Chinese Food and Cooking

Pho Bo Vang, Ann's Pho & Teriyaki and Maison de Pho and the Closing of the Pho Frontier

A pho proliferation in South OC bodes well for the assimilation of Vietnamese food

Five Commandments of Food Writing

​It's 2012, people; the number of people writing about food is still growing, and the signal-to-noise ratio is getting worse and worse. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but not all of those opinions are worth reading. It's not just bad writing, unedited regurgitation of badly written press ... More >>

Ten Great Chinese Restaurants in Orange County

​Orange County doesn't have the San Gabriel Valley, lined end-to-end with great Chinese restaurants. We do, however, have Irvine, which is where most of these recommendations are, and where you can eat well from just about any region of China.As with all these sorts of lists, there will be the ine ... More >>

Huong Giang Is Hue Great

[Hole In the Wall] This Little Saigon standard excels with the dishes of Central Vietnam

Chao Down at Kang Lac Bakery

[Hole In the Wall] This Westminster standard sells the best rice porridge in OC

Brunch a Bunch Across OC!

OC's best brunches: The ethnic, the gorgeous views and the bottomless booze!

Panda Express Heading to . . . China?

Wiki CommonsPanda Express may introduce the people of China to . . . Chinese food--or at least the American bastardization of it.​First, Taco Bell made its way to Mexico. Now, Panda Express, which we can thank for bringing glazed orange chicken to mall food courts across the country, may find a pl ... More >>

Soup Dumplings in Mini-Tart Tins: Why Hasn't Anyone Else Thought of This?

​Ocean Star, in LA's new Chinatown in Monterey Park, now serves Shanghai-style soup dumplings, called 小籠包--xiao long bao. The problem with most services of soup dumplings is that they arrive four or eight to an order still in the steamer basket, and the act of transferring them to a spoon, d ... More >>

Mall Food Court Turo-Turo: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Dave Lieberman​I don't know why it never occurred to me that Filipino turo-turo ("point-point") food is a perfect fit for a mall food court. You almost never see Filipino food in malls, even though you see takes on Chinese, Japanese and Hawaiian.

Drunk After Work: Asian Tapas

Edwin Goei​The Place: Asian Tapas, 6380 Irvine Boulevard, Irvine, (949) 651-8999; www.asian-tapas.com/. The Hours: Mon.-Fri. 5 p.m.-6:30 p.m. The Deal: All 16 ounce draft beers and domestic beers are $2.00 each, and all 16 ounce imported beers are $3.00 each. Prices on shochu and sake range bet ... More >>

Eat Here, Not There: Orange Chicken

Dave Lieberman​This is Orange County. Our best efforts here at Stick A Fork In It notwithstanding, Orange County loves chain food, and we love our comfort food. Even we, your indefatigable food bloggers, occasionally succumb to the lure of the fast food and the national chain.That doesn't mean, ho ... More >>

Using Dim Sum As Weaponry--Five Other Alternatives

Flickr user avlxyzSince they are not normally classed as a weapon, xiao long bao can give you the element of surprise.​As our sister blog, Squid Ink, reported on Monday, Albert Y. M. Huang, the mayor of San Gabriel, was arrested after an altercation at a dumpling house. Mr. Huang got into an argum ... More >>

The 2010 OC Weekly Readers' Poll: Better, But Still A Lot Of WTF

​Well, you've definitely improved, Gentle Readers.You picked Kéan Coffee once again as the best coffeehouse in OC, and I wiped a tear of pride from my eyes. My heart swelled as I read that the Bruery is your favorite brewery, that Slater's 50/50 is where OC loves to get a hamburger, and that Rach ... More >>

Drunk After Work: Ws China Bistro

Edwin GoeiThe Place: Ws China Bistro, 17585 Harvard Ave. Suite A., Irvine, CA 92614, (949) 757-1588; http://www.wschinabistro.com. The Hours: Saturday & Sunday 12 p.m.-6 p.m.; Monday-Friday 4 p.m.-7 p.m.; Thursday 4 p.m.-9 p.m. The Deal: $3-$6 appetizers. $8 entrees. $4 beer. $4 wine. $5 ... More >>

Good Shrimp/Fish Tacos, False Advertising at Baja Cachanilla

Cachanilla is also a plant...​I've always enjoyed the shrimp and fish tacos at Baja Cachanilla in SanTana--each juicy, plump, on handmade tortillas and topped with one of the thicker, sweeter fish taco creams you'll find. It's better than Baja Fresh just a couple of blocks down Bristol, and Wahoo' ... More >>

Chinese, Part 4

I desperately wanted to do a piece on Qinghai food in the area, given the news recently; I figured they may have relatives back home to support, but unfortunately Qinghai is not renowned for its food; not a single place could I find that sells niangpi (dough cakes) or caterpillar fungus (ranked with ... More >>

Trieu Chau vs. New Trieu Chau?

These two noodle joints are separated at broth

Chinese, Part 2

Arguably the most familiar Chinese regional cuisine in the United States, Cantonese food got its start with the first Chinese immigrants to San Francisco. At that point they had to make do with what ingredients were available to them. Cantonese food in the US isn't like that anymore.tracyhunter @ fl ... More >>

Chinese, Part 1

Entire years, entire careers, entire lifetimes have been spent writing about Chinese cuisine, and yet it's arguably the cuisine least well-represented in the vast bulk of America. As hard as it to hear, the Chinese food that comes delivered in those little white Tetra-Paks™ with the red pagodas an ... More >>

Baked Crispy Bread With Almond Cream at Capital Seafood

Jessica Ford Capital Seafood in the Diamond Jamboree Center of Irvine has all of the necessary qualities of a fine dining establishment--linen napkins, chandelier lighting and attentive servers--without the prices such touches suggest. This most upscale outpost of the mini-chain of Chinese ... More >>

The Names of the Dim Sum

"You know, the... the... the thing! With the pork. And the floppy rice noodles. You know, that you put the sauce on."Dim sum, or yum cha as it's sometimes called, is meant to be a relaxing occasion. You're supposed to drink a lot of tea, eat some salty or sweet snacks, and chew the fat (so to speak) ... 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 >>

A Video That Answers "Who is General Tso and Why Are We Eating His Chicken?"

