The Cheesecake Factory Inc.

Alex Hernandez: The Bartender

See our full OC Weekly 2013 People Issue

Taverna Blu Brings Opa!

The Greek restaurant proves Irvine Spectrum's dining scene is not what it used to be

10 Ways to Piss Off Your Bartender

By: Rick GiordanoWhen I'm not raking in the millions writing for music blogs, I, much like many of my fellow artsy-fartsies and anti-professionals, have to earn my dough in the service industry. Working directly with customers in any job can be a trying and frustrating experience, and especially in ... More >>

Bay Area Chow: Around-The-Clock Dining At Cafe Colma

When folks go home to visit family, it might be another city, county, or state. When we head to the Bay Area for the parentals, there's always a neighborhood place we can rely on for a solid meal. Everyone has one. Ours in found in a city where there are more people six feet under than living. It's ... More >>

Nancy Luna, OC RegisterFast Food Blogger, Shocked--SHOCKED--That Zagat Includes Fast Food

Nancy Luna, the Fast Food Maven for the Orange County Register, has breaking news for us. The Zagat guide, the culinary equivalent of the myriad of Who's Who books who get people to submit content and then convince them to pay to read what they've submitted, apparently just updated their Los Angeles ... More >>

Dana Point's the Point: Spot On

Check out this bar where kids are welcome

PART ONE: OC Weekly Best Of Readers Poll 2012: The Good, the Bad, and the WTF?

Today is the release of our annual Best Of issue, our fantabulous guide to all things wonderful about this infernal land. For the purposes of ustedes, you only care about the food section, and you can peruse it here. But what's always interesting to us is the Readers Poll: will our faithful fans be ... More >>

Spend $80 At One Of These Irvine Spectrum Restaurants, Get Two Tickets To The Circus

It's rare that Donald Bren's empire will give you something for nothing...and this isn't one of those times; but the free Circus Vargas tickets The Irvine Spectrum is offering (with purchase) is more than I would usually expect from Bren & Co. So here it is: if you're going to spend $80 at one o ... More >>

Itriya Cafe Closes At Diamond Jamboree

Itriya Cafe, the restaurant whose tagline is "Spaghetti and Ssam" because it attempts to serve both Italian pastas and Korean lettuce wraps, has closed at Diamond Jamboree. There was a note taped to the door that said: "We Are Moving! Saying Goodbye Is Not Easy!! We've Enjoyed Meeting Everyone ... More >>

Luna Rossa Moving Into Bella Terra Neighborhood

​To add to Edwin's list of upcoming Surf City eateries, we've found yet another. And hey, look: it's Italian!Across from The Cheesecake Factory, one Luna Rossa Ristorante is in high gear, working to be ready for the public in the next few weeks. We inquired with a Bella Terra social media contact ... More >>

Class 302, Taiwanese Shaved Snow Restaurant, Now Open in Irvine

Anne Marie PanoringanThat's me on the right, after drinking from that monstrous cup.​Something made us turn the other way at the 405 Culver offramp and head towards UCI yesterday. Call it female intuition, but we found ourselves at University Park Center, watching the door to Class 302 swing open. ... More >>

Island Cinema Reopens with Charity Showings of Young Adult and New Sherlock Holmes Flick

​The Irvine Co.'s revamped Island Cinema at Fashion Island in Newport Beach won't open to the public until Friday, but charity screening events tonight and Wednesday night give sneak peaks to guests who pony up $50 each.

Itriya Cafe Shows Ssam Like It Hot

An ex-Cheesecake Factory executive sells Italian and Korean food under one roof in Irvine

Itriya Cafe Opens At Diamond Jamboree

​The long-awaited curiosity of a concept that merges Italian spaghetti with Korean ssam (loosely translated to "things wrapped in lettuce and sesame leaf") opened last week and from a quick perusal of the menu, the restaurant isn't kidding around: they are, indeed offering a menu of spaghetti (wit ... More >>

Itriya Cafe Construction Begins, Yelper Already Has a Review?

​Construction began a few weeks on Itriya Cafe, the latest development to take shape at Diamond Jamboree. If you've passed by Jamboree or Alton, you can't miss the signage. Itriya Cafe is the fusion restaurant (I hate to use that outdated "f" word, but there's no better descriptor) that merges Ita ... More >>

Five Ways to Discover Great Ethnic Restaurants in Suburbia

ProfessorSalt.comPizza e Vino, hidden down a staircase from its shopping center, is easy to miss​As a writer who competes with other news outlets' food bloggers, I probably shouldn't share my restaurant-scouting strategies with the interwebs. I'm going to because it's important that you, dear read ... More >>

Save Your Bucks For Blackjack: Three Affordable, Delicious Eats In Sin City

Hot and hearty fare​Everyone makes the pilgrimage sooner or later; Take the 15 North beyond Barstow, Zzyzx, and Primm, and you can just make out the tractor beam pull from Luxor that is Las Vegas. To power through that bachelor party or milestone celebration, liquid nourishment can only take sinne ... More >>

New Restaurant To Mix Spaghetti and Korean Food In Irvine's Diamond Jamboree

​It's been a while since a new restaurant concept debuted at Diamond Jamboree in Irvine. Once a white hot den of development activity, Diamond Jamboree is now almost as as good as saturated, with only a few vacant spots left to claim. The only prime location left is in the building closest to ... More >>

Cookbook Review: Cook This, Not That by Zinczenko and Goulding

​There are, it seems, two kinds of cookbooks in the world: One kind provides a thrilling sense of alchemy to cooking, opens new doors in the cook's mind, introduces new ingredients, and explores unknown techniques.The other kind makes promises of a different kind: enjoy the foods you love, but mor ... More >>

Grab Bag o' Goodies

Nine great posts from our Stick a Fork In It blog you might've missed

Five New Years' Resolutions for Orange County Diners

Flickr user tinfoilraccoon​New Year's Day is coming. In the interest of the gastronomic improvement of our fair readership area, I offer the following set of suggested New Years' resolutions for the diners of Orange County.

