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Brunch a Bunch Across OC!
OC's best brunches: The ethnic, the gorgeous views and the bottomless booze!
Rick's Atomic Cafe
To be clear, Rick LeBlanc stops serving his breakfast at around 11, give or take an hour, so technically, his Atomic Cafe doesn't do brunch. And he's only open weekdays, which puts a damper on the weekend ritual we're talking about here. But we're including him just the same because more than once, he has cooked us an egg breakfast at the same time he made us a sandwich. He'll do it because he's a nice guy, a food nerd with horned-rimmed glasses and a buzz cut that makes him look more like a NASA engineer than a cook. He'll salt things with care and put in some elbow grease to hand-squeeze a dozen oranges just so he can give you one glass brimming with pulp. And oh, Rick's potatoes! The cubed spuds burst with flavor, steam and other intangible toe-curling properties. It's worth taking the morning off from your workday and calling your lunch a brunch. 3100 Airway Ave., Ste. 113, Costa Mesa, (714) 825-0570; www.ricksatomiccafe.com.
Irvine Farmers' Market
While University Plaza is full of places to get great brunches—Britta's Cafe, Le Diplomate, Cha for Tea, Peet's Coffee, Lee's Sandwiches, etc.—on Saturdays, the best way to eat is to graze while walking up and down the aisles of the huge Irvine Farmers Market held on its parking lot from 8 a.m. to noon. While fruit samples are the obvious choice, pair them with a packet of granola from Sconeage Bakery and Greek yogurt from Soledad Goats. Buy brioche from Picket Lane Bakery, and add apple butter from Ha's Apple Farm. If you want food prepared for you, there are tamales and Vietnamese rice-paper wraps. And just try walking past Blackmarket Bakery without stopping. For that morning pick-me-up, there's usually fair-trade coffee available in the aisle with Dry Dock Fish and 5 Bar Beef. Campus Drive and Bridge Road, Irvine; orange.cfbf.com/cfm.htm.
Meranda Carter
Taqueria Zamora
Location Info
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The Ritz-Carlton
1 Ritz-Carlton Way
Dana Point, CA 92629
Category: Hotels and Resorts
Region: Dana Point
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River's End Cafe
15 First St.
Seal Beach, CA 90740
Category: Restaurant > Caribbean
Region: Seal Beach
The Restaurant At the Tustin Ranch Golf Club
12442 Tustin Ranch Road
Tustin, CA 92782
Category: Restaurant > New American
Region: Tustin
Storytellers Cafe
1600 S. Disneyland Drive Anaheim, CA
Anaheim, CA 92802
Category: Restaurant > American
Region: Anaheim
Rick's Atomic Cafe
3100 Airway Ave.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Category: Restaurant > Cafe
Region: Costa Mesa
Irvine Certified Farmers' Market
Campus Drive and Bridge Road
Irvine, CA 92612
Category: Retail
Region: Irvine
Sugar Shack Cafe
213 1/2 Main St.
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
Category: Restaurant > American
Region: Huntington Beach
Taqueria Zamora
3121 S. Main St.
Santa Ana, CA 92707
Category: Restaurant > Mexican
Region: Santa Ana
Amorelia Mexican Cafe
2200 Harbor Blvd., C110
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Category: Restaurant > Mexican
Region: Costa Mesa
King Lobster Palace
2045 N. Tustin St.
Orange, CA 92865
Category: Restaurant > Chinese
Region: Orange
Champion Food Co.
17090 Magnolia St.
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
Category: Restaurant > Cafe
Region: Fountain Valley
Tacos El Chavito
301 E. Florida Ave.
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
Category: Restaurant > Mexican
Region: Huntington Beach
Tacos El Chavito
Morgan St.
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Category: Restaurant > Mexican
