”), which was awesome because I’ve never heard anyone randomly sing that song live besides John Legend himself.

The restaurant had a nice wine and cocktail menu to choose from. I went with a superfruit martini, which had acai spirit, pomegranate and blueberry juice, plus agave nectar.

A good martini makes me a happy girl.

Note to self: I need to try to recreate a superfruit martini at home sometime!

Let’s talk about one great thing about the menu: Every dish is under 475 calories. This is pretty much unheard of with chain restaurants! For an appetizer, A and I split an order of Sonoma goat cheese ravioli in tomato broth with roasted garlic and basil:

I think odd numbers of things in appetizers are always kind of strange because I like to split an appetizer as just a little bite. In this case it was three ravioli, so I had one and A had two. Goat cheese ravioli have my heart, and these had some nice flavor.

(Another note to self: Make these goat cheese ravioli again soon.)

For my entree, I tried the vegetarian tasting option. It had a citrus quinoa salad, cedar plank tofu with a citrus salsa, a soft taco filled with veggies and feta cheese, broccoli rabe, asparagus, snap peas and mushrooms:

Some of the veggies lacked a real flavor punch, but overall, it was tasty. I definitely got my veggie servings in for the night with this dish!

For all of your meat eaters, my hubby ordered the filet mignon with mashed potatoes, spinach and mushrooms. He ate every mouthful on his plate and said the meat was nice and tender.

For dessert, Seasons 52 offers a variety of mini indulgences. I love these because it gives you a little taste of dessert without being a lot. A and I split a chocolate peanut butter torte…

…which he claimed to want none of and then ate more than I did. Different day, same story!

Overall I thought that Seasons 52 was a positive dining experience. The service was spot on, the atmosphere was nice while still being casual, and the food was tasty and reasonably priced. This random chain restaurant gift card wound up coming in handy for a decent meal after all!

Have you ever heard of Seasons 52? What’s your favorite chain restaurant?