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This Hole-in-the-Wall Life O, Brilliant, Fatty Wonder! Bacon-wrapped hot dogs at the Santa Ana Farmers Market
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June 29, 2006
The finest summer cooks you'll meet this season set up shop every Wednesday afternoon at the Santa Ana Farmers' Market. Say hola to a gruff... More >>
The Night Merwin Barrientos Ate a 26x26 In-N-Out Hamburger But he won't do it again . . .
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June 22, 2006
"Merwin won't do it anymore," my sister Alejandrina told me last week. "If he eats a 26x26 again, Merwin thinks he'll die." Earlier this year,... More >>
Flash in the Bowl Pavilion dazzles and fulfills
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June 15, 2006
We looked at her clam chowder, a lump of something in a large porcelain bowl, sans broth. It was pretty, to be sure, a work of food art befitting... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life An Ethnic Costco: HK Market in Tustin
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June 15, 2006
Like most ethnic grocery stores, the Korean-centric HK Market functions more like a Costco, a capitalist wonderland where jewelry stands abut... More >>
Gooooooooooood! Where to eat during the FIFA World Cup
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June 08, 2006
So the FIFA World Cup returns this week, and will last all of June, and you won't care. Fine. But you like to eat—American obesity stats prove... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Soy Rico at Mother's Market
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June 08, 2006
My restaurant-reviewing modus operandi seeks the newest, tastiest or most bizarre eats in Orange County, which means I usually neglect the... More >>
Veggie Vexing Missing and loving Thuyen Vien
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June 01, 2006
You know that clichéd koan about whether a tree falling in the woods makes a sound if no one is around to hear it? A similar thing has happened... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Tamale Time at Chicago's Best
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June 01, 2006
"What's a Chicago-style tamale?" I asked the nice gent who manned Chicago's Best, a counter in an Irvine food court. "It's a . . . tamale," he... More >>
Something So Good Say thank you and mean it at East Winds Asian Cuisine
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May 25, 2006
As someone who has eaten everything up to and including two Thanksgiving dinners out of a Styrofoam grease box and/or off the tailgate of a... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Paradise in a Taco Truck: Tacos el Charito
Whenever people ask me to describe the best meal of my life, I rave not about the high-end restaurants of South County, one-dollar Vietnamese... More >>
No Katakana Necessary Drop your culinary bigotry at Ami Sushi
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May 18, 2006
I want my ethnic restaurants as ethnic as possible—Grandma in the kitchen, the owner's kid working on math homework between carrying trays and... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Brains! Brains! At Nizams Nihari House!
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May 18, 2006
We all experience happy surprises—a $100 bill found on the ground, for instance, or flower petals spread across a bed by a lover, or your "lover"... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Crab Cracking at Cajun Corner
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May 11, 2006
Crickets, tripe, the occasional brain burrito: I'll devour most anything, damn the grossness factor. But nothing will ever again simultaneously... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Death by Burrito at Imperial Burgers
I'm a Mexican food purist—I don't appreciate it when chefs let gabacho elements like blackened ahi anything invade my cuisine. But I'll forever... More >>
'Every Tamale Is Love' Josefina Bay helps cure the blind with her tamales
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April 27, 2006
In 1994, during a diabetes education class in Santa Ana, a woman went blind.
Her cure was a tamale.
The woman couldn't afford eye surgery (simple... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Noodling Around On Noodle Avenue!
Noodles. Lots of 'em. Thin. Thick. Stir-fried. In soup. Yellow. White. Thai. Vietnamese. Japanese. Welcome to NOODLE AVENUE, a hectic fast-food... More >>
Persian Paradise Enjoying Darband with the Farsi fanatic
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April 20, 2006
Heard of the Asian persuasion, the impulse that drives some guys toward hot Asian women? My buddy is a Farsi fanatic—can't get enough of the... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Greek Chili Billies: Athens West
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April 20, 2006
ATHENS WEST, an Orange County-only mini-chain with gleaming outposts in Huntington Beach and Seal Beach, prepares pita sandwiches fat with... More >>
No Man Is an Elvis Stuffed on stuffed French toast at Two Umbrellas
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April 13, 2006
The British were wondering (in their fastidious British way) why it was that rich Elvis—whose material desires were limited only by how clearly... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Goodbye, Ramen. Hello, Thai and Laos Market
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April 13, 2006
Rejoice, starving hipsters: your days of instant ramen are over. Cast your eyes toward the Thai instant noodles at the THAI AND LAOS MARKET in... More >>
What the Pho? Vietnam Pearl serves just what the doctor ordered
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April 06, 2006
Who says you can't eat Vietnamese for breakfast? Certainly not the Vietnamese, many of whom probably look down their noses at what you... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Cute cue
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April 06, 2006
I've lived by a set of rules where barbecue joints are concerned. Eschew those that sell "official" T-shirts and mount fake guns, animal heads... More >>
Hot-hate Special Mirna Burciaga takes on the Minutemen with tacos and pupusas at El Chinaco
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March 30, 2006
Never has a counteroffensive against ethnic cleansing disguised as border control tasted so delicious: on March 23, about 40 Costa Mesa... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life Oh Yes, Oh Yes
I remember shrugging when the Hawaiian restaurant ONO ONO opened about three years ago in Tustin. The food was good but unmemorable, mostly... More >>
This Hole-in-the-Wall Life To Go
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March 23, 2006
PETITE CAFE is so new that its marquee is a plastic banner. It's so new that a public notice for a liquor license competes for window space with... More >>
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From the Print Edition
At Inka Mama's, Mami Knows Best
There used to be a different Peruvian restaurant at the very spot Inka Mama's has recently claimed as its fourth Orange County location. By all accounts, it did a very… More >>
Pho Quyen: Absolutely Sweet Little Saigon
We're now reaching a point in Little Saigon's history where the old-school places are slowly but surely changing. Some are closing shop; others are moving to richer environs in South… More >>
For a Hot Time In Old Huntington, Go to the Black Trumpet Bistro
The eateries you'll see on the 5-mile stretch of Beach Boulevard as it extends from the 405 down to Pacific Coast Highway can have the randomness of what sticks on… More >>
Chixy Natural: Twirl-a-Bird
"Hey, man, you still going to use that?" the surfer-ish type guy asked as I scarfed down my meal at Chixy Natural. Oh, my lack of manners! This Costa Mesa… More >>
Urban Seoul's Bulgogi Nation
It's impossible to talk about Urban Seoul without mentioning Roy Choi, the creator of Kogi, the pioneer of luxe loncheras, America's unofficial ambassador to everything hipster ethnic, last seen traipsing… More >>
Delicias Peruanas' Great Chicken Salad?
You know what is the most overlooked city in Orange County? Lake Forest. It's a seeming no-man's-land between North and South County, a place where the politics are dirty, the… More >>
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