Foodstuffs & Restaurants >>

• Best Restaurant
  Old Vine Café
  Other restaurants might ultimately impress more at any given moment. Most have better locations. But as a sunrise-to-nighttime experience, no local eatery can hold a gourmet blowtorch to Old Vine Café. The delights begin with a faithfulness to organic ingredients, whether it's... More >>
• Best Service In a Restaurant
  Andrea
  Say what you want about Donald Bren's Irvine Co., but it sure knows how to train its employees. The service at Andrea in the Pelican Hill Resort borders on obsessive. The minute you step out of your vehicle and hand your keys to the valet, you're treated like you are Bren himself. The... More >>
• Best Picture of a Living Goddess to Make Your Wonderful Meal That Much Tastier
  Sophia Loren, Rufino's Ristorante Italiano
  Rufino's has specialized in heft since 1967: noodles spilling off massive plates, soups almost solid due to the bevy of goodies soaking up the broth, dishes that inspire too many bad mafia jokes. Making your meal that much tastier is a giant photo of Sophia Loren near the entrance, hung... More >>
• Best Restaurant Décor
  Don the Beachcomber
  This joint on Pacific Coast Highway is famous for its swordfish-shaped neon sign and entryway that resembles that of a South Pacific longhouse. It was once Sam's Seafood, and then it changed ownership and became Kona. Now, it's changed its name again. But the interior décor has... More >>
• Best Waterfront Dining
  The Dock
  The most appropriate way to arrive at the Dock is by Duffy boat. And if you're lucky enough to live on the Balboa Peninsula, you probably are already in possession of one. Park it at the restaurant's, um, dock and greet your neighbors, who will already be waiting for you. The Dock is,... More >>
• Best Romantic Restaurant
  Basilic Restaurant
  You can take a date to an expensive restaurant with wide booths, grand entryways and a twinkling nighttime view of the city; or you can take that special someone to Basilic, a restaurant so cozy you are required—nay, forced—to get intimately familiar with each other and chef Bernard... More >>
• Best New Restaurant (1 Comment)
  At Last Café
  There are gems we'd rather keep to ourselves, simply because these Best Of lists tend to make seats scant and reservations impossible. This is especially true of At Last Café, which only has enough room to seat about 20 people, tops. And trust us when we say you want one of these... More >>
• Best Restaurant When Someone Else Is Paying
  Onotria
  With a menu as beautiful as chef Massimo's creation for Onotria, it's best to go "soup to nuts"—which means trying every course from appetizer to dessert. Maybe start with some creamy lobster and market fish chowder, then some steamed asparagus with barrel-aged Cheddar... More >>
• Best Outdoor Dining
  Habana Restaurant
  This restaurant features your standard Cuban fare—everything from succulent mango pulled pork to plantain-crusted chicken sandwiches—and more gourmet offerings such as osso bucco, but the best stuff on the menu are the drinks. Whether you prefer a white sangria or a mojito or a crisp... More >>
• Best Restaurant to Take the Kids (2 Comments)
  The Pike
  Not to be confused with that taxpayer-subsidized, almost-always-barren-of-tourists monstrosity known as the Pike in Rainbow Harbor, Long Beach's the Pike is a bar and grill owned by Chris Reece, drummer of the famed SoCal punk band Social Distortion. Located on Fourth Street near the Art... More >>
• Best Late-Night Dining
  Beach Cities Pizza
  The venerated harbor eatery with hilariously ugly '80s beach murals and peanut-ginger-chicken pies went 24/7 this year. Some locals don't even bother with the excellent, diverse pizza menu because there's no better 1 a.m. drunk food than a basket of Beach Cities' puffy, steaming... More >>
• Best Breakfast
  Mel's Diner
  Nearly lost in a Fountain Valley strip mall, Mel's Diner is more buried treasure than greasy spoon—if you can find it, good things await you. But in the quest for the perfect biscuits and gravy, Mel's is a bona-fide champion. Fresh, fluffy biscuits topped with smoky sausage... More >>
• Best Brewery
  Newport Beach Brewing Co.
