Sichuan Province

Fu Wing Low: Young At Heart

[Hole In the Wall] This Fountain Valley restaurant is a Chinese-American classic

The Mein Event: OC's Best Noodles

Noodles, noodles everywhere, from pho to pad Thai and everything else

Chef Kitchen, Some Type of Chinese Restaurant, To Open In Irvine

There's already a Chef's Chen and a Liang's Kitchen at the Orange Tree Square Shopping Center (a.k.a. the plaza at the corner of Jeffrey and Walnut with the smaller 99 Ranch in Irvine). Now there will be a "Chef Kitchen," too. Not much is known about the new restaurant, except that it will be at th ... More >>

Eat This Now: Szechuan Fried Tofu at Chong Qing Mei Wei

Fried tofu was never something I thought I'd associate with the words "exciting" and "addictive" and "I want this in my mouth every day." But the cubes served up at Chong Qing Mei Wei make me crazy--Flaming Hot Cheetos crazy. The golden outer layer is cooked to a subtly sweet crisp, while the i ... 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 >>

Foie Gras: 2012's Bacon, Or: Time to End the Foie Gras Follies

​Is it July yet? I can't wait for the day when foie gras is banned in California.Don't get me wrong; I love foie gras. There's nothing like a little medallion of seared foie gras and a small glass of Sauternes to ouvrir l'appétit, as the French would say. It shines perched atop a salade gasconne ... More >>

The Playground Is the Brotherhood of the Purple Pants

'The Great Food Truck Race 2' co-winner Jason Quinn opens his long-awaited restaurant

P.F. Chang's (2.0) Reopens Tonight

​'Tis the season to reinvent yourself, at least, if you're a restaurant. With more changes in the last two months than we can keep up with, dining at Irvine Spectrum sees yet another update as P.F. Chang's relaunches in the nick of time for holiday crowds and business lunches.A designated testing ... More >>

On the Line: The Men of the Burnt Truck, Part One

Photo by Meranda Carter​When we suggested the guys behind local luxe lonchera the Burnt Truck split up the answers, it wasn't until after the fact we realized all three (Paul Cao, Phi Nguyen and Minh Pham) submitted answers to the entire questionnaire. So this week, we flex our keyboarding muscles ... More >>

Tavern On 2 Shows Who's On Second

This Belmont Shores gem is a gastropub's gastropub

101 Noodle Express Teaches You Chinese 101

It replaces Irvine's Nice Time Deli, but is it worthy of the legend?

At the Farmers' Market: Celtuce (Wo Sun)

Dave Lieberman​The busiest tables at the Irvine Certified Farmers' Market are the Asian vegetable vendors. Tables and tables of robust, healthy, occasionally alarming-looking greens attract huge crowds, their wares labeled in Chinese and transliterated directly to English ("a choy", "wo sun"). To ... More >>

The Green, Green Garlic of Home

​It's an odd year. Normally, green garlic doesn't show up in Orange County's farmers' markets until March. This year, the tables have been growing with the tender, green shoots since Punxsutawney Phil prognosticated pleasant weather.The simplest, best recipe for green garlic is a simple stir-fry, ... More >>

Five Beloved, Worn, Stained Cookbooks In My Kitchen

Dave LiebermanThis is the fate that awaits all beloved cookbooks in my kitchen.​I keep my own recipes in a black moleskine notebook, usually two entries to a page in my small, crabbed handwriting. The recipes are in no particular order, necessitating a sheet of paper to serve as an index in the ba ... More >>

Dueling Dishes: Battle Ma Po Tofu

Edwin Goei​Legend has it that ma po tofu is named after its creator, a woman with pockmarks on her face who first popularized the dish in China's Sichuan province. You see, ma po loosely translates to pock-marked woman, as I'm sure our resident translator and multi-linguist Dave Lieberman will co ... 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 >>

Spicy City's Kidney Flowers: Why Cutting Matters

Flickr user wang_qian_021386Sadly, my picture did not come out. This is what the dish SHOULD look like.​One of my favorite dishes in the Chinese repertoire is huo bao yao hua, or "fire-exploded kidney flowers". It's a Sichuan dish of pork kidneys in a slightly sweet sauce. Kidneys, which are the f ... 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 >>

Japanese "Autumn Food Fair" at Mitsuwa Starts Thursday

Keith May​ Another week, another food festival at Mitsuwa in Costa Mesa. I'm kidding, of course. They don't happen that often. But they do happen more often than I remember. Not that that's a bad thing. It's good actually. Very, very good! Just that maybe it'd be even better if they had the ... More >>

Laguna Beach's French 75 Rises Above Its Confusing Corporate Past

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

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Five Great Salsas in Orange County

Corporate wants us to write arbitrary Top 5 lists--traditionally left for year-end reviews or Best ofs--for SAFII. Instead, we'll do lists of five: no particular order, but all fine representative of their genus. Let's start--surprise, surprise!--with my favorite salsas:*Habanero salsa at Conde Cake ... More >>

Ay Chung Rice Noodle in Irvine Replaced By A New Sichuan Restaurant

I still remember when Ay-Chung Noodle opened three summers ago in Irvine. It had just replaced Bin Bin Konjac, a shaved ice dessert shop. Never had I seen anything so busy in Irvine (this was before Yogurtland existed). There was a line to order, and a wait to get your food. Getting a table was ... 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 >>

Annapoorna Offers a Distinctive Blend of Indian and Chinese Cuisine

Tokyo Table Pops the Culinary Cherry of Irvine's Diamond Jamboree Shopping Center

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

That Golden Glow at Haveli

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

Disguised

The Raw and the Cooked

Getting to the heart of Irvines Chinese subculture

Double Happiness

Finding inspiration at Ten Ten