Barbecuing and Grilling

Guttermouth

Tiki Bar

Kansas City Barbecue Competition

Phoenix Club

Another Concept/Name Change At "Tustin's Most Cursed Restaurant Location"

If you've read this blog for the past couple of years, you'd know of my fascination about a particular shack on Newport & Walnut in Tustin. Every time there's a change in ownership and/or concept, I write about it. I am the unofficial historian of what comes and goes in what I joking referred to ... More >>

Eat This Now: Smoked Baby Back Ribs at The Tulsa Rib Company

​American barbecue tends to be big food (the they-killed-a-cow-just-for-me kind of big food) and, when I think big food, what comes to mind is me, sitting in a restaurant, shoulders slumped, posture completely destroyed, feeling badly about having actually eaten everything. This isn't true of the ... More >>

5 Foods That Always Taste Better Made at Restaurants than Made at Home. Always.

If I hear someone pronounce EVOO i-vuu one more time, I'm going to shoot myself...​You. Yeah, I know you. Your knife skills are up there with the best line chefs in Orange County. Your knife block costs more than a month of my rent. Every time you watch Top Chef, Chopped, or Iron Chef, you come up ... More >>

Become a Certified BBQ Judge!

​The last time we talked BBQ for the New Year's Eve contest at Knott's Splash Mountain, I promised you an inside view of the judges' tent of a sanctioned barbecue contest. This week: a video and a discussion of how competition barbecue is scored, plus information on where you can become a certifie ... More >>

Two BBQ Contests at Knott's Soak City Dec. 31 and Jan. 1

ProfessorSalt.comCompetition-grade spare ribs from Tropical Heat BBQ Team​Would you guess that Orange County hosts more sanctioned barbecue contests than L.A. County? It's true. We're not talking about unsanctioned "rib burns," either, but legitimate contests with certified judges like you'd find ... More >>

Gourmet Grill Masters Has Chicken that Don't Stop!

[Hole In the Wall] The famous rotisserie-chicken purveyor opens its first restaurant . . . in Irvine?!

Gourmet Grill Masters Opens in Irvine

Edwin Goei​Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold described the chicken at the previously mobile-only Gourmet Grill Masters this way:"The chicken at Grill Masters stands a cluck or two above the rest: extravagantly seasoned fowl cooked on rotating spits, perfumed with smoke, slow-roasted ... More >>

Dana Point BBQ Championship

ProfessorSalt.comBeef brisket from Los Alamitos team Inhale BBQ​Last Friday and Saturday, September 23 - 24, fifty BBQ teams from across the Western states took over the lush lawns of Sea Terrace Park for the inaugural Dana Point BBQ Championship. Top teams featured on TLC's BBQ Pitmasters show su ... More >>

3hree Things: On Improving Your Summer BBQs

Watch out for 3hree Things every Tuesday, where Riley Breckenridge, drummer of Orange County's favorite local alt-rock band Thrice, gives his take on life in Southern California as an OC native.​Summer officially starts next week, which means BBQ season is officially in full swing (altho ... More >>

This Week in Food: Mother-Daughter Kimchi, Chewbacca Soba, and

Flickr user tsechuen26​So many great posts, so little time to read--so get the highlights after the jump!

How To Grill Perfect Hot Dogs and Burgers

Flickr user abbyladybugDay of the dead... hot dogs​You've been to that family picnic: the one where Uncle Hank mans the grill and cremates innocent frankfurters. You know the kind: blistered, third-degree burns on the outside, and still-frozen on the inside? Stop the zombie meatsicles! This week m ... More >>

Five Great Ways to Properly Start a Charcoal Fire for Your BBQ

ProfessorSalt.com​ Now that days run longer and the weather warmer, it's time to start cooking outdoors on a regular basis again. Sure, you can be all jackrabbit quick about it and set the propane grill to "inferno" and be ready to cook in less than 15 seconds. But where's the skill in that? Or t ... More >>

It's DIY Time At Bari Bari Japanese BBQ

OC's latest yakiniku lets you take the teppan into your own hands

Greg Howe of Raya at The Ritz-Carlton, Part Three

Kimberly Valenzuela​Today, as is the custom of this On The Line series, our subject, Chef Greg Howe, shares a recipe. If you missed the first and second part of his Q&A, click here and here. Otherwise read on for recipe to replicate a Ritz-Carlton dish in your very own kitchen.

