Pho So 1 - Irvine

I remember eating at a Pho So 1 in either Reseda or Van Nuys or whatever mini-mall-blighted part of the San Fernando Valley I happened to be at the time. Point is I was visiting a friend, and he took me there after proclaiming that it was the only worthy Vietnamese place in the area. I don't remember much about the meal, except that I was hungry. I would have to assume that I liked it well enough, because when a Pho So 1 opened recently in Irvine, I immediately recognized the name.

The first thing I have to tell you about the Irvine Pho So 1 is that it looks un-Irvine. It has to be the most utilitarian dining space in the entire city--a pho joint, which like the best of them, doesn't bother with much decor. If there is pho in the distant utopian future where bald people in all-white jumpsuits have bar codes as nametags, the restaurant that serves it might look like this--clean, sleek, so large it echoes, and so brightly lit it wakes you up even before you order the ca phe sua da.

I like that it gets down to the basics, that there's not much to see or distract. You eat. You pay. You get out.

I ordered what I always order, which if you know me or this blog, isn't the pho, but the mi. And the broth is everything it always is: the same recipe for the sweet, salty, clear yellow soup that I've slurped at every pho joint and Vietnamese restaurant that serves the dish. The main differentiators are the toppings, and it is very good here. The roast pork is plentiful and thick, so tender and so soft it can be masticated by the toothless. The shrimp isn't overcooked and the noodles are still firm enough to be called al dente.

I didn't have the pho, but I did taste a sip of the broth and steal a few meats like the tripe and the tendon, and it was fine. A more thorough review of the pho will have to wait until I recover from what seems like a permanent case of pho-tigue.

Pho So 1
3831 Alton Pkwy. Ste. B
Irvine, CA 92606
(949) 251-8829

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Boiling Point - Irvine

Zcafe - Costa Mesa

There are several areas of refuge in the shopping mall of shopping malls we all know as South Coast Plaza. Macy’s Signature Kitchen is one of them. In the deserted food court where no one really eats, Marcus Samuellson’s MarcBurger still puts out one of the best frozen custards around. But even that oasis of calm isn’t as good or as cozy as Zcafe’s semi-outdoor lounge.

So let’s just keep this tip between you and me, mmm’kay?

Zcafe’s space, shaded by the building’s overhang but otherwise open to the air at the west end of the Bridge of Gardens (the pedestrian bridge that connect SCP to Crystal Court), has plush couches, TVs, heat lamps, Wi-Fi, and what appears to be an actual futon for napping. I have used this space to sit, rest my calves, and even taken a five-minute snooze.

So far the only souls who seemed to have discovered this hidden asylum are the Apple Store employees who routinely use it as their unofficial breakroom.

But first a background: Zcafe used to be CPK ASAP (the fast food arm of California Pizza Kitchen), but since the Z Pizza conglomerate took it over and the space outside, the pace seemed to have slowed down for the better.

I’m not even going to touch on the pizzas here, which are fine but not great. I will, however, talk about the hummus--the only thing you should ever need to order. It’s the perfect food for the space, which I treat as a rest stop, a respite from my chores--a refueling station, if you will.

You don’t want to be weighed down with anything leaden with cheese. A light iced tea should be the beverage to sip with the hummus, a decidedly Mediterranean meal with spears of cooling cucumber, piquant olives, sweet as sugar marinated peppers, and a crispy plank of pizza bread doubling as pita with which to scoop up the dip. I didn’t expect it to be good, let alone supplied with fresh vegetables, but it was this and more.

On top of Mt. Hummus a pool of olive oil shimmered. And it’s relatively cheap for SCP. This $5.95 appetizer plate will feed two easily and could constitute a light lunch for vegetarians or a mid afternoon snack for the rest of us.

ZCafe
3333 Bear St. Ste. 316
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 545-5500

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Tamarind of London - Newport Beach

Mamon from Red Ribbon - Anaheim

I've been eating Red Ribbon's mamon for quite a while now. But it wasn't until recently, before a busy morning, that I can say I thoroughly enjoyed one. I realized then how very good they are. Isn't it amazing how life and food taste so much better when you take the time to savor?

