Omakase at Sushi Shibucho - Costa Mesa - A Re-Review In Haiku

It has been five years
Since my first haiku review.
This is the second.

It is still the same:
A temple of quality.
Consistency reigns.

We visit often,
Devotees of the master.
No one else compares.

His wife pours green tea,
As Shibutani slices.
Next to him, his son.

Say "Omakase",
To eat the best on offer,
The freshest he has.

Thick cuts draped on rice,
Sculpted by masterful hands,
Each one beautiful.

It starts with stewed fish.
An unctuous specimen,
As rich as sardine.

On the first platter,
Come bright hues, textures, and tastes,
Arranged to impress.

Some feel like Jell-O.
Others crunch, bursts, melts into
Pleasure-filled mouthfuls.

Salmon is pristine,
As brisk as a cold river.
A good silken piece.

Second platter comes
With even more loveliness,
Even more colors.

Toro is marbled,
As fatty as kobe beef:
Luscious and tangy.

Ocean-y crab meat,
Stripped from its shell and salty,
Reclines on the rice.

The ginger cleanses.
The miso soup is soothing.
But later comes more.

Cucumber salad
Has fish bits and sesame.
It tickles our tongues.

For dessert: pickles.
Cucumbers, seaweed, daikon.
Who needs something sweet.

Like I said before:
Shibucho makes sushi art.
Next door: In-N-Out.


Sushi Shibucho
(949) 642-2677
590 W 19th St
Costa Mesa, CA 92627

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Bruxie - Orange

Merry's House of Chicken - West Covina

Go forth fellow Orange Countians, out of your comfy cul-de-sacs, to the equally quiet foothills of West Covina. There you will find the Southland's newest Indonesian restaurant, peddler of foods from the spicy archipelago and a fried chicken specialty that will result in more return trips north.

The chicken dish in question ayam goreng kremesan, which roughly translates to "fried chicken with crispy crumbly things"--a golden brown, half-bird deeply seeped of its marinade and showered with the granular crumbles of its disembodied crust. Think of this addictive substance also as a seasoning, because it is. This crisp rice-flour-based batter sings the same notes that the bird does, but concentrated in a molecular sense, a flavor present in every explosively crunchy, tempura-crossed-with-granola crumb.

This is the same kind of chicken that begat KFC-like empires in Indonesia, the least of which is called Ayam Goreng Suharti, arguably the closest thing Indonesia has to a homegrown Colonel Sanders.

Dollop each morsel of bird you tear off from the well-fried carcass (note: Indonesians prefer their chickens fried to the point of dryness) with the house-made sambal, an intensely sweet, and intensely hot chili and tomato paste inflected by the stinky, funky, umami-rich accents of terasi, Indonesia's indigenous fermented shrimp paste. Instantly, your lips numb, your tongue blazes, your brow begins to dampen. And yet you add more, and more, finishing the first saucer and asking for seconds. You admit to yourself that you can eat this homemade fire balm for days, your internal organs be damned.

Your tastebuds will not have fully recovered when you move on to the other dishes, like the nasi goreng petai, a fried rice dish with little bits of noodle, meat, chili, and most notoriously, petai beans (sator beans), a fragrant, nutty tropical legume with a lima-bean-like texture, and a propensity to make your pee smell worse than if you ate a whole bushel of asparagus.

And since you're already drenched head to toe in your own perspiration, Merry Istiowati--the Surabaya native who, by the way, opened this ode to the poultry (and Indonesian cuisine) after closing 368 Noodle House so many years ago--makes an estimable nasi bungkus, banana-leaf-wrapped-rice, which is what a take-out meal would look like if drive-thrus existed in the jungle. But be warned: this is a dish as piercingly hot and sweat-inducing as noontime in the tropics.

Once you unfurl the butcher paper and leaf packaging, you see a green-chili sambal waiting furtively, nay, dangerously in one corner. A hard boiled egg is stewed in more chili. A piece of beef rendang is covered with its cooked-down brown seasoning paste. On top of the pile, a turmeric-colored chicken leg and a spoonful of curried vegetable provides the only non-spicy reprieve. All are heaped into a football-mound of rice which has taken on the vanilla-like perfume of its botanical container.