Region: Huntington Beach
Kareem's Restaurant
1208 S. Brookhurst St.
Anaheim, CA 92804
Category: Restaurant > Middle Eastern
Region: Anaheim
Irvine China Garden
14825 Jeffrey Road
Irvine, CA 92618
Category: Restaurant > Chinese
Region: Irvine
Pho 86 Restaurant
14576 Brookhurst St.
Westminster, CA 92683
Category: Restaurant > Asian
Region: Westminster
Jang Mo Gip
9816 Garden Grove Blvd.
Garden Grove, CA 92844
Category: Restaurant > Vietnamese
Region: Garden Grove
Loreley Restaurant
1340 S. Sanderson Ave.
Anaheim, CA 92806
Category: Restaurant > German
Region: Out of Town
Plum's Café and Catering
369 E. 17th St.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Category: Restaurant > Breakfast
Region: Costa Mesa
Break of Dawn Restaurant
24351 Avenida De La Carlota, Ste. N-6
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
Category: Restaurant > Breakfast
Region: Laguna Hills
Ramos House Cafe
31752 Los Rios St.
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
Category: Restaurant > American
Region: San Juan Capistrano
Taco Rosa
2632 San Miguel Drive
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Category: Restaurant > Mexican
Region: Newport Beach
Taps Fish House & Brewery
101 E. Imperial Highway
Brea, CA 92821
Category: Bars and Clubs
Region: Brea
Nick's Laguna Beach
440 S. Coast Highway
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
Category: Restaurant > American
Region: Laguna Beach
Old Vine Cafe
2937 Bristol St., Ste. A-102
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Category: Restaurant > Eclectic
Region: Costa Mesa
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SEE ALSO:
VIDEO: Go behind the scenes of our cover photo shoot with body painter and photographer Filippo ioco.
SLIDESHOW: More photos of our Bunch of Brunch!
VIDEO: Go behind the scenes of our cover photo shoot with body painter and photographer Filippo ioco.
SLIDESHOW: More photos of our Bunch of Brunch!
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More About
Sugar Shack
The real surfers of OC hit the waves before the tourist mobs and the groms invade, but Main Street is pretty dead—except for the Sugar Shack. Grab a table outside if you can, and abuse the free refills of coffee while you watch Surf City wake up. The food is standard American-diner brunch fare, from pancake plates and egg plates to tuna melts and burgers; the omelets are the best bet. While nobody in his right mind would describe it as quiet—it's usually uproarious—it's pretty bro-free and laidback, a slice of old Huntington Beach before the huge development of the late 1990s. 213 1/2 Main St., Huntington Beach, (714) 536-0555; www.hbsugarshack.com.
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BRUNCH WITH YOUR IMMIGRANT PALS
Taqueria Zamora
This dive at the southern edge of Santa Ana is busy from morning until night with locals and workers, but the weekend brunch hour brings out families from across Orange County who have a mami who doesn't want to cook that day. The menu is straightforward home cooking—huevos rancheros and huevos with chorizo, steaming bowls of menudo or birria, and tacos as big as your palm. But the most popular dish during this hour is the chilaquiles, a big mess of ripped-up tortilla strips that are lightly fried, then topped with an egg prepared your way and buried underneath a sea of red or green salsa. The beans and rice on the side are almost pointless, as the chilaquiles on their own are almost the best in Orange County. That's because . . . (read the next blurb!) 3121 S. Main St., Santa Ana, (714) 557-0907; www.taqueriazamora.net.
Amorelia Mexican Café
. . . the best chilaquiles in Orange County are at Amorelia Mexican Café, an otherwise too-expensive Costa Mesa restaurant. The chilaquiles are not only cheaper than Zamora's take, but also delivered as a bigger serving and more refined. The eggs are artfully prepared instead of served as a glorious slop, and the tortilla chips achieve the impossible—a meeting between the just-hardened-and-fried pieces of a Mexican mother's chilaquiles and the softness of Zamora's. And the sauce—a tomato-based condiment that nevertheless sneaks up on unsuspecting sinuses—is as intricate as a harp. 2200 Harbor Blvd., Ste. C-110, Costa Mesa, (949) 646-1422.
El Cabrito
Menudo gets all the attention from gabachos when it comes to hangover-curing Mexican soups served on weekends, but it's birria that's the true beaut: roasted goat served in its drippings, furious and gamy and smelly and magnificent. Better yet, you don't have to be borracho to enjoy it, as evidenced by the families patronizing El Cabrito in Santa Ana every late morning (not just weekends). You can order the birria seca (shredded and dry), on the bone or in a soup, but always ask for the consommé on the side, so you can spike it with oil-based salsa, throw in some oregano and enjoy the greatest morning pick-me-up to your day since Cuban coffee. 1604 W. First St., Santa Ana, (714) 543-8461.
Crystal Jade
Dim sum restaurants come in two varieties: the traditional type where matronly ladies push steaming carts loaded with batches of food, or the type where you select off a menu and the chefs cook your food to order. Crystal Jade serves in the newer, order-off-a-menu style, so your siu mai, har gow and cha siu bao arrive piping-hot from the kitchen. As with a good cover band who know how to win over a new audience, the dim sum selection mostly focuses on the genre's greatest hits rather than the innovative-but-unfamiliar. The attractive room has the quiet, modern elegance of upscale Cantonese restaurants that have opened in the past decade in the Los Angeles region. 6511 Quail Hill Pkwy., Irvine, (949) 725-3368; cjasiandining.com.
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