  Any brewery with its city's name in the title needs to do two things: attract locals, and get them drunk. That's what happens at Newport Beach Brewing Co., where the bros and bro-ettes of the county's glitziest burg congregate either before or instead of a night in the clubs at the... More >>
• Best New Wine Bar With Occasional Beer Tastings As a Bonus
  4th Street Vine
  There's nothing more pleasant than drinking a glass of wine at a wine bar owned by people who refuse to be palate snobs. Said experience becomes even better when said owners are driven to generating old-school community (think pre-Facebook) the old-fashioned way: by hosting art openings,... More >>
• Best Steakhouse
  Stubrik's
  Bacon-wrapped filet mignon. It's as good as it sounds. Unless you order your meat "black and blue" style (stuffed with blue cheese and covered in gravy). Then it's even better. More >>
• Best Seafood Restaurant
  The Boiling Crab
  Of all the food trends to hit OC in the past decade, the Vietnamese Cajun-crawfish restaurant has to be most underappreciated. We don't know about you, but we've become inured to all those frozen-yogurt shops. But the crawfish craze? We're still living it. And it's because of one... More >>
• Best Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant
  The Veggie Grill
  The true success of a vegetarian restaurant is if you can forget you are eating at a vegetarian restaurant. Self-deception is a driving factor, if not the regrettable fact that you're usually doing it in the service of your doctor, the environment or that cute hippie you are trying to... More >>
• Best Bang for Your Booty (3 Comments)
  Pirate's Dinner Adventure
  Located just across the street from Medieval Times, this mammoth amphitheater-style restaurant features a life-size pirate ship with full rigging surrounded by a moat of water. The food is on the bland side—would you like chicken with beef or chicken with shrimp? Both go great with Bud... More >>
• Best Diner
  Jongewaard's Bake-n-Broil
  If Martha Stewart and Norman Rockwell brainstormed an American diner, Jongewaard's Bake-n-Broil would be the result. Pretty and prim like the stuff in her catalog, but classically American like his paintings, Jongewaard is everything you'd want in a diner. The lunch counter is the... More >>
• Best Coffeehouse
  The Lost Bean
  There's just something organic about the Lost Bean's existence in its Tustin neighborhood mini-mall, and it's not the organic coffee, organic tea and organic water (we're not making that last one up). This anti-Starbucks really seems like it grew out of the ground,... More >>
• Best Place to Feel Fat for Cheap
  Royal Donuts
  A hamburger combo meal will set you back $6.15 at this aging snackbar-looking joint, but it'll be the last $6.15 you'll have to spend for a while. The burger—greasy, generous, hot—is standard independent fast-food fare, and the combo includes a soda and a large order of... More >>
• Best Sunday Brunch
  Omelette Parlor
  Although it doesn't offer a specific brunch menu, Costa Mesa's Omelette Parlor wins this category just the same. As any true local will tell you, on Sunday or any other day, it's that rare treasure: a breakfast joint that's open well into the afternoon (3 p.m.), where you can... More >>
• Best Bottomless Mimosas
  212 Bistro
  There's always a catch, right? Overpriced, a lot of OJ, a time limit, really cheap champagne—something. The bottomless mimosa is such a rarity these days that to see it is on a menu is to not actually believe it's real. But at 212 Bistro, where an affordable Sunday brunch is served... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant
  Las Brisas de Apatzingan
  This SanTana dive should also get an award for most beautiful restaurant name (the Breezes of Apatzingan, a beautiful colonial-era town in the Mexican state of Michoacán), but let's focus on the food: specialties from its hometown state that you can only find in this restaurant and... More >>
• Best Italian Restaurant
  Cafe Piccolo
  Cafe Piccolo is an Italian restaurant in name, and it does offer plenty of familiar Italian specialties—but not spaghetti or meatballs. The owner is Persian-born. The dining areas are lit like it's perennially Christmas. And in the food, you'll find Thai nam prik, Spanish salsa and... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant
  Tandoor Cuisine of India
  You've been to Indian buffets, but have you been to Tandoor? The trays are crammed with a variety as staggering as the population of Mumbai. Behold silken gravies of different shades and spicing intensities, from a harmless tikka masala to a blazing vindaloo. The waiters in this airy,... More >>
• Best Japanese Restaurant
  Café Hiro
  There are as many subgenres of Japanese restaurants as there are kinds of Japanese food: izakayas, sushi bars, teppanyakis, yakinikus, ramenyas—and that's just naming a few! Then there's Café Hiro, a 7-year-old local anomaly that not only defies classification, but also... More >>
