Beijing

Tri-Village Northern Chinese Cuisine Closes in Irvine; Korean Soup Restaurant To Take Its Place

This one's kind of a bummer. Tri-Village Northern Chinese Cuisine, which at one time served one of the better Peking ducks in our fair county and the recipient of many honors we've bestowed (including the Best Chinese Restaurant in our 2011 Best Of Issue), has finally shuttered. 

Peking Gourmet's Chachiang-Cha-Changes

The Garden Grove staple's Korean-style Chinese noodle dishes remain old-school Little Seoul

Mongolian Hot Pot Counting Sheep

The Little Sheep chain introduces the Chinese fad to Irvine

The "World's 50 Best" List Is Published, Is Usual Steaming Pile of Irrelevance

Oh, look, this year's edition of "The World's 50 Best Restaurants", sponsored by San Pellegrino and its subsidiary Acqua Panna, has come out. Cue the precious online debates and the bored yawns from the rest of the world.Ranked lists of the best anything are patent bollocks: they necessarily reflec ... More >>

CNNGo Publishes First Ever Worthy National-Media List of Chinese Restaurants

​Whenever I read a best-of list in the national media, I wince internally. They're usually either cobbled together by looking at the Internet and seeing which ones are mentioned most often--which results in a kind of small-scale Zagat guide, prone to the hype machine--or they're put together by pe ... More >>

On the Line: Gretchen Beaumarchais of Honda Center, Part One

Photo by Meranda CarterShe caters to evvvvvverybody!​It's one thing to serve hundreds of guests per day, but how about thousands in a single night? That's the monumental task Gretchen Beaumarchais prepares for during hockey season and concerts. Amidst cameras setting up for UFC and Ducks skating t ... More >>

Freeway Pollution Linked to Brain Damage, Autism

​Robert Lee Hotz of the Wall Street Journal, of all places, put it best: "Congested cities are fast becoming test tubes for scientists studying the impact of traffic fumes on the brain."And what are these researchers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Boston, New York, North Carolina, Beij ... More >>

Dana Rohrabacher Takes Hypocritical Stance on Space Technology Transfers To China

OC Congressman: Please pay no attention to my hypocrisy​This week, newspapers reported that Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher was outraged because President Barack Obama's administration is allegedly jeopardizing national security by sharing sensitive satellite technology with China.Of co ... More >>

As Ducks Die in OC, Are Gnatcatchers Next?

Small but deadly to land developers.​Readers of the Weekly before there was a Weekly may recall the California gnatcatcher, a cute little bird who managed to stop development in its tracks in Orange County in the early 1990s, cause Donald Bren to forever be saddled with a menacing Mr. Burns squint ... More >>

Artist Discovers Chinese Knock-off of His Sculpture Outside Offices of OC Billionaire Igor Olenicoff

Don Wakefield​Monrovia-based sculptor Don Wakefield recently saw his large-scale, granite sculpture Untitled outside Seven Corporate Plaza in Newport Beach. But on closer inspection, he discovered it was a fake of the 6-x-4-foot work he and artist friend Joseph "Chick" Glickman designed and creat ... More >>

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup Restaurant to Open at Diamond Jamboree

​A few years ago, there was a noticeable upswing in ramen activity. We saw not one, not two, but three ramen-yas opening in Irvine (Ajisen, Mizuki and Shizuma), all within the span of two years. Now it seems we are in the midst of another noodle-soup arms race in Irvine. This time, it looks l ... More >>

A Chopstick Tree Grows in Brooklyn--Err, Beijing

Flickr user Dan4th​Now that I think of it, Little Saigon restaurants are much better at offering plastic, reusable chopsticks than local Korean and Chinese eateries. I've never noticed a quantitative difference between those and fresh chopsticks--if anything, the reusable ones never kept stray spl ... More >>

Pensive, Yet Airborne

[Best of OC 2010] Yuri Tag's 10 OC Survival Tips

Kung Fu Hustle

Karate Kid remake too cynical to catch a fly with chopsticks

Getting Really Up Close and Very Personal at the AVP Huntington Beach Open of Volleyball

AVP NIVEA Tour/Peter Brouillet​There are a few sports that should only be played under certain conditions: hockey should only be played in areas where there's natural ice (sorry, Ducks fans); football should only be played in the middle of a snowstorm; and horseshoes should only be played with a b ... More >>

Eat, Drink and Gawk at Amazon Women in Two Pieces at AVP Huntington Beach Open

AVP NIVEA Tour/Peter Brouillet​This year's AVP Nivea Tour Huntington Beach Open kicks off Friday, and since there's no better way to start the summer than enjoying the sun and sand of Surf City while watching mostly 6-foot-tall women slam leather-bound balls at each other at high velocities, the $ ... More >>