For some of you this might be old news, as the video above was made available about a year ago via TED -- a speaker's medium I've always admired featuring lectures from Al Gore to concerts by beatboxers. But it's new to me and made me laugh like no other lecture has done before. The speech is a ... More >>

The Northern Chinese Fare at Asian Tapas Isn't Really Tapas, But It Is Delectable

For some of you this might be old news, as the video above was made available about a year ago via TED -- a speaker's medium I've always admired featuring lectures from Al Gore to concerts by beatboxers. But it's new to me and made me laugh like no other lecture has done before. The speech is a ... More >>

I've Revealed A Secret; Now It's Your Turn

Edwin Goei​If you've picked up the latest edition of The Weekly -- which is, by the way, our annual, and might I say, awesome Best of OC Issue (okay, I'm done with the shameless plug) -- you might have noticed my review of May Garden's secret menu in the usual Food section. During a chat wit ... More >>

The Secret Menu at May Garden Opens Up a Whole New World of Taiwanese Tastes

Edwin Goei​If you've picked up the latest edition of The Weekly -- which is, by the way, our annual, and might I say, awesome Best of OC Issue (okay, I'm done with the shameless plug) -- you might have noticed my review of May Garden's secret menu in the usual Food section. During a chat wit ... More >>

Go Around the World In 50 States (or Cities, or Regions, or Styles, or Whatever)

Edwin Goei​If you've picked up the latest edition of The Weekly -- which is, by the way, our annual, and might I say, awesome Best of OC Issue (okay, I'm done with the shameless plug) -- you might have noticed my review of May Garden's secret menu in the usual Food section. During a chat wit ... More >>

Is P.F. Chang's good? And News About Irvine's China Garden.

Edwin GoeiTwo stories involving Chinese food caught my attention last week. First, there's local news about what is arguably one of OC's best Chinese restaurants, China Garden in Irvine. Fellow OC Food Blogger Julian Hsu has the scoop. In his post, he writes: "We just ate there for dimsum lunch t ... More >>

Capital Seafood's Glitzy New Irvine Location Fits Right Into Diamond Jamboree Plaza

Edwin GoeiTwo stories involving Chinese food caught my attention last week. First, there's local news about what is arguably one of OC's best Chinese restaurants, China Garden in Irvine. Fellow OC Food Blogger Julian Hsu has the scoop. In his post, he writes: "We just ate there for dimsum lunch t ... More >>

Royal Kitchen Just Might Be Cooking Up a Coup to Reign as King of Irvine's Chinese-Restaurant Scene

Edwin GoeiTwo stories involving Chinese food caught my attention last week. First, there's local news about what is arguably one of OC's best Chinese restaurants, China Garden in Irvine. Fellow OC Food Blogger Julian Hsu has the scoop. In his post, he writes: "We just ate there for dimsum lunch t ... More >>

Guess What Restaurants Will Be Open Today?

Ask anyone of the Jewish faith what they're doing for Christmas and they'll tell you, "Chinese food and a movie." But Chinese restaurants are also the refuge of those who can't or don't want to cook on the 25th. It's common knowledge nowadays that they'll be open. Christmas Day is usually their b ... More >>

Out-of-County Experience: Dim Sum at New Capital in Rowland Heights

If we're in a recession, someone forgot to tell the Chinese. Yesterday, the dim sum crowd at New Capital in Rowland Heights was as crazy as always.  Judging by the number of people milling about outside waiting for a table, this go-to place for dim sum in the eastern part of San Gabriel Valle ... More >>

Barcelona Comes to Fullerton Via Lizarran Tapas

If we're in a recession, someone forgot to tell the Chinese. Yesterday, the dim sum crowd at New Capital in Rowland Heights was as crazy as always.  Judging by the number of people milling about outside waiting for a table, this go-to place for dim sum in the eastern part of San Gabriel Valle ... More >>

A Chicken-Foot Fetish at Fullerton’s California Asian Bistro

If we're in a recession, someone forgot to tell the Chinese. Yesterday, the dim sum crowd at New Capital in Rowland Heights was as crazy as always.  Judging by the number of people milling about outside waiting for a table, this go-to place for dim sum in the eastern part of San Gabriel Valle ... More >>

Sucking in the '70s

The grub at Wong’s is sublime, if you don’t mind dangly tassels

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Food Court Peruvian: LIMA CITY

Grub Guide

Tasty morsels from the county's best damn dining guide

Sali Heraldez

The owner of the SolArt Gallery Cafe shares some of her favorite things

Cock & Bull

Eating bull penis at Pho Nguyen Hue

Something So Good

Say thank you and mean it at East Winds Asian Cuisine

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

Noodling Around On Noodle Avenue!

!Ask a Mexican!

Special Comida Edition

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

369 SHANGHAI:

1, 2, 3 Eat

Editors Picks

369 SHANGHAI:

1, 2, 3 Eat

The Asian Persuasion

Great Asian restaurants, and the Asians (and Chuck Devore) who love them

Garden of Eating

Calling the dim sum races at Irvine China Garden

This Hole-In-The-Wall Life

GEgg Rolls, Etc.

Where Bread Is King

Make a Pilgrimage to Jamillah Garden

Battle of the Strip-Mall Chinese Restaurants

Plowing through the suburban-sprawl experience

Noodling

The art of flour and water