This is a question that has been asked over the years about our coverage in general, but it's also come up at SaFII recently because of our Top 100 List. To wit:
Why don't you guys cover more restaurants in South County?
Frankly, my dears, because South County generally sucks at food.
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It's our responsibility to cover the great restaurants in Orange County. And when it comes to restaurants south of Irvine, we've been more than effusive to those that deserve it: Break of Dawn, the Surfin' Chicken, Siamese Express, A's Ace Burgers, and many, many more over the years.
But that's the thing: Edwin, Dave, and I have already found nearly every great restaurant in South County. That vein is nearly dry down there, and will remain so as long as South County remains suburban in thought and practice, by which I mean exorbitant rent rates to stymie restaurant owners, an upper-middle-class populace that tends to eschew the holes-in-the-wall that makes great eating, and spread-out developments which tend to inhibit great food. Take away Lake Forest (part of old OC at heart, if not in geography), and ustedes would lack even more–and you folks are already a culinary Sahara.
North and Central County, on the other hand, are where OC's best dining is. We can spend an entire year in Little Saigon, report on no other cuisine than Vietnamese, and run new reviews all year. We have the Mexis, the Arabs, the Italian-American scenes of Anaheim and the Fountain Valley-Huntington Beach border–everything. Coastal County also weighs in with the resort restaurants of Laguna, the mom-and-pops of Balboa, and Seal Beach's Irish pubs.
Not concentrating on ustedes is not a matter of geographic discrimination, South Countians, but simple reporting: we go where the action is. When there's action in South County, we're there. But your humble region simply doesn't match the rest of us. Ustedes have peace of mind; we have great eats. That's the OC way!
