Three Seventy Common is where you'd want your friends to go drinking, even when they're not with you. The restaurant has set up this drink board, you see, where anyone can buy anyone else a drink on a future-based rolling credit system. Let's say you want to buy me one: just pay for it, and tell them who it's for. Then my name goes up there on the board along with what libation you think I should have. The next time I come in, it's mine. It's an ingenious scheme, fun for the customer and even better for the restaurant because it pretty much guarantees a visit by the guy you've named if he wants to collect. Owner/chef Ryan Adams cops to cribbing the idea from Santa Ana's Lola Gaspar.
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It is, by the way, not the only thing Adams admits to stealing. “The Poached Cocktail” is described this way: “We stole it from somewhere else; ask your server!” And of course, you'll ask. You'll also be curious about “The Sexy Dennis” which the menu says is “a nightly cocktail lovingly crafted for Mr. Dennis Finger.” Who is this Keyser Soze-figure? He's Adams' buddy, the server will explain, and since the drink changes from week-to-week, it's one more way Adams ensures that you and, at the very least, Mr Dennis Finger, will come back to find out what's next.
But perhaps the most interesting sip of all is The Miablo, wherein Karma tequila is infused with ghost chili, the hottest pepper in the world, and made into an apéritif that burns on two counts. At first, the harsh alcohol spreads throughout your mouth, cauterizing any open wounds or sores. Then the capsaicin hits, numbing all that it touches, but leaving a warm, tingling sensation that thankfully subsides after about a minute. There are pieces of grilled pineapple and springs of cilantro in there, too, but they, like you, will cower in the presence and power of the rest. Think you got a friend who can handle The Miablo? Set them up with it on drink board. That's what it's for.
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.
