On October 2 & 3, South Coast Plaza sponsored a two-day food tour for a dozen L.A. and Orange County food bloggers designed to showcase five restaurants and a single premium food shop. Clearly, not every bite at South Coast Plaza was life changing, but here are my five favorite tastes during the course of our gluttonous walking tour.

Okinawa native James Hamamori was the longtime chef at Asakuma in Brentwood, but left to pursue his own interests in Orange County. He now owns three Wasu Sushi restaurants throughout the county, but his crown jewel is undoubtedly Hamamori, a white jewel box on the third floor of South Coast Plaza with decorative blue accents. During our journey, Hamamori was the only chef to score two dishes in my Top 5.

Hamamori lavished silky Hokkaido scallop sushi with bursting Osetra caviar, a Himalaya pink salt dusting and light lemon squeeze.

Hamamori’s broiled freshwater eel sushi was absolutely luxurious, a nearly caramelized fillet topped with a molten Hudson Valley foie gras slab. The finish touch: an enlightening spritz of sweet orange zest.

Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale’s opening was designed to instill South Coast Plaza with contemporary opulence. The economy continued to take a tailspin, so executive chef Amar Santana made the menu more casual to keep up with the times. The restaurant now bookends dinner service with twin happy hours and features an extensive menu of small plates that achieve varying degrees of success.

Amar Santana’s best small plate involved twin pipes of roasted bone marrow strewn with tangy red onion “marmalade” and golden raisins that helped to cut the marrow’s richness. Slathering marrow on supple toast made for several winning bites.

Amelia Marneau bombarded us with a flurry of desserts at Marche Moderne, the contemporary French restaurant that she co-owns with husband Florent. Her pillowy sugar-lined beignet was undoubtedly the highlight, plated in a shallow pool of orange studded creme anglaise.

Since I didn’t capture a postable beignet photo, enjoy Marneau’s banana mousse tart with caramel and pecan. I sure did.

Pizzeria Ortica executive chef Steve Samson punctuated his pasta class by crafting a Margherita pizza for each table. Samson fires his pizzas in a wood-burning oven using a mix of almond, cherry and applewood. I’m still convinced that Pizzeria Ortica makes a better Margherita pizza than any restaurant in L.A., and in 2010, L.A. will have an Ortica of its own. Samson said they plan to start scouting locations soon.

Ortica’s Margherita pizza crust was blistered, pliable at the edges and sported subtle sourdough tang. Toppings were simple but premium: crushed San Marzano tomatoes, Gioia mozzarella and basil.

Note: FTC regulations dictate full disclosure. All South Coast Plaza meals were fully comped and they hosted most of the L.A. bloggers at the Westin St. Francis for the night of October 2. As we toured South Coast Plaza, several stops gave us takeways. NapaStyle gave us a bottle of wine, a tin of gray salt and a Michael Chiarello cookbook. Charlie Palmer’s gave us a bottle of wine and a wine opener. South Coast Plaza gave us a luggage tag, Kiehl’s body scrub, a jar of Antonello’s pasta sauce, three magazines and a cookie. Pizzeria Ortica gave us a bag of beans, cooking wine and a T-shirt. While I didn’t receive cash, every blogger knew going in that if we posted three tweets per stop, we’d receive a $100 gift card to South Coast Plaza, and that if we posted about our experience within 72 hours, we’d receive another $100 gift card. I promptly gave away the swag to a lucky Food GPS reader as part of a MASSIVE FOOD GPS GIVEAWAY.