I took my first bite with sip of tea, and in that moment, I was sent into a Zen-state of mind. The eggy richness bloomed in my mouth, the cake's texture is fluffy beyond what's imaginable, so airy it almost wants to float. A swipe of sticky sweet butter and a smattering of grated cheese on top seemed the only thing weighing it down, keeping it from lifting away like a helium balloon.


Despite being packaged like a Twinkie, the pastry cake cuffed inside what seems like a coffee filter is the picture of wholesomeness. It list egg whites, sugar and other pronounceable things as ingredients. The expiration date was about two days from when I bought it. After the first one I ate, the rest didn't last nearly as long.

Red Ribbon Bake Shop
601 N Euclid St
Anaheim, CA 92801
(714) 635-0256

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Gen Korean BBQ - Tustin

Maycar Foods' Crackling - The Ultimate Pork Rind

I have a bag of these that remain half eaten in my cupboard. It's not that I don't want to finish them; it's that I am afraid that I will. This would be the third one I've consumed, and no other foodstuff I've eaten in recent memory has given me more pleasure and levied more guilt than this item. They are literally dangerous--everything that someone with an elevated cholesterol level should not eat.

But oh are they great. They are, in my opinion, the very best pork rinds on the planet. Actually, I'm not sure they can technically still be called pork rinds. The label simply says "cracklings" with the comically matter-of-fact addendum of "fried out pork fat with attached skin" as a descriptor. Actually, I suspect that the product is actually made from fatback.

They are certainly not the garden variety type of pork skin treat. It's noisier by a few decibels, a loud crunch on the lower frequency like Barry White's deep-throated rumble.


There are two separate and distinguishable strata of porcine material at play here: the outer curl, which is puffed-up and light-as-foam, and then the attached inner curl, which is dense and vaguely meaty. When my bite penetrates the latter, a surge of what feels like melted fat gushes out. I know it's not melted fat because the pieces are bone dry and are at room temperature, but it's a thrilling, if somewhat disturbing sensation, all the same.

I've only found them sold at one place, at the counter at Magic Wok in Artesia next to the other chips. I brought a bag to the office once and a co-worker and I finished it in fifteen minutes while we discussed its inherently salty, sweet, magical, and mystical qualities. As he ate, he examined every piece like a curious scientist and concluded that by the end of the bag, we probably just consumed the equivalent of a pack of bacon between the two of us.

No, I never compared the bag's nutritional facts with an actual pack of bacon to see if he was right. I don't want to know.

The Magic Wok
(562) 865-7340
11869 Artesia Blvd
Artesia, CA 90701

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
What We Learned in 2011

Dos Chinos - Orange County

Face it folks, this food truck fad isn't going away soon. Of the many newfangled food trucks out there, there are few that didn't take its cues from Kogi, the one that started it all. Dos Chinos' Latin-Asian imitation of what Kogi does is flattery at its most sincere. But then, Kogi itself wasn't exactly original. It got the idea from a blogger.

I think Krusty the Clown summarized it best when he said, "If this is anyone but Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit!"

But I digress. Imitator or not, Dos Chinos is great. If you're going to find your inspiration from something as iconic as Kogi (yes, Kogi is now an icon), you couldn't do it better than what Hop Phan and crew have done at Dos Chinos. In actuality, apart from the fusion-y aspects it shares with Roy Choi's concept, Dos Chinos has a flavor profile all its own.

As most of you who've already tried both will already know, Kogi tends to favor the heavy, the cheesy, the bold. Dos Chinos is lighter on its feet and in what it puts into its tacos and burritos. Rice inhabits most things, as does cabbage, cilantro and salsa.


A shrimp burrito actually does taste like something out of a Hawaiian shrimp truck, a scampi-like preparation that mixes so well with the Mexi components that it boggles the mind why no one did it sooner. The Korean BBQ beef is sweeter than carne asada, but it still makes sense wrapped up inside a toasty and pliant tortilla.

But perhaps the best thing the truck produces is the fries, a deceptively simple and humble mound of fried-from-frozen garden variety spuds. It's sprinkled garlic butter and crumbles of cotija cheese to become an addictive substance that is immediately better than the sum of its parts.

It shows that in the end, it matters not who you take your inspiration from. What matters is that you put out something good...that just might inspire someone else to copy you later.