• Best Chinese Restaurant
  King Lobster Palace
  You could take the 57 north, then the 60 west to the San Gabriel Valley to eat in Chinese-food mecca, or you could go to Orange, where you can feast like those suckers who made the hour-long trek. Here, King Lobster's signature dish, the House Special Lobster, outdoes even the grandest... More >>
• Best Thai Restaurant
  Siam Taste of Asia
  Never has a restaurant received so much goodwill for such stunning food yet remained so perpetually desolate, but that's the sad story of this strip-mall Thai treasure. A phenomenon of Yelp, Chowhound and Orange County foodie circles, Siam Taste of Asia distinguishes itself from the giants... More >>
• Best Use of a Portmanteau
  Cambinos Asian BBQ
  The name is a combination of Cambodian and Filipino, after the Cambodian owner and his Filipina wife. But any conclusions you might infer from this knowledge would be wrong; Cambinos Asian BBQ is neither a Cambodian nor a Filipino restaurant. It serves what can only be classified as backyard... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Restaurant
  Oh! Me Ly
  Little Saigon-area restaurants aren't always known for cleanliness, warm settings and pleasant waiters. Yet those less-than-alluring-establishments offer some of the tastiest Vietnamese food. We're elated to report that Oh! Me Ly is a place that combines colorful aesthetic charm and... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Restaurant Not In Little Saigon
  Benley: A Vietnamese Kitchen
  No self-respecting Vietnamese or anyone with even remedial knowledge of Little Saigon would ever pay $8.95 for a bowl of pho. And we don't suggest you do so, either, even if Benley is the restaurant offering it. But that doesn't mean we don't love this place. Cut from the same... More >>
• Best Middle Eastern Restaurant
  Kareem's Restaurant
  You can spend years visiting this tiny Little Arabia institution and only ordering a falafel pita, and those would be years well-spent—owners Mike and Nancy Hawari's legendary take on the Levant staple brings in people from across California, all patiently waiting for weighty chickpea... More >>
• Best Culinary Bring-It-On
  El Pollo Loco's Anti-KFC TV Ads
  The Crazy Chicken is the rare fast-food ethnic chain with legitimate roots: It was started in Mexico by Mexicans before taking its charbroiled bird to Americans. So you can imagine its anger when fried-chicken behemoth KFC began selling grilled chicken. And when the going got tough, these Costa... More >>
• Best Location for a Fast-Food Restaurant
  Flame Broiler at the Lakes
  A waterfall is a waterfall, even if it's an artificial one. At the Lakes across from South Coast Plaza, it cascades, gurgles and soothes as it flows into a man-made lake shaded by transplanted trees. Above you, palm fronds rustle. A warm breeze kisses the water, which ripples from the touch.... More >>
• Best Juice Bar
  Mil Jugos
  Despite its name, this cozy joint near the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse serves only 22 fantastic varieties of blended tropical drinks, not 1,000. But never has a two-digit number seemed so infinite. There's everything from apple and orange to passion fruit, mango and tamarind. It's... More >>
• Best Farmers' Market
  Long Beach Southeast Farmers' Market
  That's the formal name; you might know it better as just "the farmers' market at Alamitos Bay Marina." If you live in LBC, H.B., S.B., the other S.B., or an even-farther-afield acronymic community, this is your Sunday source for all things farmers'-markety. (Harbor Area... More >>
• Best Fish Market
  Bear Flag Fish Co.
  This trendy market in Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula offers a wide array of fresh fish—everything from yellowtail, mahi mahi and opah to thresher shark, ling cod and catfish—as well as a healthy assortment of shellfish. It's also a great place for a seafood lunch,... More >>
• Best Deli
  Mattern Sausage and Meats
  Going to Mattern is akin to taking a trip to Bavaria while reaffirming all of your previous assumptions about the quality of German meat, i.e., it's delicious and there's a lot of it. The owners are immigrants from Germany, and they make their own sausage, something you can definitely... More >>
• Best Bakery
  85°C Bakery Cafe
  By the time you read this, the 85°C Bakery Café bakery in Irvine will have been open almost a year. But the lines? They'll look exactly like they have since Day One. Newcomers will wonder, "What is it with these people? Have they never seen a bakery before?" Yes, but not... More >>
• Best Bread
  Sangak at Wholesome Choice
  Four feet of burnt, chewy, warm Persian flatbread for less than $3. Only problem: The wait is usually half an hour. Mitigating factor: Persian women are hot. More >>
• Best Homemade Pastries (1 Comment)
  Crema Café
