Balboa Island

N estled in a tiny storefront on Balboa Island is a charming, romantic little bistro called Pas.tu, which means "treasure box" in Persian. A treasure box it is, with its candle-lit atmosphere, the sound of trickling water from the fountain on the terrace and the wrought-iron grillwork of the entryway secluding this little gem from the hustle and bustle of the street. All this and the tastefully appointed décor with crisp white linens combine to make it a delightful place to dine.

The National Weather Service issued an advisory Friday on the possibility of minor tidal overflows along the coast. Newport officials were not alarmed by the notice. National Weather Service forecaster Robert Balfour said overflows were possible through today. He said high surf generated by a south swell could combine with an expected high tide to allow ocean water to rise above seawalls. Thursday night, the tide around Newport rose to 7 feet, 5 inches, said Rick Greaney of the Newport Beach general services department.

There's a recognizable house on Balboa Island that has been inhabited by a member of the Glassell family since the 1920s. As a child, Andrew W. Glassell spent summers playing in the sand just yards from the beachfront property. Brick steps lead to the one-story house -- one of the only remaining single-level complexes on the block. Twenty years ago, Glassell made the Balboa Island home his full-time residence. He died there of natural causes Aug. 16. He was 88. Born in Los Angeles, Glassell lived much of his life in La Canada.

Here are some of the decisions coming out of the Newport Beach City Council meeting on Tuesday. CITY OIL AND GAS FIELDS WHAT HAPPENED: Council members agreed to extend the city's contract with Sampson Oil Co. to continue operating the oil and gas fields on the city's behalf. Sampson Oil has been doing the job since 1984, and the new contract will extend the relationship for another five years and increase the monthly fee the city pays the company from $4,800 to $5,040 for three years.

A French son Get a dose of culture from the Continent at a special screening of "The Son" ("Le Fils"), directed by French brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, at 7 p.m. Thursday at UC Irvine's Humanities Instructional Building, room 100. The 2002 film will be introduced by Julien Weber, a doctoral candidate in the university's French and Italian department. For those who don't speak French, the film is shown with English subtitles. Admission is $5, with discounts for students and seniors.

Huntington Beach police are asking for the public’s help to find a gunman who shot and critically injured a 41-year-old man near his home Friday morning. At 7:42 a.m. a man with a mustache in his 30s wearing a white T-shirt came up behind Bruce Wickland Porter Jr. and shot him in the neck and face while Porter was walking to his car in the 8200 block of Deerfield Drive, Lt. Terry Lindsey said. Though investigators do not have an exact description of the gunman’s vehicle, witnesses indicated it may have been a white, four-door Saturn with chrome wheels and a sun roof.

Snap more photos at city's traffic lights Yes, I think Costa Mesa should install more cameras to snap pictures of drivers running red lights. Too many people are driving extremely fast, with reckless lane-changing and tailgating. Give them tickets, fine them and take away the licenses of repeat offenders. HALINA GROOTHUIS Balboa Island Fix Newport-Mesa schools properly Clearly Measure A was not enough. All anyone has to do is take a quick drive around Newport-Mesa and look at the schools.

1. Construction crews cut what kind of utility lines serving West Newport? A. Phone B. High-speed Internet C. Water D. Coffee 2. Irrelevant Week founder Paul Salata found himself where this week? A. In Mexico City for an NFL event B. In the slammer for a good cause C. Stuck in traffic in a Yugo D. Speaking before a crowd of Notre Dame alumni 3. What park opened, officially, this week? A. The Great Park B. The Volcom Skate Park of Costa Mesa C. Marinapark D. City Hall Park of Newport Beach 4. Who of the following is not being named to Orange Coast College's Alumni Hall of Fame?

While I never knew Madam Modjeska during her lifetime, she and I had certain contracts of which she was completely unaware but which give me a certain feeling of closeness to her. In addition to her home in the canyon that bears her name, the madam had a home in Balboa, specifically on Bay Island. For the uninformed, Bay Island is a small island in the bay reached only by a wooden bridge from Balboa. Now, before the gung ho boys dredged Balboa Bay and renamed it Newport Harbor so that the multimillionaires could moor their multimillion-dollar yachts here, what is now the bay was then a mudflat, which started at Bay Island and continued to the harbor mouth, with a canal dredged by Joe Beek so that his ferry could travel from Balboa Peninsula to Balboa Island.

Restaurateurs who have taken part at the Taste of Newport in past years said that what you get depends on when you go. Over three days of eating, the mood at the weekend food festival tends to morph from a party scene into a more family-friendly event. "I've been doing this for 13 years, and it's sort of like you're at a nightclub," said Joe Moreno, owner of Ciao, a Balboa Island restaurant expected to make an appearance at this year's event. Moreno was describing Taste of Newport's atmosphere on Friday and Saturday nights.