Dos Chinos
doschinos.com

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Three Seventy Common - Laguna Beach

Sushi Imari - Costa Mesa

If you fancy yourself a sushi purist, you might have dismissed Sushi Imari as a roll-peddler, an entity that would initially appear so diametrically opposed to the respected raw fish masters at Sushi Shibucho and Sushi Wasabi that it becomes like comparing a graffiti artist to Michelangelo and Botticelli. Yes, it has a menu that features rolls with names including but not limited to the "Marilyn Monroll" and "Me Soy Horny".

But if you were judging by only that, you'd be as misinformed as I was when I walked in.

Nearly everything I ordered from the specials board turned me from snobby skeptic to instant fan.

I've been eating a lot of live amaebi lately, some better than others, but Sushi Imari's special was immaculate. I was floored how good it was. The flesh was predictably crunchy and sweet, dispatched just seconds before it's laid on top of the ball of rice; but the way they do the heads was a different beast entirely.

The antennae extended past the boundaries of the plate, arching towards the stratosphere, and were gilded in a thin shimmer of tempura batter that hung off like dew drops. The care taken in cooking the head was remarkable--every millimeter of the carapace was rendered crisp into a sea chip, the best fry job of its kind. It's greaseless and perfect, with just the right amount of salty.

And then there's the uni, so sweet I swore it was made of some sort of heavenly custard, and so sparkling fresh it seemed as if it were just fished out of the lapping waters of the Pacific just a minute before.

When we left, we talked about it again and both agreed: that was some great uni.

The hamachi kama, which I order just about anywhere I can get it, has to be ranked in my top five. The grilled fish collar--skin covered in char, supple flesh imbued with sweet, sweet smoke all the way through--was nothing but two thin bones picked clean by the end.

And yes, the rolls were unexpectedly enjoyable too. There was a cucumber-wrapped crab and tuna thing threaded by toothpicks that gushed flavor and a chillingly cool sensation, like a icy surge of arctic air down your spine.


Sushi Imari was excellent, and for the record, I also like well-done graffiti art just as much as I appreciate Michelangelo's masterpieces.

Sushi Imari
375 Bristol St. Ste 40
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 641-5654

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Le Pain Quotidien - Newport Beach

Gourmet Grill Masters - Irvine

This lamb shawarma wrap is probably not the thing you ought to order if you go to Gourmet Grill Masters in Irvine. The signature item that put their catering truck--which does rounds at LA’s farmers markets--on Jonathan Gold’s list of Bests is the rotisserie chicken. The Pulitzer Prize winner honored Gourmet Grill Master’s hens as the best roast birds in LA, which is high praise when you consider what’s out there.

But alas, when I came to GGM in Irvine (their first brick-and-mortar store) I was at lunch break and had no desire to mack on a juice-gushing chicken with my good shirt on. A full-on rotisserie bender complete with finger-licking and toum fouling up my breath would have to wait.

In the meantime, it was the shawarma, and it was still more food than I intended to eat in an hour. I was not prepared for its girth. This was a shawarma that beats just about all other shawarmas I’ve had in magnitude. For all intents and purposes, it was a giant Middle Eastern burrito, especially when you consider that it uses the very same pliant and pleasantly stretchy flour tortillas places like Alberto’s employ for their carne asada gut bombs. This "burrito" is just as similarly mottled to crispness in spots, a thin barrier holding back a barrage of onions, tomatoes, lettuce and seasoned lamb meat shaved from an ever-rotating spit.


Along with the excess of filling, there’s an excess of flavor within those tortilla walls. For sure they’ve slathered on a bit of garlic paste, and probably some tahini (and perhaps just a tad too much onion). Not that the lamb really needs the assist: the crumbly and griddle-singed edges of this ground meat loaf-like thing sings of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and oregano. Also contributing to distend my tummy: they gave out complimentary baskets of deep-fried mini pillows of tortilla with a minty dipping sauce on the side, just because they're nice.

Yes, I’ll try the rotisserie chicken soon. I’ve got a shirt ready to sacrifice for the occasion.