Chinese, Part 5

The cuisine of Northern China--Tianjin, Shandong, and Beijing--is shocking to someone who assumes that all Chinese people eat bowls of rice with sauce-laden stir-fry ladled on top. Rice doesn't grow in the northern reaches of China; the climate is more like Chicago than Atlanta. While Shandong food ... More >>

Dana Rohrabacher Wants Feds To Restrict Internet Companies

Dana: consistently inconsistent​Dana Rohrabacher might just be the most consistent member of Congress--consistently inconsistent that is. The Huntington Beach politician--who likes to be called "a patriot" or a libertarian but not so much a Republican--is interested in writing a federal law that p ... More >>

On the Line: Bobby Bognar of History Channel's "Food Tech"

Courtesy of Bobby Bognar​It's ironic that the latest food show to hit the airwaves isn't on the Food Network (they're much too busy showing pointless, boring challenge shows) but on the History Channel.Though the format is a lot like "Unwrapped" and "Follow That Food", the last time Marc Summers i ... More >>

The Restaurant Re-Tread: Café Hiro, Cypress

Monster Munching​Our own Edwin Goei has been lauding Café Hiro in Cypress for a very long time. Cypress isn't known for its culinary destinations, so when the opportunity came up to re-validate our capsule review, I jumped at it. While I was only able to visit once, I'm happy to report that it li ... More >>

25 Degrees Delivers on the Burgers, Overpromises on the Bordello

25 Degrees Opens In Huntington Beach; Newport Beach Location Next

www.25degreesrestaurant.com​Tim and Liza Goodell of Troquet fame (remember Troquet in SCP?) has opened another installment of their "burger bar meets bordello" concept at the old Huntington Beach stomping grounds that, at one time, used to be their Red Pearl Kitchen.If you're keeping track, Izakay ... More >>

Dana Rohrabacher is Going to Be Pissed

Dana Rohrabacher believes missiles should be pointed at China that way.A day after Rep. Dana Rohrabacher sent a blistering letter urging President Barack Obama "to unambiguously condemn the Communist Chinese government's violent crackdown on peaceful Uyghur protests in the Xinjiang province of China ... More >>

Looking Back at 2008: The Ecstasy and the Irony

This is not a look back at disgraced Sheriff Mike Carona, the Little Sheriff, the Debs, the Little Debbie Snack, the Freeway Complex Fire, Rick Warren, Wiley Drake, any lantern-jawed preacher with the last name of Schuller, pedo-priests, the 241 toll road extension, Proposition 8, fluctuating gasol ... More >>

Rockin' Like a 6.0

NASCAR Pepsi 500

Lock 'Em Up and Don't Even Have a Key

I know, I know, right-minded alternative weekly journos are not supposed to read the PR Newswire, but they have a cute story involving a Santa Ana bail bondsman that deserves repeating (or relinking or whatever it is you webizens call it). While vacationing in Beijing, China, Bob and Anne Miller of ... More >>

Darkness and Light

Shadow Magic

[Special Screenings] Local Screenings of 'Sir! No Sir' and More

Root for the Underdog

Summer Olympic 
Chomp-ionship

[Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'Harold and Maude,' 'Iron Giant,' 'Lawrence of Arabia,' More

[Moxley Confidential] Chi Mak, an OC-Based Spy for Communist China, Looked Like a Bumbling Nerd

Tuesday's Headlines & Surprises: Dana's Selective Memory

Can Bishop Brown Utter The Truth? Frank Mickadeit has an excellent column this morning on yesterday’s press conference by women who have been victimized at least three times--that would be: molested, ignored and then harassed--by Catholic Church officials. There will be more festivities today. Th ... More >>

grub guide

Special Screenings

Soy Cuba

Technicolor Yuan

Chinas most expensive film looks lovely but feels empty

E-male

One mans brave experiment in online dating

Histories of Violence

The Year of Atrocities

Fast, Hot, Cheap, Delicious

A & J Restaurant brings northern Chinese food to Irvinelike salted soymilk!

Eight Days

My Eight Marriages for the Mob

The Gang of Four Invades Orange County

Chen Yi speaks for Chinese music reborn

The Simulated Simulacra

Henry Tsangs visit to the other Orange County

Year of the Horse

Real life in Zhang Yangs Quitting

At Home, Hes a Tourist

Hong Kongs Stanley Kwan steps out of the shadows and into Beijing

Little Irvine?

Little Saigon sees a mainstream future

Suzie Wong Meets Lazy Susan

Peking Restaurants wheels of fortune

Coxs Flaccid Report

Vaunted Chinese Spy Report Unravels

The Raw and the Cooked

Getting to the heart of Irvines Chinese subculture

Lifes a Beach, Then You Sue

Great Walls

Chinese contemporary photo exhibits are the shows of the year