Mozambique Restaurant

1740 S Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651, USA

Address:	1740 S Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651, USA
Phone:	+1 949-715-7777
Site:	mozambiqueoc.com
Rating:	4.3
Working:	11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–12AM 11AM–12AM 10AM–10PM

Location

Photos 100

Reviews 5

A Private User

So this last Sat. was me and my girlfriends 5 yr. anniversary. Wow! I guess its time to get married, huh?! But thats a different story...We heard about this restaurant at Costco. I guess they sell their peri-peri marinated chicken there. The chicken taste samples were good so we wanted to give it a shot! A short drive to Laguna Beach and were there. The parking lot and decor of the outside building truly give no justice to what treasures lie inside! We walk up to the front door but not before passing and being greeted "hello" by some huge parrots! We went early (about 6 pm) so it was no problem at all getting a cozy, comfortable seating. We look around and not too many people are dining. The atmosphere is great! Beautiful, weaved, burgundyish leather seats and booths, cool, funky "world" music in the background and this is just the beginning! We are seated and a little while later our server, Ashley, greets us. We start off with a drink; a nice, yummy Chimay for me and a lemon drop martini for Sarah, my gf. I love salads so we start our dining with the Mediterranean Peppadrop Salad, which is delicious! A mix of Romaine, artichoke hearts, Calamata olives, grape tomatoes, Feta cheese and Grecian dressing, yummy! For our entrees, I have the Wild Salmon Brulée and Sarah orders the Crisped Peri-Peri rotisserie chicken with Wood-Grilled Jumbo Prawns. I just have to say EVERYTHING is great! The salmon is perfectly cooked! Not dry and not undercooked. I dont even use a knife to cut it! Every bite is nice and flaky and moist! The chicken is excellent with the peri-peri sauce and the prawns, nice and juicy, grilled in their shell. We have to have dessert to make it the full experience so we share the Amarula Cheesecake. Pretty good, but it is rich. With tax and tip included, our total was about $110 for two people. Plus we had to buy a bottle of the peri-peri sauce, of course! That was an extra $7. So overall, the atmosphere, food, and service was excellent! I highly recommend it for couples and dates, if you want to experience something different. Plus we didnt get that "snooty OC feel" to this at all. Pretty chill and laid back. The only thing is to be prepared to spend a pretty penny. $30 entrees, plus appetizers and drinks and youre lucky to leave with a $100 bill for two people. But dont get me wrong. Its totally worth it! We will definitely come back! Enjoy!!

A Private User

I have never written a review before, but my experiance at Mozambique was so different from many of the comments here, that I wanted to comment as well. I dined there last evening (Saturday) with my family, a party of eight, to celebrate my parents 60th wedding anniversary. When I read some of the reviews here shortly before going, I became very concerned, but it was too late to make a change. And everything about our experience was excellent; the host and hostesses, the bar staff (we had happy hour drinks before dinner, and the drinks and prices were great), our very attentive waiter, Greg, the food, and the ambience. The restaurant is quite large, with numerous dining rooms and patios, and a bar on each floor. In addition to the beautiful decor, there are lit fireplaces in every room, and firepits on each patio. We were seated in the Durbin (sp?) room, at a round table near the fireplace. Its smaller and not as noisy as the main dining room when full, which we appreciated. We ordered a wide variety of appetizers, salads, entrees and desserts, and everything was thoroughly enjoyed. (Note about the food: The spiciness is subtle, not fiery hot, and even those of us who dont care for heat loved it all.) We did dine early (5:45 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.). By 7:00 the place was jammed. I can see how service might slow down during peak dining hours, because the place is so large and can accommodate so many people (and sometimes the size of the kitchen doesnt match the seating capacity of the restaurant). But even though Greg got very busy, the service was excellent throughout. From my limited experience (so far), I recommend giving Mozambique a try.

A Private User

Let me preface this by saying that as soon as we said "Groupon" in the reservation, we were doomed. The hostess seemed put off at that point. Let me break out the good and the bad. The Good: Nice atmosphere, great quality food. The Bad: Everything else. Poor service, poor food preparation. First of all, the waitress stared at us from across the room but never came over to take our order. Eventually, another waitress came to help us and she helped us all evening. She was very nice, but my wife and I never got over the fact that the waitress who helped EVERY OTHER TABLE never came to our table. We ordered the prawns as an appetizer, they were cold, rubbery, and generally unpleasant. The sauce was tasty, spicy, but in the end I just put a little salt on the prawns and grimaced them down. I had the sirloin, my wife had the filet. We both ordered them medium and got them well-done. There are few things in the culinary world more disappointing than an overdone quality steak. The filet was so amazingly tender that it was criminal that there was not a hint of pink throughout. So, to summarize: the food was poorly prepared but of good quality, the waitress who helped us was nice but the situation was irritating. Maybe without a groupon I would have gotten better food and service, but as it was we were very disappointed. Wont go back. Incidentally, we did tip 20 percent against the original check value, so as to not feed into the stigma about Groupon people, but I felt pretty violated doing so.

A Private User

After reading reviews about this restaurant online, I decided that I would take my girlfriend here for her birthday. I made reservations and we showed up a bit early as the "Shebeen" lounge upstairs sounded interesting and I figured we would have a drink before dinner. On our way up the stairs, we were greeted by their exotic birds who were walking along the banister and playing with patrons. They were well-behaved and beautiful! The servers were very friendly and the atmosphere was very nice. A bit more lively than the restaurant without being loud or pretentious. After a few drinks we made our way downstairs for dinner. We were seated on the garden patio which was beautiful. The atmosphere down here was much more relaxed and even romantic. Our server was polite and professional and our food was absolutely amazing. We both decided to play it safe and order steaks (Filet Mignon and NY Strip) but were still blown away with the quality of the food. We had the Macaroni and Cheese as a side dish and it was excellent as well. We finished dinner by sharing Mozambiques most popular dessert, their warm Banana-Macadamia Nut Bread Pudding. It was delicious and a great finish to a wonderful meal. We truly enjoyed ourselves and recommend Mozambique to anyone looking for a unique dining experience along PCH.

SURYA DEWI

Was recommended by Best Western staff, arrived and a guy host told us the life music too loud at second floor if we wanted to dine upstair. Anyway not too loud and decided to dine at second floor. Waited 15 min to be greeted by waitress. Another 15 min for drinks, till our app Red and Yellow Beet Salad came first. This salad mostly arugula and 9 cubes beets only. We requested mint jelly for the Lamb Chops but amazingly the waitress had no clue about mint jelly. The manager just gave us chopped herbs in water instead since seemed they dont have it. Shrimp Peri Peri and Lamb Chop were cold and then need another 20 min waiting for the check. Till we had to asked another waitress whom just standing and found out our waitress moved station and the standing waitress our new one. Seemed the new waitress had so many tables but still didnt put more speed. And amazingly the manager whom finally got out credit card took forever to charge us. The place seemed busy but the service just very very slow. Just was not worth it for the price of the food.