OC's guru of glam, Jerrod Blandino, the creative director and co-founder of Too Faced Cosmetics, is an O.C. native who still lives and works in the area with his partner Jeremy Johnson, creating products for one of the hottest indie cosmetic brands today. Jerrod will be visiting Sephora at South Coast Plaza from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday to offer one-on-one consultation, a personalized face chart and recommendations for creating a perfect look. Be one of the first 75 customers to purchase the exclusive Sephora Too Faced Enchanted Glamourland 19-piece gift set while Jerrod is in the store, and you will receive a full-sized Too Faced Lava Gloss black eyeliner — he'll even autograph limited-edition Holiday pieces.

N estled in a tiny storefront on Balboa Island is a charming, romantic little bistro called Pas.tu, which means "treasure box" in Persian. A treasure box it is, with its candle-lit atmosphere, the sound of trickling water from the fountain on the terrace and the wrought-iron grillwork of the entryway secluding this little gem from the hustle and bustle of the street. All this and the tastefully appointed décor with crisp white linens combine to make it a delightful place to dine.

Huntington Beach police are asking for the public’s help to find a gunman who shot and critically injured a 41-year-old man near his home Friday morning. At 7:42 a.m. a man with a mustache in his 30s wearing a white T-shirt came up behind Bruce Wickland Porter Jr. and shot him in the neck and face while Porter was walking to his car in the 8200 block of Deerfield Drive, Lt. Terry Lindsey said. Though investigators do not have an exact description of the gunman’s vehicle, witnesses indicated it may have been a white, four-door Saturn with chrome wheels and a sun roof.

Kids deserve the spotlight for fundraising project "Kids work to rebuild" should have been the headline of the article published Saturday ("Family works for rebuilding"). The Give Shelter project is a fabulous example of community outreach. It had nothing to do, in fact, with my family but everything to do with a handful of thoughtful children and a generous public. The record should be corrected that it was the kids who accomplished this astonishing feat; and it was actually Jack Paal and Max Newsome, on behalf of all the kids, who handed over the little gold house filled with $22,434 to the Habitat for Humanity representative.

A French son Get a dose of culture from the Continent at a special screening of "The Son" ("Le Fils"), directed by French brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, at 7 p.m. Thursday at UC Irvine's Humanities Instructional Building, room 100. The 2002 film will be introduced by Julien Weber, a doctoral candidate in the university's French and Italian department. For those who don't speak French, the film is shown with English subtitles. Admission is $5, with discounts for students and seniors.

While I never knew Madam Modjeska during her lifetime, she and I had certain contracts of which she was completely unaware but which give me a certain feeling of closeness to her. In addition to her home in the canyon that bears her name, the madam had a home in Balboa, specifically on Bay Island. For the uninformed, Bay Island is a small island in the bay reached only by a wooden bridge from Balboa. Now, before the gung ho boys dredged Balboa Bay and renamed it Newport Harbor so that the multimillionaires could moor their multimillion-dollar yachts here, what is now the bay was then a mudflat, which started at Bay Island and continued to the harbor mouth, with a canal dredged by Joe Beek so that his ferry could travel from Balboa Peninsula to Balboa Island.

There's a recognizable house on Balboa Island that has been inhabited by a member of the Glassell family since the 1920s. As a child, Andrew W. Glassell spent summers playing in the sand just yards from the beachfront property. Brick steps lead to the one-story house -- one of the only remaining single-level complexes on the block. Twenty years ago, Glassell made the Balboa Island home his full-time residence. He died there of natural causes Aug. 16. He was 88. Born in Los Angeles, Glassell lived much of his life in La Canada.

I will be as brief and to the point as possible on the proposed new Newport Beach civic center complex. 1. The cost: At $643 per square foot, it is about two times the per-square-foot cost of what both Mission Viejo in 2002 and Rancho Santa Margarita in 2004 spent on their city hall complexes. That is not a Taj Mahal, but is it justified? 2. Financing to justify risk: The financing meeting (which I attended about two weeks ago) with the City Council had a finance manager announcing that with the certificates of participation financing the city has chosen, if a tsunami comes through and makes the facilities unusable, the city can just walk away from the lease with no more payments.

Is your church or place of worship planning a special event? If so, send the typed information at least two weeks before the event to the Daily Pilot, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, attention: Lindsay Sandham, News Assistant; fax to (949) 646-4170; or send e-mail to o7lindsay.sandham@latimes.comf7. SPECIAL EVENTS o7 f7THE SHOFAR FACTORY The Shofar Factory will conduct a special program for Kindergarten through 3rd-grade students on Sept.

El Toro would help during the Big One New Orleans residents knew the Big One -- a Category 4 or 5 hurricane -- could flood and destroy their city. Yet, when Katrina hit, they were not prepared. Orange County residents live with the threat of the Big One too. Only our fear is an 8 or bigger earthquake ripping open the earth. Are we fully prepared? One area of concern is our lack of airport runways for life-saving purposes. John Wayne, Long Beach, Los Alamitos and Fullerton airports are on soil subject to liquefaction during a major earthquake.