  There's nothing better than walking up to a café and catching a whiff of butter and cinnamon. It's the smell of things fresh and baking, and that's what you smell when you stroll up to Crema Café. There are other things going on—eggs, foamy lattes, Belgian... More >>
• Best Bagels
  Krazy Eddy's Donut Shop
  Bagels don't need to leave you in a carb coma, and Krazy Eddy realizes this. His are thinner than the average bagel and toasted to leave the outside crispy and the innards soft. The ingredients pop: The jalapeño bagel is actually spicy, the sesame-seed bagel actually flavorful. And... More >>
• Best French Toast
  Brie and Strawberry French Toast at Renaissance Bistro
  Brunch menus can be so dull, what with the same old eggs Benedict and short stacks being thrown around at every restaurant, but Renaissance Bistro offers something spectacular to break up the monotony: brie-and-strawberry French toast. Delicious crostinis are battered in whipped egg, then placed... More >>
• Best Salad
  Old Vine Café's Caprese of Mozarella Buratta
  In case you didn't know, Buratta is a mixture of buffalo mozzarella and cream that tastes like butter. At Old Vine Café, the buratta is mixed with arugula that's been flash-fried in citrus-infused olive oil and served with grape tomatoes. At $14 per plate, it's not... More >>
• Best Fish and Chips
  The Chippy Fish & Chips
  You'd think it would be easy enough to find a fish-and-chip joint that uses real fish, not that cubed, reformed stuff sold by Sysco. But you'd be wrong. That's why the Chippy Fish & Chips is special. This fast-food stall, located in a food court a short walk from John Wayne... More >>
• Best Sushi
  Sushi Shibucho
  It is a fact that personal relationships develop between every sushi-lover and his or her preferred itamae (sushi chef). Because of this, this category becomes a very subjective one: Everyone has his or her favorite sushi joint. But if we had to pick simply based on the scarcity of bar seats, it... More >>
• Best Burrito
  Taqueria Tapatia
  In this world of rising tortilla prices, in this county of 11 p.m. restaurant closings, it's wonderful and comforting to know you can visit this longstanding SanTana standard and enjoy a massive, cheap burrito until 3 in the morn. But convenience isn't the only reason Tapatia's... More >>
• Best Mole Poblano
  Mario's Restaurant
  Both locations of this family-friendly eatery are probably best known for their happy-hour drink specials and stomach-stretching, perhaps overly cheesy dinner platters. A hidden delight, buried deep inside the menu, is the mole poblano, a delicious plate of shredded chicken breast drizzled in... More >>
• Best Fish with Nuts
  Pecan-Crusted Salmon at Café Hidalgo
  There are some dishes you experience whose taste lingers with you for days. The pecan-crusted salmon ($20.95) at Café Hidalgo is one of them. This thick fillet of salmon is bathed in a honey-dijon sauce that tastes almost caramelized, then it's topped with crushed pecans and served... More >>
• Best Persian Koobideh Kebab
  The Orchid Restaurant
  There has to be a secret to the tastiest of koobideh kebabs. The plump, handmade Persian morsels are a mixture of minced meat (chicken, beef or lamb), onions, parsley and spices, which doesn't seem so complicated. But it must be, especially if the succulent bobbing little bits of meat that... More >>
• Best Ketchup
  Chapman University Cafeteria
  The semi-refrigerated Heinz ketchup at the cafeteria in the university's Argyros Forum is so delicious you'll want to take it home with you. Just ask convicted condiment thief and ex-Orange Unified School District Trustee Steve Rocco! More >>
• Best Pho (1 Comment)
  828 Pho
  You'll appreciate the pho at 828, a little Vietnamese gem that within the past year opened its doors in Santa Ana—far from the heart of Little Saigon. Luckily for us—and for Santa Ana (where pho sightings are rare)—828 delivers heartily. The chicken pho here is light,... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Spring Rolls
  Vietnam Pearl
  Available prepackaged for a quick snack or light lunch, the shrimp-only, shrimp-and-pork or tofu-only rolls at Vietnam Pearl are a steal. Because the owners here don't skimp on any of the complementary elements —the requisite cilantro, basil or mint sprigs wedged neatly beside... More >>
• Best Use of Lava
  Chong Qing Mei Wei
  More than Sri Lankan black curry, more than a torta ahogada, even more than habanero salsa chugged from a shot glass, the spiciest dish ever to grace Orange County is the pork spareribs offered at Chong Qing Mei Wei. So many dried, gnarled red chiles adorn the dish that it looks as if someone... More >>
• Best Dosa
  The Mysore Masala Dosa at Dosa Place
  Like the rest of the 18 dosas on the menu, this chutney-and-potato-filled delicacy doesn't even come close to fitting on the plate its served upon. Each flaky corner of the oversized rice-and-lentil pancake juts a good three or four inches off the side. It's served with a small bowl of... More >>