It's about then you thank Merry's House of Chicken for supplying an ample amount of sweat-blotting napkins in a convenient basket next to the kecap manis.

Merry's House of Chicken
2550 E Amar Rd., Ste A5
West Covina, CA 91792
(626) 965-0123

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Happy Family - Costa Mesa

Hooters - Costa Mesa

If you are of the opinion that Hooters objectifies women, I agree with you and so do Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who produced a hilarious send-up of the chain on South Park. In it, Butters becomes enamored by a waitress at Raisins. If you haven't, see it here.

But the truth is, come in and you encounter just as many women customers as men. And on this trip (my third in over a decade), there are more families with babies in tow than I expected. PG-rated posters a typical teenager would consider standard bedroom wall decor are the most risque thing about the place.

"Tacky" is the word they use to describe themselves. But a better word is "American". I would argue that Hooters is the truest representation of American culture in a themed-restaurant than Hard Rock or Planet Hollywood.

To me, and actually, to a lot of people, Hooters is more about the wings than breasts. I regard Hooters' wings as better than any of those from the major wing chains, including Buffalo Wild Wings.

And what is more American than Buffalo wings? Answer: All-you-can-eat Buffalo wings on Tuesday nights. This is the night where where you disregard all common sense (you really don't need to eat all the wings you can eat), pay $12.99, then spend the rest of your evening trying to recoup it by consuming about the worst thing a dietitian and your doctor could ever imagine: fried chicken soaked in melted butter and hot sauce.

Doing so is dangerously easy to do. I discovered a disturbing fact about myself that night: I can polish off a round of 10 wings in the time it took the television to take two commercial breaks. By the end of it, I had in front of me the remnants of my gluttony: the cleaned bones of 22 wings, a half-finished basket of curly fries, and a throughly soiled WetNap.

If you choose to attempt to break my record, you should know to avoid filling up on those fries. To quote Admiral Ackbar, "It's a trap!" It is included in the deal as Hooters insurance policy that you don't eat them out of their profits. For sure, resist the temptation to munch on them in the lull between when you've finished your current plate and are waiting for the next. That's what they want you to do.

There are two frying options for the wings: "naked" and breaded. The "naked" way, wherein the wings are dropped as is into the oil, lends itself well to a number of seasoning paths.

The best, in my opinion, is to have them "naked" and coated in Cajun spice, a caustic, sweet and salty dry rub popularized as "bammage". The skin, thoroughly rendered and expertly cooked (yes, I said expertly), takes on a thin-sheened crispness and the presence of a BBQ-potato chip.

A spicy-garlic sauce is second best, a butter-soaked and just-hot-enough lubrication to encourage and propel you to the lip-smacking break-even point on your $13 investment in over-eating.

If you opt to do the traditional hot wing, better to ask for breaded than "naked", as it absorbs the hot-sauce so well that you'll notice there's not a lot of it left to pool on the plate. And for goodness sakes just do the "Hot". The "Medium", it turns out, is equivalent to just asking for it to be soaked in plain butter. It's bland and tasteless.

You'll know you've done well when you toss and turn in bed, suffering from heartburn and swearing off hot wings and all-you-can-anything for as long as you live. And you'll know you are an American when you wake up the next morning and look forward to next Tuesday.

Hooters
1507 South Coast Drive
Costa Mesa, CA 92626-1529
(714) 427-0755

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Olives Gourmet Grocer - Long Beach*

*Special Thanks to Monster Munching location scout Cecile for the tip on Olives.

Rick's Atomic Cafe - Costa Mesa

I've not been to Rick's Atomic Cafe enough to ask owner Rick LeBlanc what the story behind the "Atomic" name is. And I'm sure there is a story.

But since I don't know it yet, I'm going to use "atomic" to describe the smallness of his eatery. It is, in fact, atomic--the tiniest eating space known to man. His office-park lunch stop is akin to Harry's Deli. Both exist as an anomaly in unadorned, spartan kitchens buzzed by passing John Wayne-bound planes. Both are in rented office spaces in anonymous office parks, hidden unless you know it's there. The only difference is that Harry's is easily three times the size of Rick's.

