The Taste: Consider the Lobster Bisque

We are standing in the bustling kitchen breezeway that connects Restaurant Marin to its older sister, ARC, both of which anchor the burgeoning food mecca at SOCO in Costa Mesa. We face an imposing black door with a glossy high-tech keypad to the left. It’s an oddly tentative, interstitial space – think of it as a brief Tibetan Buddhist bardo, a space one inhabits after death before being transported to nirvana.
The massive door swings open and we are instantaneously transported to a