OceanView Bar & Grill

I went for my 1st visit, breakfast on a weekday morning; the dining experience was peaceful, relaxing, and comfortable out on the patio -- especially with the surprising number of young children present. The view, as to be expected, was beautiful -- with the exception of bird droppings atop their blue tent on the beach (wish they'd clean that up).

The Hotel Laguna omelet ($12) was attractive and tasty, as was the equal-in-price Hotel Laguna Bloody Mary ($12) -- weak on the drink though.

Service was great; our server was very pleasant, attentive, and we didn't feel the least bit rushed. Fun breakfast find!

The location is great and that's the best part. Service was really lacking, unattentive and left a lot to be desired for a higher end restaurant. My coconut shrimp was overcooked and the server told me it's because the coconut is sweet and gets burnt. (I work in a seafood restaurant and know this isn't true) The Manager on duty stayed at the front desk the entire time and didn't visit one table. It wasn't worth the money spent.

5 stars for the view
3.5 stars for the food

Came in on 6/22/12 at 6:30pm with a friend. Wanted to bask in the beautiful sunny weather, and watch the surf. Neither of us had been here before; we took a chance that the restaurant inside Hotel Laguna would have a short wait for a table would be, the food decent but the view amazing. The chance paid off!

Within 5 minutes of entering the bar, we were seated at a small table on the outside deck with a great view of Laguna Beach. Bonus point, we got to witness a wedding on the beach :-) We took our time chatting, listening to the surf crashing a couple of hundred feet below us, watched the blue ocean merge with the blue sky in the far off distance, and observed the sun setting. Picture perfect!

I ordered the spicy bloody mary - LOL it came with a long stalk of bean which was very unexpected as I'm used to seeing olives and a celery. Good drink!  Friend ordered the lemon drop and really liked it too.
We shared 2 appetizers - crabcakes: so delicious, cooked to perfection, and bay shrimp cocktail: major disappointment because it came in a square bowl with diced tomato and red onion, but lacking salt, pepper and lemon seasoning. We had to ask for additional lemon wedges - squeezed all 5 slices plus added salt and pepper to the bay shrimp cocktail to get a hint of seasoning - it still was not good.

The service was so-so: we asked for water but it arrived after our cocktails, the appetizers arrived but we didn't have any plates (though we had napkins/silverware), and the server only checked up on us 1x.

This is a pricey restaurant: the bill minus the tip was $64 (2 drinks, 2 appetizers)!