More than half of Rick's Atomic Cafe is his kitchen, which if you've read Gustavo's review a few month's ago, he commands himself, whipping up things from scratch, salting things with care, being exactly what a short order cook isn't: a bonafide gourmet.

I ordered what I thought would be a normal $5 egg breakfast, but what I got was much more. The toast is from artisan bread, buttered by Rick, ready to be spread by a thimble of preserves he selected out of a bigger jar. And oh, the potatoes! It's from a batch freshly made. Onions are wilted and just barely singed by the heat of the griddle. The cubed spuds burst with flavor, steam, and toe-curling homeyness. The eggs? Cooked just as I requested: over-medium and seasoned ever so slightly with pepper and salt--whites ready to be forked up and yolks dipped into by the crispy points of that buttered toast.

I need a new paragraph for the bacon. Look at the bacon. It's as straight as rulers. You can spank naughty children with this bacon. No bacon I've ever had, and perhaps no bacon I ever will have can be as perfectly rendered as Rick's. It's crispy from end-to-end. The uniform consistency is almost unnatural, as if Rick somehow managed to arrange the bacon molecules to conform, yes, subatomically.

In between bites, I washed my breakfast down with orange juice, squeezed by Rick's own hand and a juicer by the sink. The sink, by the way, is stocked tall of whole oranges standing by for this very purpose. For my order, Rick filled up the glass to the brim with the pulpy nectar and juice of many, many citrus. $2.50 seemed a really low toll for all the labor he had to go through, and how many fruit he had to dispatch.

It goes without saying that I left with quite a bit more than a good impression of Rick's Atomic Cafe. It's small, but it is, by no means, insignificant, as other things dubbed atomic have shown.

Rick's Atomic Cafe
3100 Airway Avenue,
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 825-0570

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Mariscos Licenciado #2 - Anaheim

Chik-fil-A's Chicken Soup - Tustin

I've never been brought down by a flu like this. In between the skin-burning fevers, there are body shivers and inexplicable cold clammy sweats. My head feels like my brain is set on tumble-dry-low, a constant throbbing as if a nightclub has taken up residence in my cranium. I'm constantly thristy, but my appetite is shot. The past three days have been spent tossing and turning in bed thinking "WTF is this thing? This sucks!"

I write this in the lull that Advil provides and after having eaten dinner of Chik-Fil-A's chicken noodle soup, which I requested because, well, it seemed the kind of thing to eat in this condition. It's not the best soup in the world. But it didn't have to be. The carrots, celery, and noodles seem to have taken on the same consistency: mushy. But the soup is hot and thick; the chicken, actual meat from an actual chicken.

Now if you'll excuse me, my lovely caretaker and chicken soup deliverer has told me to get off the computer and get more rest.

Chik-fil-A
2889 Park Ave
Tustin, CA 92782
(714) 258-1400

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Liang's Kitchen - Irvine

Dat Thanh - Westminster

A post by Dave Lieberman on OC Weekly's Stick a Fork In It food blog started it all. That was the fuse that led to an explosion of press coverage for Dat Thanh, a tiny Little Saigon restaurant that has emerged into the limelight as The One that challenged the monopoly of Brodard, the Goliath of nem nuong rolls. From there, subsequent articles by the LA Times and OC Register followed. It was a lot of attention fast—a white hot fire of free and deserved publicity that begat building-wrapping lines for a postage-stamp-size of a place that only has, at most, four tables.

Its owner, Hai Nguyen, of course, has been ecstatic for all that’s happened to his family’s little eatery, though, quite honestly, it's hard to tell when the guy isn't happy. Come to his store these days (don't worry the fervor has calmed down a bit since those articles published) and you'll get to chat with him. He’ll tell you the past month has been insane. He’ll tell you that he’s honored, humbled and hopeful that his family’s diligence and hard work seemed to finally pay off literally overnight. He even told us that he’s now considering opening another restaurant.

If you’ve read all the press yourself, you won’t see any new info about the food here: only a reaffirmation of what everyone else has said. Dat Thanh’s nem nuong rolls are wonderful—every bit the worthy challenger to Brodard’s.