Men's Health Publishes The 20 Worst Foods of 2010

Men's Health​Men's Health, which publishes the eye-opening brand known as "Eat This, Not That", has released their "20 Worst Foods of 2010". It's the kind of read that makes me want to cheer for the nanny-state calorie counts on menus in places like Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.Crushed Doritos on a sa ... More >>

Worst Restaurant in the Anaheim Resort: Five Contenders

Original image: heidigoseek @ flickr.com CC BY-NC-SA 2.0Ding-dong, the witch is dead, the witch is dead, the witch is dead...​The Baker's Square on Harbor Blvd. in Garden Grove closed at some point. I'm not sure when, but I only noticed it a few weeks ago when we had friends staying in the area an ... More >>

Eat Here, Not There: Cheesecake

Flickr user stacylynn​Quick, think of a place in OC to get cheesecake, but don't tell me what it is yet. I'm psychic, and I can probably guess.Does it end in "actory"? I bet it does for most of you. So successful is the branding of the Cheesecake Factory that many people would be hard-pressed to n ... More >>

This Week in Food: Geeks Who Drink, Reclaimin' Claim Jumper, and Noshin Nutella!

Flickr user Steve SnodgrassYes, people have dressed for Halloween as these​As usual, too many great stories this week on this infernal blog--read them all! Too lazy? Some highlights after the jump!

National Cheesecake Day Today

Did you know today is National Cheesecake Day? Well it is. And the chain that took cheesecake national, Cheesecake Factory, is offering slices of it at half price for today only. There's a catch though...

[Year In Review] Of Taco Trucks and Votes That Suck: 2009 On Our Stick a Fork In It Food Blog

Top Five Food Scenes In TV Sitcoms

Food as a theme is pervasive on TV these days, and not just the obvious examples of Food Network and all those shows from Ramsay to Richman. I'm talking about sitcoms that have also used food as either a main story arc or just an amusing aside about our love, obsession, and need to eat. And no, I do ... More >>

Five Easily-Fixed Service Failures

dieselbug2007 @ flickr.com CC BY-NC 2.0​Some weeks ago, there was a two-part list of service sins published (here and here) by Bruce Buschel in a blog for the New York Times. To call the list picky doesn't do it justice; don't play brass music? Seriously?The post inspired a lot of snarky comments ... More >>

Wax On, Wax Off: Nike, Hurley, Converse Store Opens at Irvine Spectrum

The new Nike 6.0 x Hurley x Converse store just opened its doors last Wednesday at the Irvine Spectrum, just in time for the spendy atmosphere of black Friday. Located across from the Cheesecake Factory, somewhere between Brookstone and the movie theater megaplex, the store sits on what one Hurley s ... More >>

Is There ANYTHING Salvageable from the Weekly's Best of OC Reader's Poll Food Winners?

​Fair is fair, folks. A couple of weeks ago, I blasted the Orange County Register's "Best of Orange County" for the horrible selections readers picked as the best representation of a culinary category (Peppino's as best Italian! Subway as best Sandwich! Daphne's as best Greek!). Our Best of OC iss ... More >>

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

Drummer Josh Freese Sells Himself, Famous Friends, Dinner at Sizzler to Promote His New Album

Huh? Starbucks And Subway Top Zagat's Latest List

The survey from the "burgundy bible" rates this duo the best fast-food coffee and most popular fast-food mega-chain, respectively. Which makes me wonder if the reviewers--more than 6,000 of them, who visited more than 100 chains across the country--are living in a parallel universe. One in which Sta ... More >>

The Newest Veggie Grill in Irvine Is Good Enough to Fool (Almost) Everyone

Anaheim GardenWalk's Garden Party Music Series

Looking for an excuse to finally check out the new Anaheim GardenWalk? Their free and outdoor Garden Party Music Series starts tomorrow, Saturday, September 6th and will continue every Saturday until the 27th. Click HERE for the schedule and more details on the acts. Even if you've seen their s ... More >>

Rick Warren: World's Sexiest Preacher?

That's the opinion of The Wittenburg Door, the online newsletter of the legendary prosperity-preacher exposers the Trinity Foundation. "Don't let Rick Warren's disheveled Hawaiian shirt and receding hairline fool you," writes one Skippy R. "Although he says his idea of fashion is wearing "clothes t ... More >>

Mmm . . . Vittles

Hardtack, biscuits & gravy, salt pork, beef jerky, burritos, falafel, & banh mi—you know, cowboy  food

Green Girl Of Your Dreams

And who at Linbrook Bowl thinks a woman should be President?

Trawling for Tinis

How to...

Hang out at the mall

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