Gourmet Grill Masters
14141 Jeffrey Road
Irvine, CA 92620
949-988-7554
http://ggm-irvine.com

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Wood Ranch BBQ - Irvine

Macarons at Pascal - Santa Ana

Cupcakes, schmupcakes. I never came on board that train; but you can count me in as a passenger on the macaron bandwagon. A few years ago, there was a run on these crispy, chewy, multi-hued and flavor-filled pastries that look like mini burgers. I vaguely remember more than a few exuberant posts Chowhound touting the macarons at Boule, a now defunct bakery. Now, macarons are everywhere.

The best I’ve found so far are made by Pascal Olhats, the chef I most associate with anything French that’s worth consuming in OC. I’m not the only one that thinks so. A co-worker routinely compares Pascal’s macarons to those he’s had in Paris. They’re just as light, he says. To beg forgiveness for his transgressions, he buys them for his wife in lieu of flowers.

The merits of a good macaron, he says to me like an expert lecturer on the subject, is measured on how close it is to eating air. After all, macarons are pretty much a meringue with almond flour added for structural integrity. It can’t be at all dense; and it has to be crispy, leading to a delicate tacky chew on the inside. Ideally it should crumble and melt upon contact with your mouth, whereupon it just caves in on itself, subsiding like a sandcastle at high tide.

Available on the day I went to Pascal at Hutton Center were pistachio, lemon, strawberry, chocolate and chocolate banana. At $0.85 a piece, they’re half the price most bakeries would charge. I’ve seen macarons retail at prices around $1.60 per piece elsewhere. It must be said that Pascal’s macarons are, however, smaller than most. You can conceivably put two your mouth and still have room for one more—their diameters just slightly larger than a quarter…with the cost of about three and a dime.

Pascal
2 Hutton Centre Dr
Santa Ana, CA 92707
(714) 957-3087

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Silver Trumpet - Costa Mesa

Flaming Spice - City of Industry

If you may indulge me on a juvenile analogy: If Japanese shabu shabu was Super Mario Brothers; then Mongolian hot pot would have to be Worlds of Warcraft (apologies to anyone reading who isn’t a nerd).

Hear me out: In shabu shabu as in Super Mario, you start with a single character—plain water for the shabu shabu cooking broth, Mario for the game. By contrast, in Worlds of Warcraft as in Mongolian hot pot, you begin with a myriad of options. WoW lets you start out by choosing a character from a range of classes, whether it be a warrior, mage, hunter, etc. In Mongolian hot pot, you choose your starter soups, whether it’s the spicy fish slicked with enough chili oil to burn a hole through your esophagus; a not-as-spicy tomato fish brew; a spicy chicken soup; a duck broth made drunken with beer; or even a mushroom soup.

From there Mongolian hot pot, like the popular MMORPG, can be whatever you want it to be. It can veer into territories unknown. Your eating adventure is whatever you make of it. In every bite of Mongolian hot pot, as in every WoW quest, you will encounter textures and flavors of your choosing. Therefore, whatever you’re putting in your mouth will most likely be unique to you, different from what the next guy is experiencing.

At Flaming Spice in the City of Industry, not only do they have these varied options of boldly-flavored soup, every yin of that is paired with a yang that balances it. That is the function of a murky, milky broth that the restaurant supplies on the other side of the pot. You’ll need it because sometimes, actually, most times, the flavored soups are too intense to handle without the milder one there as a reprieve.

I chose the spicy fish and the first dip of meat I ate from it caused ripples of sweat to stream from my brow. In fact, whatever it was that I rescued from this demon broth with my chopsticks came out coated in thin film of red chili oil, like something fished out of the waters after the Exxon Valdez. I’m convinced that if the liquid completely evaporated, whatever solid matter that remained in the pot would effectively get shallow fried in the oil left behind.

One thing is certain: Those who complain that Japanese shabu shabu is bland would be summarily silenced here. Upon eating this Mongolian hot pot, someone like that would also become a convert. There’s an excess of flavor of the throat-burning, how-have-I-lived-without-this, and hurts-so-good variety. And when you consider that there's a counter of sauces to mix and match, there is actually a danger of thoroughly exhausting your already overwhelmed taste buds.