First, there’s the nem nuong itself. They make it in-house, of course. The chewy, ruddy, half-cylinder cut lengthwise can be compared to a sausage, though it isn’t one. It can also be said it’s kind of like luncheon meat, though it isn’t that either. It sports a peppery bite, a tactile and playful texture that bounces back up like a spring-loaded hot dog if it had this kind of personality. But above all you taste the honest, hand-made care behind each porky construct; how the Zen-simplicity and see-through translucency of the skin-tight wetted rice paper holds back such wonders.

Inside the roll, it is the heartiness of their nem nuong that sings more soulfully than Brodard’s.

There are other noted differences to the Brodard roll, as has been said. The tucked-in twirled cigar of deep fried egg roll skin is thinner here, resulting in a less skull-rattling crunch than its cross-town rival. And cilantro-averse people should be aware that Dat Thanh’s rolls contain chopped bits of the herb mixed in with the lettuce.

And then there’s the warm, pinkish, thick dipping medium; the nem nuong roll’s life-force; the ambrosial liquid that has become, at least in Little Saigon, the secret-sauce of secret-sauces. Brodard’s nem nuong sauce has intrigued and beguiled the masses more than anything else, a recipe more guarded than nuclear launch codes. And here it is cracked: Dat Thanh’s is everything Brodard’s formula is, except spicier, tangier and less sugary, with all of the magic.

Yes, the sauce and the rolls are great here. Your first pilgrimage should and will be made in sole search of them, but every subsequent trip should be for everything else on the menu. Though a few pages long, their roster is deceptively made up of just the basics you know, done well. The BBQ pork is luscious and a tofu-skin-wrapped shrimp mousse sheds its crispy shards like a flaky croissant— as good as any I’ve ever had. All these proteins are rearranged and combined with others on top of rice or a wispy cold noodle called bun an doused with an equally lip-smacking, if basic, golden fish sauce.

But that’s not all: the nem noung that filled the rolls can also be had on top of rice, basted with a sticky, sugary glaze and grilled till slightly smoky. As Hai will tell you, it’s the same meat, but it tastes completely different when you eat it this way. He’s right.

Drizzle the whole plate with a generous pour of their aforementioned nuoc mam from a carafe, a brew that Hai revealed they make by boiling down the best caliber of fish sauce to concentrate the sweetness.

After every bite and minute spent of your visit chatting with Hai, you realize you are no longer just at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that dared to challenge Brodard. In fact, before long you forget all the articles, the hype, and the hoopla. You’re just at a good, decent Vietnamese restaurant, with a good, decent man taking care of you.

Dat Thanh
10032 McFadden Ave.
Westminster, CA 92683
(714) 650-0910

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Les Amis - Fullerton

Trader Joe's Hickory Barbeque Potato Chips

They're the greasiest, crunchiest, saltiest potato chip I have ever encountered. They are also the greatest potato chip ever created. In my opinion, there is no better chip on this planet than these. Hold one up to inspect it closely and you see that the chip has pockets of oil trapped in every pore. Light shines through it as though it were stained glass.

The sugary/smoky/salty powdered BBQ seasoning is caked on, seemingly applied with no regard to its excess. Since it's Hawaiian-style (which really just means kettle-cooked), the slices are thick, sturdy, and have a raucous crunch and an intense potato-ness.

When the chips are gone, the bottom of the bag is speckled with the leavings, a greasy, salty, clumpy concentrate of crumbs, oil and seasoning that you can literally scoop up with a spoon.

If you're even a little bit squeamish on fat, do not buy these chips. If your doctor has curtailed your salt intake, do not buy these chips. If you're disgusted by anything I've said so far, do not buy these chips. If you're at Trader Joe's in Santa Ana and you see that there's only one bag left, do not buy these chips. Save it for me!

My cube mates and I have lost count of how many of these $2 bags we've bought over the last couple of months. We take turns buying the week's supply. At any given time, one is ready to go in our file cabinets. When the inevitable afternoon hunger pangs hits between two thirty and four, we look at each other and ask "Is it chip time?"

Then and only then do we tear open a bag and share.