Now You're Cooking With Wood

©Professor SaltSplitsville!​This Labor Day weekend, you're probably planning on doing something involving an open flame and some meat (or at least s'mores). Where do you get good firewood in this county, where we cut down all our fruit orchards decades ago to build subdivisions? At The Woodshed i ... More >>

Soulstice Lovefest

Will Reid Scout Camp

Que'n For Kids: The OC BBQ Festival Is This Weekend

OC BBQ Festival​Quick, what are you doing this weekend?Does it involve meat?No? Well, it should. Orange County's BBQ Festival is coming up this Saturday, June 12, 2010 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa.

Memorial Day: What to Do Today?

Flickr user DClemmLaguna Beach: Doesn't this look like fun?​Bored? Why are you at home? Still have no idea what to do today? Check out our handy calendar listings for barbecues, free live music and more. 

Hebaragi's Cheeky Barbecue

From pig jowls to beef stomach to plain old steak, it all tastes amazing at this Korean eatery

Ethnic Eating 101: Korean, Part 1

phy @ flickr.com CC BY-NC-ND 2.0Korean restaurants have Seoul... get it?​Welcome to the new year of Ethnic Eating 101! Sorry for the unannounced hiatus; I was hung over--tequila is a delicious but cruel potion.While the wonders of Vietnamese cooking could fill up half a year's posts, the Vietnames ... More >>

Calling All Loquat Tree Owners!

Ernest Miller is a cook at the Disneyland Resort who also blogs at Culinary Safaris and is enrolled alongside my chica in the Master Food Preserver that has me going to San Bernardino more times than any non-909er should ever have to. He has an interesting request for SAFII readers: anyone has loqua ... More >>

Once Hopping BBQ Superstore Says Sayonara

For years, Barbeques Galore seemed to do brisk business in a little Costa Mesa strip center it shared with a liquor store, Big 5 Sporting Goods and Wherehouse Records. Then, in no particular order, Wherehouse went online only, a larger, adjacent shopping center at Harbor Boulevard and Wilson Street ... More >>

[This Hole-in-the-Wall Life] The Yellow Cup of Texas at Dickey's Barbecue Pit

Weenie Roast

Allen Baylis, you and your fellow nudie burgers just won the right to continue sunbathing in the buff at Trail 6 on San Onofre State Beach. What are you going to do next? "We'll probably have a barbecue at the beach this weekend." What, you thought they were going to Disneyland? Baylis, a Huntin ... More >>

Crazy Good

Los Fabulocos

'This Is Bloody War'

A five-month feud between roommates some 150 years in the making

Trendzilla

'You’re all crazy'

Pricey Morning in America

Mitt Romney may like him some outdoor barbecue and bouncy houses, but it seems that Rudy Giuliani prefers breakfast as his OC fund-raising venue. However, those eggs and bacon will cost you -- got $2,300 or more? Want to blow it all on a photo op with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Frontrunner? Then get your ... More >>

Decadence - One Man's Experience

Here was how my train of thought went: Parking at a hotel will probably be around $12. But it's only 9 miles away. And I would like to indulge in free alcohol. How much could a cab possibly be? I know that long-time OC residents are laughing already. Cab was $25. And once you've taken it one way, ... More >>

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Mothering Your Meat at Ku Wol San

Mean Girls

In Sexpectations, the truth hurts

'Devo Mixed With Seventh Grade'

Single Cell debunks black holes

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Just Like Arkansas: Rick's Secret Spot

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

O, Brilliant, Fatty Wonder! Bacon-wrapped hot dogs at the Santa Ana Farmers Market

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Cute cue

Mahina Hawaiian BBQ

This Week in Beef That's Not Steak or Hamburgers

Pig Pickin Paradise

Dine with local Cack-a-lacks at Kill Devils

Myung Ga Tofu House

Meat Me in Hell

A guide to great food

Delinquent Habits

Not Getting Laid With the Orphans

Soju Satori

Is the Korean liquor soju the next St. Johns Wort?

J

Memphis Style

Jay Bees offers real barbecue and Jenny Jones on the picture box

Khan Game

The interactivity of BDs Mongolian Barbeque

A Guide to our Advertisers

Alone With the Yuppie Chair Militia

The Straight Guy at the Gay Pool Party

And other tales from the political season