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.
Category Archives: California Restaurants
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…
This just in: O.C. Press Club Awards!
It was another great year at the O.C. Press Club Awards. I am honored to be named best restaurant critic again, sweeping both first and second place in that category, and more…
Best thing I ate this week: bun bo Hue
When eating at Ngu Binh restaurant in Westminster, the question isn’t what to order but rather, simply, “Large or small?”
OC Review: Old Crow Smokehouse, Huntington Beach
Old Crow is far and away the best restaurant to open thus far at Pacific City. The corporate chef is Tony Scruggs, a self-taught cook who competed on television’s “MasterChef” a few years back. Scruggs’ barbecue is probably best described as Chicago-style with influences ranging from Tennessee to Arkansas.
Best thing I ate this week: baby squid sushi
I told the chef “omakase,” meaning that I trust his judgement, I’m in his hands. And the first few courses were fairly predictable, as I’ve dined at the sushi counter at Shunka a dozen times before and knew more or less what to expect. But I also knew there would be a curveball at some point, and here it was: baby squid sushi.
Review: Playa Amor, Long Beach
I am constantly thrilled at the sight of a perfectly cooked lobster served with drawn butter. As far back as I can remember, this is a food that has fascinated me. It’s such a simple combination yet utterly luxurious. It’s something that works just as well in a fancy white-tablecloth restaurant as it does at a casual outdoor cantina on the beach.
Best thing I ate this week: meatball in a sizzling skillet, at the beach
Last week I wrote about the pizzas at Stag Bar + Kitchen on Newport Beach’s Balboa Peninsula. If you haven’t been there, you must go. It’s a pretty cool bar – with darts and pool tables – that was recently revamped and expanded with the introduction of a scratch kitchen overseen by chefs Jeff Moore and Joseph Havlik.
OC’s Top 20 Pizzas. Period.
Ecco Pizza Shoppe (photo by Brad A Johnson)
Stag Bar + Kitchen (photo by Brad A Johnson)
Brick (photo by Brad A Johnson)
TJ’s Woodfire Pizza (photo by Brad A Johnson)
Filomena’s (photo by Brad A Johnson)
Jinny’s (photo by Brad A Johnson)
Pirozzi (photo by Brad A Johnson)
Rance’s (photo by Brad A Johnson)