We don't necessarily have to do this. Any one of us is capable of finishing an entire bag by himself in one afternoon. We eat it together as a sort of chip support group so that no one person goes on a potato chip bender he'll later regret. We also eat it together to confirm our shared belief in the greatness of these chips with intonations of "These...*CRUNCH*...are the greatest...*CRUNCH*...potato chips...*CRUNCH*...ever!"

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
O Fine Japanese Cuisine - Laguna Beach

Wraps Xpress - Irvine

Wraps Xpress might just be the most ambiguous restaurant name to have appeared in Irvine since Asian Tapas. It does not foretell of what's actually made inside the store in this innocuous Albertsons-anchored neighborhood shopping center called Quail Hill.

Every customer who strolled in from the cold had no idea that this place is, in fact, a lahmajoun specialist. Lahmajoun (also spelled lahmacun) is a Turkish pizza of sorts: dough stretched to a thinness of a crepe, baked with minced meat.

Greeted by a jolly, bald man with the pent-up enthusiasm of a car salesman, these customers come in meekly, not knowing exactly what they will be eating. The man explains, quite joyfully, that when you choose your "pizza", it's baked to order with either meat (beef or chicken), cheese, spinach or zaatar (herbs). After the oven, it's topped with a variety of veggies, sauces and condiments before being rolled up and eaten like a burrito, or yes, a wrap.

Behind him, you see a sparse and streamlined operation with two employees. The process is quite mesmerizing to observe. The first employee feeds a ball of dough through an upright contraption that flattens it thinner and thinner under a series of motor-driven rollers.

Once the overgrown pasta machine is done, she dots the now tortilla-flat dough disk to prevent puffing. A spiced minced meat, onion and tomato mixture is applied by an ice cream scoop and summarily spread thin across the surface. The "pizza" is then sent down a conveyor-belted oven to bake, fusing the meat onto the dough and blistering the edges.

When it comes out, the second employee intercepts it at the exit, whereupon he will ask what toppings you want added before it is folded, and yes, wrapped.

I chose parsley, olives, a bit more shredded cheese, yogurt, a special sauce he said would taste like chipotle mayo (he was right), some lettuce, and a side of hummus. From start to finish, the whole thing took about five minutes.

Eating the burrito-cum-pizza-cum-calzone took less than ten. The crispy crust is akin to, well, a thin-crusted pizza. The subtly spicy ground beef topping had hints of cumin. The yogurt was as coolly refreshing as the leaves of parsley was cleansing. Like its catch phrase says "It is more than a wrap". It is lahmajoun.

On second thought, perhaps the generic title of "wrap" is perfect. "Lahmajoun Xpress" would have those Irvine heads scratching, never daring to step even a foot inside. A little ambiguity works once in a while.

Wraps Xpress
6779 Quail Hill Pkwy
Irvine, CA 92603
(949) 464-8448

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
The Capital Grille - Costa Mesa

Crepes de Paris - Irvine

Never underestimate the power of suggestion. We just happened to run into the Crepes Bonaparte truck--the closest thing OC has to a Food Network celebrity after that Great Food Truck Race show--while it was parked on a random side street in Downtown Fullerton. And that was it: we needed, wanted, craved, demanded crepes for dessert.

The problem is that we were headed somewhere else for dinner. Somewhere not far from it, across the parking lot actually, where we were still able to see the truck serving a brisk and steady stream of customers from our seat. But it was too far away to run after it when it suddenly left before we finished our supper.

To be fair, it didn't just decide to retreat on a whim. Checking their Twitter afterward confirmed that they cooked their last crepe at exactly at 8 p.m., just when they said they would.

But its departure now left us with a crepes-for-dessert mission; a mission to satisfy a jones that no other dessert could fulfill--not frozen yogurt, not Strickland's ice cream, not cake. We desired nothing but a crepe, made hot and thin in front of our eyes, oozing with Nutella, bananas, covered under a furious flurry of powdered sugar, and served as a folded triangular envelope. Dollop of whipped cream, optional.