And if I may be allowed to continue the video game analogy for a moment longer: Here at this restaurant, an eating session can be just as never-ending as a game of WoW. For $19.99, you can continue picking up items, dipping, swishing, slurping until you’re just as over-stimulated like too many online gamers I know.

There are other all-you-can-eat Mongolian hot pots restaurants around. I wrote about a place called Red Pot in Garden Grove once. But Flaming Spice is different. At the former, there’s paper work when you require more meat. At Flaming Spice, the proteins are carted around dim-sum style. Nothing more than a whim allows you to pick up more sliced raw beef than you can possibly melt in the broth; more head-on shrimp than you can possibly peel; more clams than you can possibly scrape off with your two front teeth; more fatty lamb than you can possibly boil; more meatballs than you can possibly chew.

Then there are the vegetables, like the meaty king mushroom, the tofu (fried, firm or silken), the taro, and the greens, all of which soften to scalding mouthfuls that you eat in between the scalding mouthfuls of meat. And if someone in your party still complains that they're essentially paying a fee to cook their own meals, Flaming Spice has a small buffet with some notably well-made items like wontons in chili oil; thin slices of spicy, ruddy beef; and chicken wings that are as equally hot as everything else. Sesame balls, fried bread, egg custard, and pan-fried dumplings round out the offerings.

Like Worlds of Warcraft, however, there are a few minor bugs in the code: the dumplings can be a bit greasy, the catfish in the spicy fish broth is frustratingly characteristic of the bottom dweller (read: muddy); and every other slice of lamb can be a chore to chew. But overall, my meal was good, and with this trip, my spicy food experience went up at least three levels.

Flaming Spice
18518 Gale Ave
Industry, CA 91744
(626) 964-6569

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Yosuke Sushi - Anaheim Hills

Eating in Rarotonga - Cook Islands

When I told people that I just came back from Rarotonga, they'd ask "Where?" When I told them it's in the Cook Islands, they'd ask "Where?".

Frankly, before I went, I too had no idea. All I knew before I booked the flight was that it costs just as much to go there as it would Hawaii.

Rarotonga is the main island in the Cooks, a round-shaped land mass in the South Pacific with strange-looking mountain peaks in the center. If you look at it on Google, you'll notice that it is rimmed by a halo ring of reefs which has the distinction of turning most of the beaches into calm-watered lagoons. This meant that anywhere you dipped your toe is a good place for snorkeling.

Most hotels, including mine, offered free rentals on the equipment. Most tourists come to wile away the hot, humid days with their faces submerged under the crystal blue water to get acquainted with Nemo and his pals. I didn't go more than a few steps from shore to be surrounded by schools upon schools of fish, some of which looked very delicious.


Which brings me to the food of the Cooks. There are very few indigenous dishes offered at the island's eateries. The most popular place in the town of Avarua is a burger joint called Palace Takeaway. The cheapest burger retailed for about $5 in New Zealand dollars...and this is as good a bargain as it gets in Raro. Since practically everything is imported from New Zealand and Australia, prices are inflated to factor in shipping costs.

The signature sandwich at Palace costs $10, and it towers so high it must be secured from toppling by way of a bamboo skewer driven through the middle. In the stack, the coleslaw, local lettuce, two fried eggs, bacon, pineapple, and ground beef patty must be smashed and pressed down if you ever hope to get your mouth around it.

There is one dish distinctive of the Cooks more than any other. Called ika mata, it's a cross between ceviche and poke. Like ceviche it is pieces of fish cooked by the cold, acidic heat of lime. Like poke it exists in cubes. But ika mata is its own thing. It is tossed in coconut cream to make it unique to this place, and it eats like a distillation of the land and sea. Diced cucumber, onion and red peppers dot the dish and the best place I found to eat it is at an inexplicably named Cafe Salsa, which served pizza and salads.

Island Nights, which is the Rarotongan equivalent of the Hawaiian luau, will feature ika mata as its central dish, but it was never as good as the one Cafe Salsa made. Hmm, I wonder if the people at Cafe Salsa have ever heard of Taco Bell.

Cafe Salsa
Next to CITC store, Avarua
Phone 22215

Palace Takeaway
On Ara Tapu, Avarua

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Indo Ranch - Lake Forest