Gem Dining

Formerly sharing the same space as Nep Cafe – but at night rather than mornings – Gem Dining was the crown jewel in Kei Concepts’ collection of restaurants, combining its best plating and service with its broadest menu. It had the same overall level of unimpeachable quality and plating as David Chang’s Momofuku restaurants, with the high service standards of José Andrés restaurants.

While most of Kei’s concepts are either dedicated to one cuisine or fusions of two cuisines, Gem’s menu was pan-Asian with frequent item rotations, such that a given week’s menu might span ceviche, Singaporean chili soft shell crab, lamb, pasta, and mushrooms with a coffee egg custard dessert, then three months later, choices could include laksa risotto, tai snapper crudo, a sticky toffee pudding, lava tiramisu, and a trio of sorbets. It was home to the best meals we’ve had in Orange County, with consistently superb ambience, food quality, and diversity; while on the pricier side, the expense was reasonable given the overall experience.

Seemingly angling for Michelin recognition, Gem’s chefs plated and served dishes as impressively as they imbued them with strong flavors and colors, creating templates for subsequent versions. In some cases, Gem dishes preceded or riffed on ones from other Kei places; both kampachi crudo and a braised lamb shank paralleled offerings at the Italian-Japanese fusion concept Ini, lomo saltado octopus spun off from Vox Kitchen, Vietnamese-influenced Wagyu beef carpaccio set the stage for a later Nep appetizer, and the cajun-spiced “bread and butter” preceded a variation at the briefly operated Kei Supper Club. Others – including Thai eggplant, Malaysian seafood laksa, curry intestine, Szechuan cauliflower, a superb Coconut & Calamansi dessert, and Filipino-style beef cheek sisig – haven’t yet reappeared elsewhere.