This is how we found ourselves at a Crepes de Paris at Diamond Jamboree in Irvine--one of a few non-Asian eateries at the decidedly very Asian plaza--and ordering exactly this. Inside, chick-lit cartoon drawings flitted about the walls like it was actually animated. A very nice woman took our order. Ours would be the last one of the night, she said. She relayed it to her partner, a man in the back whom I spied through a window where the crepe griddles were hot and visible.

He poured onto them a ladle-full of batter. His wooden squeegee swirled it around to spread the off-white liquid wide and thin. After a minute, he flipped it with a skinny spatula, revealing a browned, mottled reverse-leopard-spot disc of our soon-to-be-dessert. On one quadrant, a fistful of sliced bananas and a copious drizzle of Nutella went on. Then with two quick folds and a powdered-sugar and chocolate shower, our crepe was done.

Witnessing our crepe's birth was just as essential to the enjoyment as eating it.

We took it outside to the courtyard full of patio tables and chairs, where others were sinking teeth into 85C Bakery's breads. Our crepe we tore up ravenously--a slightly thick stock, chewy with a playful rubbery pull, Nutella turning into sauce, sugar melting into it, and banana slices lost somewhere in the milieu.

It was good, not earth-shattering, but exactly what we needed at the moment we needed it.

Now it must be said, I don't recall ever buying a crepe in my life until now. I have always made my crepes. Of all things in the Larousse Gastronomique, it is arguably the easiest dish to accomplish with nothing but common ingredients (flour, butter, milk, eggs, vanilla extract, sugar, and salt) I always have laying around.

So after paying the almost $7 toll for the treat, I'm still of the opinion that when it comes to this basic banana-Nutella model, the economics is wholly in my favor if I continue to make them myself. I've yet to sample their more elaborate versions.

But I won't rule out surrendering more money for even the bare-bones ones if the mood should strike, especially if that Crepes Bonaparte truck sashays in front of us again and plants the idea that we must have it that instant like DiCaprio in Inception. I think it has something to do with those irresistibly hilarious outfits they wear.

Crepes De Paris
2710 Alton Pkwy. Ste 125
Irvine, CA 92606
(949) 727-2096

Update: As an extra topping to this post, I'm adding the Will Ferrell/Sacha Baron Cohen crepe scene from Talladega Nights. Thanks to Anonymous and digkv for bringing this up in the comments section!

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Bari Bari Japanese BBQ - Tustin

Yum Cha Café - Westminster

Readers from the San Gabriel Valley should already be familiar with Yum Cha Cafe. There are three there already (not counting the one in L.A.), all taking residence inside the armpits of large Chinese supermarkets.

They open early and get insanely busy fast. You know it's morning in the SGV when you see a jumble of bodies crowding the hot display cases like magnets. It is not uncommon to see little old ladies overtaking other little old ladies, elbowing themselves to the front of the line and jockeying for their turn at what is possibly the cheapest dim sum stash in existence.

Take a lesson from those women: You need to assert yourself. Forget shyness and decency. And also, forget about coming in the afternoon or in the evening, when all of the dim sum supplies are depleted and it turns into a standard, but equally cheap noodle soup shop.

This is dim sum at bargain prices, all freshly made and warming under heatlamps and in shiny aluminum baskets stacked tall behind a chin-high glass perennially fogged up with steam.

You order yours by screaming (it's the only way to get yourself heard above the din) and then pointing at stuff when you have to. You pay in cash and they package-up what you choose into Styrofoam containers with disposable chopsticks and hot sauce in little tear-away packets.

Orange County has two of its own, also following the same pattern as its SGV sisters. Both hide inside supermarkets and attract the same type of bargain hunters who salivate at the thought of getting the most out of their money. Read: quantity and prices before all else.

But if a Cantonese San Gabriel Valley resident should happen to come across our two Yum Chas, including this one inside the My Thuan market in Westminster, they'll find themselves more or less as a foreigner. Ours are decidedly Vietnamese, with Vietnamese translations for everything and Vietnamese speakers behind the counter.

Tip: take a number and watch the LED sign like a hawk. Chances are good that even though they'll yell the numbers in English and then Vietnamese, you won't hear it.

