The corner stall to the right at the Mitsuwa Marketplace food court in Costa Mesa has seen many tenants come and go. The last one was the Loft, a satellite of the Hawaiian barbecue joint, which was successful elsewhere but faltered here, where Santouka's ramen and Miyabi-Tei's bentos rule.
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The next vendor to try its luck will be Yaki-Tan, which appears to be a barbecue beef yakiniku restaurant, though it would appear that all the grilling would have to be done by the kitchen, not by the customer.
Will the concept translate to a food court? Will we be talking about another new restaurant taking its place a year or two from now?
Thanks to reader JB for the tip-off and the pictures.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.