Something interesting and sort of food-related is happening at Code Restaurant in Newport Beach.
Starting today and continuing on for every Friday indefinitely, Code is hosting, quite appropriately, Show, a performance troupe (excuse me if that's not what it's called) that will provide entertainment while people eat. It's involves a big band, pin-ups girls, belly dancing, jazz crooners, Can-Can girls, and culminates in a number featuring scantily clad women in a burlesque show. At least that's what I saw demo'd on their video.
The term they use for all this is “supper club”, which, as I understand it, used to mean an establishment that provided you an end-to-end evening out — a concept past its heyday and now in revival mode. You get your meal; you get your entertainment; you stay in one place. Just like your jitterbugging grandpa used to do.
And even as the evening's three-hour-long entertainment is over, it's really not, because the place transforms into a dance club.
There are two pricing options: For $49 per person, you get the tasting menu and can hold your table until 10 p.m.; For the VIP seating, it's $79, which includes dinner and better seating at a table that's yours to keep all night. Check the website for more details.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.