The prices are the same. Over 25 items are at 99-cents, usually with three pieces to an order. The rest top out $1.39. It is conceivable to spend more on the tea, tax, and tip at a proper dim sum house than an entire meal here. The spread I have pictured set me back exactly $11.22, and it fed the two of us until we were comatose.

Yes, you do sacrifice some of the refinement. The cheong fun can be thick where it should be delicate; the har gow is often pasty when it should be translucent; and the chao tom--deep fried balls of shrimp paste speared on sugarcane--are usually cold and dense by the time you get it home. But any complaints will be silenced when you again realize how little you paid.

Besides that, there are some really well-made items here. The taro croquettes crisps as it should, shedding its shredded-wheat-like fur in crumbles when you bite into it. Experience the same thrill of gnawing and nibbling the meat off of the braised pork ribs, just like usual. For dessert, enjoy the perfectly baked mini-custard pies called dan tats, as good here as it was at your last dim sum outing.

All you need now is to brew yourself a scalding hot pot of tea.

Yum Cha Café
8900 Westminster Blvd
Westminster, CA 92683
www.yumchacafe.com

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Aji Limon - Buena Park*

*Special Thanks to Monster Munching location scout Cecile for the tip on Aji Limon.

Kaju Soft Tofu - Irvine

It occurred to me during the middle of my Korean soft tofu dinner what a perfect meal this was. Not just this particular one ($16.99)--which was good, soul-soothing, and body-warming in the cold drizzle of the night--but all soondubu combos like it.

No matter where I've had it, the hot rice, the kalbi beef short ribs, the fried fish, the vegetable side dishes, and the soup are like the A-Team. Each individual component has its quirky strengths, contributing its own unique talents to the mission objective.

As played out as the yin-yang analogy may be, everything balances out something else. A bite of something crunchy can be followed by something soft. A slurp of something scalding is countered by that which is briskly chilled. The chew of meat is answered by tofu or veg. Spicy meets sweet. The sweet then cleansed by tart.

Your mouth becomes a see-saw and everyone is taking turns.

As is often the case, Kaju had a handful of people waiting at its doors to get in on the experience, and desperately trying to get out from the cold. If I'm not mistaken, most of the customers are Chinese, as are the servers.

That it is one of Irvine's most consistently managed, consistently good soondubu joints is saying something, especially in a town with no shortage of soondubu joints. The panchan isn't as varied or interesting as Kaya, but it does everything it needs to do.

And doesn't it all sound good?

In the cold, wet, and nippy nights that are to come, there's nothing better.

Kaju Tofu Restaurant
5408 Walnut Ave
Irvine, CA 92604-2500
(949) 653-2849

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Best of OC 2010
Valkyrie of Transcontinental Sausage - Ehrline Karnaga

Providence - Los Angeles

This post is about Providence, one of only a few L.A. restaurants to be awarded two Michelin stars. Its chef and proprietor, Michael Cimarusti, appeared on Top Chef Masters, and has been referred to as the West Coast's answer to Eric Ripert, and his restaurant, Le Bernadin.

The post that you are about to read, however, will be the least informative on this acclaimed five-year-old restaurant as you'll ever come across. This, I guarantee.

If you clicked on this post from your Google Reader thinking "Oh, he finally went to Providence!", chances are you already know more about it than I do. If you've read any of the billion other food blog odes, the 600 plus Yelp reviews, or the Jonathan Gold write-up of 2005, this post will sound like an addendum, a post-script, a foot-note.

You already know that Cimarusti is known for seafood. You already know that among the many wonderful things to eat, there is the three-tiered pricing on its tasting menu, and that it starts with a cocktail encased in a globular film accomplished through spherification. You might also already know that its 5-course option, previously $85, was recently brought down to $65--a bargain for cooking of this caliber.

If you know this, like I said, you knew more than I did. Because when my friends and I arrived at Providence--an imposing building looking not unlike a pirate ship had moored itself in front of a residential part of Melrose--we were anticipating to pay $85.

Upon discovering it was now only $65, we didn't do the logical thing and take them up on the discounted price. No, we went for the more expensive 9-course option. We said to each other, "Well, since we budgeted for $85, and we drove all this way, why not $110?"