• Best Hamburger
  Mesa
  You're going to pay a few extra bucks, but it won't matter. Unlike other gourmet burgers that cost the same for a half-pound of Angus chuck drizzled in exotic toppings, the chuck at Mesa comes from the reputable Niman Ranch, home of happy, grass-fed cows. You will taste the difference.... More >>
• Best Build-Your-Own Teeny-Tiny Gourmet Burger
  Bouchees Bistro at Smooth's
  If White Castle suddenly went gourmet, it might look something like this: A tiny, cloud-like bun cradling a juicy little mound of steaming beef, turkey or ahi tuna, as well as any of a range of tiny toppings—sautéed onions, avocado, gruyere cheese, roasted tomatoes, garlic pickles,... More >>
• Best Hot Dog
  The Walkin' Dog
  Hot-dog vendors have been outlawed in LA. A shame for them, but lucky us: We still have one in Ken Morrone. But to call him a hot-dog vendor would be insulting. He pushes no cart. His preferred cooking apparatus is a full-on gas grill, which he sets up in front of the REI in Santa Ana for his... More >>
• Best French Fries
  Andrei's Conscious Cuisine & Cocktails
  Sorry to burst your bubble: Most restaurants use frozen fries. Most fast-food joints do (with the exception of In-N-Out). But we mean real, sit-down places that you'd expect to make fries from scratch. Even Thomas Keller, whose Bouchon is set atop the Venetian in Las Vegas, admits to using... More >>
• Best Pizza
  Pizzeria Ortica
  The crust! Oh, the crust! Born from a 300-year-old starter, massaged by a knowing knead, then slid into an oak-burning oven to blister and bubble, the pizza at David Myers' Pizzeria Ortica makes you feel like you're tasting pizza for the first time—at least, pizza as it's meant... More >>
• Best Pizza Deal
  Pizza Shack
  If Tuesdays are synonymous with cheap tacos, Monday's should belong to pizza, especially because of the large, one-topping pie that Pizza Shack offers at a discounted rate on that day. As of this writing, the price tops at $7.93 (tax included) between 5 and 9 p.m. for takeout orders at this... More >>
• Best Reason to Never Order From Papa John's
  Zpizza's Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza Rustica
  Sure, you're thinking, Zpizza is a chain. Well, yes, it is, but that chain did open its first restaurant in 1986 in health-conscious Laguna Beach. All Zpizzas are made from certified organic ingredients. And unlike the traditional, circular pizza pie, the rustica pizzas are shaped like... More >>
• Best Coffee
  Lavazza at Finbars Italian Kitchen
  You might not think of Finbars Italian Kitchen as a great place to get a cup of coffee (more like a great place for an Italian dinner), but the brand they brew up is one of the finer joes around. It's called Lavazza, and it's been delighting coffee-lovers for more than a century with its... More >>
• Best Boba
  Tastea
  You think you've got this whole boba thing figured out. It's not that mysterious, really. Big ol' cup of flavored iced tea, big ol' balls of tapioca, all sucked through a big ol' straw. But . . . hold on a sec—are the tapioca balls at Tastea actually green? Don't... More >>
• Best Dessert
  Koo's Catering Truck
  Way before food trucks were cool, there was Koo's Catering Truck. Parked outside Freshia, a Tustin Korean market, every Friday night, Koo's Catering Truck offers freshly made, piping-hot hodduk, which translates to hot rice cake in Korean. Hodduks may look like pancakes, but they're... More >>
• Best Cupcake
  French's Cupcake Bakery
  Dreaming of a chocolatey wonder wrapped around a whole, tart raspberry and topped with sinfully rich ganache? How about the perfect blend of mocha, chocolate and chocolate chips, with a dollop of fresh whipped cream, a dusting of cocoa powder and the energy boost that can only come from a... More >>
• Best Ice Cream (1 Comment)
  Hans' Homemade Ice Cream
  It may be cash-only (boooooo!), but Hans' Homemade Ice Cream is well-worth a trip to the ATM. More traditional flavors are definitely up there—Swiss Orange Chip tastes like an orange Toblerone!—but it's the seasonal flavors that are really worthy: pumpkin, peach and even... More >>
• Best Gelato
  Café Lucca
  This small Tuscany-style café evokes an old-school, Italian charm. It may be the warm golden light or the murals of sunny Italy on the walls. Or it may be the gelato, one bite of which will make you want to head toward the nearest piazza. Made fresh every day with real fruit flavors, it... More >>
• Best Enduring Frozen-Yogurt Phenomenon
  Golden Spoon
  Since its founding in 1982, Golden Spoon has survived something like 26 separate frozen-yogurt crazes, including the most recent Pinkberry-Red Mango wars. And so, while its yogurt might be the blandest of all the chains, its cult is the strongest. Mention "Yogurtland" to any of the... More >>