This is the best oxtail pho in Orange County. Period. Well, actually, there is one other that’s exactly the same…
Category Archives: California Restaurants
Dish of the week: Torta at Playa Mesa, Costa Mesa
When the waitress sets it on the table with a thud, I immediately assure myself that I’m not crazy enough to eat this entire sandwich. I’ll just eat half of it, at which point I will assert self control. Somewhere along the way my plan goes awry…
Dish of the week: Yellowtail ceviche at Central, Laguna Beach
This ceviche at Central in Laguna Beach is extraordinary. Chef Michael Campbell weaves ribbons of yellowtail into a beautiful tapestry with cherry tomatoes, red onion and fresno chiles in citrus-coconut broth…
O.C. Review: Southern Spice, Irvine
Dining at Southern Spice will test your threshold for chaos. You’ll wish you had swallowed a Valium before leaving the house. But you will eat very well.
Just Announced: 60th Annual SoCal Journalism Awards!
The Los Angeles Press Club just announced the winners of the Southern California Journalism Awards, and I’m thrilled to have won Best Food Criticism for my reviews in the Orange County Register for the second year in a row. Here are two of the reviews that got me into the competition this year.
The great burger debate: lettuce or no lettuce?
A chef on Instagram recently launched a debate by posting a picture of a cheeseburger beneath which he posed a simple question, “Lettuce or no lettuce?”
I didn’t weigh in, but I silently screamed, “Lettuce!”
O.C. Review: El Coyotito, San Juan Capistrano
I stuff a few dollar bills into the machine and scroll through the CDs: Banda Machos, Gerardo Ortiz, Juan Gabriel, Julio Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias, Christina Aguilera … and settle on the younger Iglesias, plus The Eagles, The Cars and Eric Clapton. The Eagles’ 1979 hit “I Can’t Tell You Why” begins to play, and everyone in the dining room seems to approve, even the two guys in the corner who are wearing dusty cowboy boots and sharing an ice-filled bucket of beer.
Hotel Review: Freehand, Los Angeles
The Freehand Los Angeles opened last week at the corner of 8th and Olive — across the street from legendary dive bar the Golden Gopher. The 226-room hotel resides in the landmark, 12-story Commercial Exchange building, which has been gutted and completely redesigned with an urban-hipster twist on California Craftsman.
This just in: Southern California Journalism Awards!
I’m feeling grateful and blessed to receive the Southern California Journalism Award for restaurant criticism at the Los Angeles Press Club’s annual gala. It is particularly gratifying to see this comment from the judges: “The winning critique blends a keen palate with laugh-out-loud humor in this spot-on reminder that a restaurant is much more than the food on the plate.”
O.C. Review: Meizhou Dongpo, Irvine
My skin is numb. Not just my lips and tongue but my lungs and toes, too. I have never been so uncomfortable as right now because I badly want to eat this stuff. It smells so nice. And it tastes so good for that millisecond before the electric surge…
The 10 best bowls of ramen in O.C.
Orange County is ramen paradise. We have it good here. Really, really good. Here are the 10 best. You won’t go wrong with any one of these, but you will have to wait in line at all of them…
O.C. Review: Irenia, Santa Ana
Irenia has the potential to do for Filipino cuisine in Orange County what Taco Maria has done for Mexican food.
OC Review: Ootoro Sushi, Irvine
The chef reaches over the sushi counter and places a bowl in front of each of us. The bowls are filled with ice, topped with the live shrimp he has just dismantled. The shrimp are huge, like mutants. Their dismembered heads and bodies sit side by side, a couple of inches apart but still very much alive.
Best Thing I Ate This Week: Salade Nicoise
A lot has changed at the St. Regis Monarch Beach lately. For starters, it’s now just the Monarch Beach Resort, with a brand new, very beachy look throughout. The restaurant formerly known as Motif is now called Aveo, and that’s where I recently enjoyed one of the finest Nicoise salads I can recall.
O.C. Review: Sushi Hana re
The hostess sees me peeking through the window, so she opens the front door. “May I help you?” “Two for dinner?” I ask. I can see that almost every seat in the restaurant is already taken. “Just a moment,” she says. She walks across the very small room to whisper something to the chef. He …
Best thing I ate this week: kohada from a master
Gizzard shad can be an acquired taste. But it also depends greatly on the skill of the chef. That’s why it is often said that sushi chefs judge each other by their kohada, or gizzard shad…
