Fresh From Oregon

As unlikely as it sounds, a small cafe wedged into a strip mall manages to bring a little bit of Oregon to Costa Mesa.

Owner Kim Jorgenson has brought some of her favorite foods to Plums Cafe, a hip little spot on East 17th Street.

At first, only the potted pine trees circling the patio and a few tree sculptures hint of the Pacific Northwest. But a glance at the menu reveals lots of imported flavors: Chinook salmon, fennel, cranberries and hazelnuts, all plentiful in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Even the modern art splashed over the dining room is the work of Jeff White of, you guessed it, Oregon.

This sunny cafe, filled with bright colors and ultramodern industrial lighting, attracts a young and fashionable crowd every day for breakfast and lunch. The restaurant plans to open for dinner soon but so far has concentrated on morning and midday meals, with an emphasis on pancakes, scones, waffles, omelets and fish.

The “special brunch” is served daily, and that means that for $4 more than the regular breakfast price you get along with coffee or tea a choice of a Ramos fizz, mimosas, Bloody Marys, champagne or fresh squeezed orange juice.

The brunch includes anything from the breakfast menu--a list of some two dozen exotic-sounding items, including ratatouille egg white omelet, crispy coconut French toast and hazelnut pancakes.

Plums is the kind of restaurant that cares about freshness and flavor. The lemons presented with a deep dish pancake come already peeled because the peel is used to flavor lemon-scented cakes in another dish. The whipped cream on the strawberry waffle is actually beaten in the kitchen rather than sprayed from a can. And the spinach and feta cheese omelet is sprinkled with baby yellow pear tomatoes, kalamata olives and fresh oregano. When is the last time you had an omelet with tiny yellow tomatoes on top?

The kitchen also has a deft hand with bakery, all of which is made on the premises. One time at lunch I had a rosemary scone with a salad and was surprised to see they weren’t offered at breakfast. I would suggest asking the waitress to bring you some anyway, because they are not to be missed. Also terrific are the pancakes, both hazelnut and buttermilk, made from scratch.

In the hash, alderwood smoked salmon is a perfect foil for the rich dill hollandaise, and peppered ham works well with the Santa Fe eggs Benedict, although the chipotle-cilantro sauce was too spicy for me. The generous portion of pan-fried Idaho rainbow trout was rolled in cornmeal, served with fried onion potatoes and poached eggs.

One of the most popular items is the “famous Dutch baby,” a giant, puffed, deep-dish pancake baked in a skillet and speckled with powdered sugar and those peeled lemons mentioned earlier.

Jorgenson uses Oregon ingredients whenever she can and serves a wide assortment of wines from the Northwest. The coffee is Longbottoms from up north, and the apples in the apple caramel waffles are Granny Smiths from Washington.

Eighty percent of all hazelnuts are grown in Oregon, and the state produces lots of horseradish, according to Jorgenson, who was born and reared in Lake Oswego. Her alderwood salmon is flown in daily, and the peppered bacon and ham are produced by a small factory in the Oregon town of Pendleton.

Plums is always crowded and for good reason. They do a fine job. And it has very little competition in the “foods from Oregon” market.

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Plums Cafe, 369 E. 17th Street, Costa Mesa; (949) 722-7586. Sunday breakfast from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Prices range from $5.95 to $16.95