Revelers no longer have to wait for Halloween Haunt to have a frightfully good time in Buena Park. The Cauldron, a new witch-themed bar, is a charming experience. Two large, wooden doors transport all who enter into the realm of a 17th-century tavern. Transforming the nondescript longtime location of Crystal Factory Italian Galleria across the […]
Food Reviews
The Experience of Finding, Then Eating Chef Peter Hung’s Banh Xeo Is Like Traveling to Southeast Asia
You walk toward Saigon Supermarket realizing that in the more than two decades you’ve spent eating and shopping in Little Saigon, thinking you’ve explored every nook and cranny, you haven’t been here before. When the sliding doors of the market open, you immediately detect the smell of fried fish. It’s faint, but from the online […]
Heirloom Farmhouse Kitchen at the New Marriott Irvine Spectrum Is Aimed at Millennials, Connoisseurs of Good Food
From the outside, the new Marriott Irvine Spectrum resembles another one of Irvine’s yawn-inducing office towers. Built with equal portions of glass, steel and concrete, it’s a square-shaped skyscraper that’s neither tall nor architecturally distinctive. The inside, however, is a different story. Marriott invested its $120 million budget in making it, in its own words, […]
Ditch the Utensils and Eat With Your Hands at Bawarchi Biryanis in Lake Forest
After several hours and multiple hand washings, my fingers still bear the aroma of the leftover biryani I ate. It’s because, for the first time, I used my bare hands to consume the entire plate. I was copying the two Indian gents at Bawarchi Biryanis. When I saw how they ate, I was mesmerized. In […]
Tell Everyone Raw Bar By Slapfish in Huntington Beach Is the Best Place to Eat Oysters for Not Much Clams
Before Slapfish started franchising and expanding to more than 20 locations—soon to include South Korea—it was the first brick-and-mortar for a seafood concept that was previously a food truck. And when I reviewed that seminal store back in 2012, I spent nearly half the article talking about the oysters that founder Andrew Gruel served me […]
Two Former Kitayama Sushi Chefs Open Kakurega in Costa Mesa
If you know about Kakurega, you’ve no doubt also heard its owners are a pair of former chefs from Newport Beach’s venerable Kitayama. It was primarily for this reason that I featured the Costa Mesa eatery in our food blog’s weekly roundup of new restaurant openings last November. And it’s also why I decided to […]
Golden Road Pub Is a Big, Boisterous Addition to Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle
For this review, I’m not going to bury the lede. With the exception of the vegan chocolate cake, I did not love the food I tried my first night at Golden Road Pub. But that doesn’t mean I’m not recommending the place—I do wholeheartedly. In fact, I’m looking forward to bringing all my friends with […]
Former Marine and CIA Grad Derrick Foster Makes Great ’Cue at Santa Ana’s Ember BBQ
The barbecue chain Lucille’s takes great pains to transport its customers to the South of fables, of rocking chairs on the front porch, of twangy blues music. It’s all artifice, of course, designed to convince you that the smoked meat you’re eating came from the recipe books of one Lucille Buchanan, a fictional character raised […]
Legendary Vietnamese Restaurant Brodard Moves to Fountain Valley
In the ebb and flow of Little Saigon, Brodard was the Rock of Gibraltar. Since Diane Dang and her daughters opened this restaurant in 1996 at the Mall of Fortune—behind a 99-Cent-Only store in an alleyway past the dumpsters—it has arguably become one of the most influential landmarks for Vietnamese cuisine in the county, if […]
Zevia Brings Its All-Natural, Calorie-Free, Sugarless Wizardry to Cocktail Mixers
My memory is I first discovered Zevia through a neighborhood Sprout’s promotion that allowed you to get a free six pack with another you purchased. Always on the lookout for a good mixer with daddy’s whiskey, I grabbed two sixers of ginger ale and never looked back. That’s because the ginger ale was promoted […]
Yes, the New Casa Barilla at South Coast Plaza Is Run By the Same Company That Makes Jarred Sauce
Just as most people, I always have a jar of marinara and a box of spaghetti in my pantry. The brand I happen to have in stock at the moment is Barilla. It’s not always the case, but my point is that I’m never more than 15 minutes away from a pasta dinner. So when […]
Japanese Chain Pepper Lunch Brings Its Meals on Superheated Cast-Iron Plates to Irvine
While I was in Houston last year, I went to the place many credit as one of the first restaurants to popularize fajitas: The Original Ninfa’s on Navigation. It speaks to the impact of this eatery that I shouldn’t have to mention the fajitas were served on a sizzling skillet. Thanks to this restaurant and […]
Cambalache Does a Great Steak-and-Potatoes Dish, Argentine-Style
Is there anything better than a properly done steak? The answer to that is: Yes, when it’s paired with perfectly crisp potatoes. I had such a meal at the new Cambalache in Fountain Valley. It was utterly transcendent—one of the best steak dinners I’ve had in years. First, there was the steak itself; it wasn’t […]
Chef Cody Storts Settles Down With Wreckless in Fullerton
Before I talk about the food I tried at Wreckless, the new restaurant in Fullerton by chef Cody Storts, I must mention the branded merchandise. There was an entire wall of it: T-shirts and trucker hats, shot glasses and flasks, iPhone cases and money clips, even lapel pins and socks. The Wreckless logo, a “W” […]
New Moon Rises in Buena Park
Whenever I see Chinese chicken salad on a menu, I gravitate toward it. It’s not as if I’ve liked most of them; the dressing is almost always too sweet, and the chicken stringy. But ordering one guarantees there’s at least going to be some sort of crispy-crunchy thing in it such as wonton strips, deep-fried […]