Orange County Mining Co. - Santa Ana

Birthday celebration this past Saturday the 26th. Easy reservation w OpenTable. Called day of and requested outside seating. Was told HH at bar starts at 4pm for drinks n apps but dinner does not start until 5pm. Cool. Get there at 415pm and staff all still setting up. Waited 20 minutes for the 5 of us to be acknowledged. Bought round of drinks (4 only, 1 was well vodka $10, 1 very expensive glass of wine $27, 1 absolute n tonic $15! and a Dos Equis $7) $67 . That does not sound at all like HH pricing... 515 told our table was ready but got some looks at request to sit outside. We were sat at the area the bar area overlooks. Not a bad view but not what I expected as could not view sunset unless got up n walked to railing. Short staffed on a Saturday. Cheese bread is incredble. Skip spinach artichoke imo it is runny not much flavor. Calamari is yummy but could use some seasoning in batter. A couple more drinks and I requested a german chocolate cake shot which caused a bit if a hiccup as they were unsure how to make. I was asjed if i wanted the one made with jagetmeister...yuck! huh? That is black licorice so no idea how that would ever taste like german chocolate cake. Service was pretty good. Better when 2 more parties were seated outside. Scallops were fishy and 6 small scallops not worth almost $40. Prime rib abd ribeye dinners were pretty good. Tio much breading on the parneseam crusted white fish (forgit if it was mahi mahi or something..not sole) Ribs were dried out...at 545pm? Tells me these were reheated which dried tgem out. Server worked hard but he needed to be more dedicated to outside tables.. especially w our party if 5. I appreciate the effort but it was very slow (aside from large 50th bday party) and just didnt feel like an Orange County high end dining experience. Table bill was almost $400... so w that, the $80 (w tip) bar tab we dropped almost $500... We surely deserved to be more pampered. My birthday dessert comped was ice cream. Meh.

Most of the food was gone or cold by the time we got to the restaurant at 6:30pm. The desserts were mediocre and the pumpkin pie looked like it came from Costco. Wasn’t even sliced, just a serving knife and a can of whipped cream. The last prime rib served with undercooked and had no flavor. Overall, very disappointing.

It was Thanksgiving, so we expected a lot of people. The staff was really nice and sat us quickly, but buffet items (and plates too) were constantly out. The demand was just higher than the staff could work. Overall had a good time, beautiful views and friendly staff.

Thanksgiving Day buffet food was not great considering the price level. That said, the ambience was good and the employee service was very good.

Food was good but several of the buffet trays were empty. Took a long time to get a glass of water because they were out of glasses. There were four desserts but no plates when I was at the dessert table.