Our atypical behavior can be explained: we didn't have a bite all day save for a 79 cent corn dog eaten earlier. Our growling and empty stomachs were making all the decisions. Famished and nearly delirious, we deluded ourselves into thinking we could do 9-courses. That Adam Richman ain't got nothing on us, we thought.

But as we found out: 9-courses is a LOT of food. Too much food.

This, my friends, is why I stopped taking notes, why this post will be uninformative, why I spent the sixth course worrying about whether I would be able to force the seventh, the eighth, and God forbid, the ninth course down my gullet without throwing up in front of all the nicely dressed people on dates and the impeccable service staff who doted on us.

Our evening of relentless eating began with freshly baked hot rolls of our choosing, eaten with butter. At this point, I was ravenous, so I chose the bacon brioche and slathered it in that butter despite the fact it already contained bacon. Then came four amuse bouches that, by the way, did not count against the 9 courses.

Yes, there were four amuse bouches; a frozen mojito as a slushy cube on a spoon; the aforementioned cocktail spherification that burst in our mouths like a grapefruit juice-filled water balloon; a cheesy puff pastry with the soul of a Cheez-It; and finally, a shot glass filled with fish eggs, flecks of gold, and bits of something that reminded me of Rice Krispies.

My friends, who heard the description (I was in the restroom at the time) said it also had cured trout. It was halfway down my gullet before I could confirm.

When the first course of kanpachi with creme fraiche, crispy rice crackers and flowering cilantro came, we ooh-and-ahh'd the firmness of the flesh, its chewy, agar-like density slipping playfully between our teeth. Soon this too was gone.

Then came uni served warm, mixed with raw quail egg inside a chicken's egg shell. There was again a crispy topping, this time crumbled brioche, or something like that (I get hazy on ingredients around here). But I do remember that the yolk and the ultra-rich uni became a cholesterol double threat and tasted like it. I also noted that it was the first time I've eaten sea urchin at a temperature other than frigid (save for when it is dissolved into uni spaghetti).

The third course was the first real protein: a seared scallop with a buttery foam, boiled napa cabbage laid down like carpet, and braised buckwheat that ate like pearl pasta infused with boullion (but much better than that). And of course, the scallop couldn't have been more precisely cooked.

Cured halibut with cranberry beans and a tomatoey froth arrived as the fourth course. This dish, as my friends and I agreed, had very little to contrast the fish against the rest of the components. It quickly became the least favorite of the night, especially when the salmon came around as the fifth course.

With its skin rendered to a salty crisp, its flesh cooked just to warm, the salmon was already a textbook example of how salmon should be prepared; but there was also the matsutake mushrooms, both raw and sauteed. And of course, all of it was united by a puddle of sauce with bright, acidic notes the last dish lacked.

This was the point where we started to feel the weight of our decision. After close to two hours of eating, the food we had consumed began to settle. Compounding this, the bread basket had made its second visit and none of us said no.

My friend's face seemed to whiten at the sight of the two sous-vide medallions of veal tenderloin, thick steaks easily worth a third of a pound. It wasn't that he didn't love it (he did), it was the realization that this obscenely tender, thoroughly pristine, and absent-of-sinew cut of meat was just course number six. There was still three more to go.

We sighed with relief when our server came out pushing a cheese cart to our table signaling that from now on, starting with this seventh course, it would be dessert. But after he cut four generous wedges off of different wheels, the man paused for a moment and said "Normally, it's only four cheese to a tasting plate, but I'm going to give you five".

I shot a worried look across the table, but it was too late. As the last and fifth wedge, he had picked out a runny specimen that he was particularly proud of, a naturally coagulated cow's milk cheese that owed its existence to nothing but an open window. He said it would taste of grass and the barnyard, and he was right. He continued by suggesting that we eat the pungent, wasabi-strength blue cheese with apples and the candied walnut, and on this, he was also right.

Finally, we came to the eighth course, and wasn't surprised that it was called a pre-dessert. No really. A pre-dessert: A sweet amuse of melon soup, akin to a slushie, served in a shot glass with a dollop of ice cream meant to ease our palates into the real dessert course.

We barely managed to crawl across the finish line, scraping up the last of our compressed banana, bread pudding, and a barley ice cream dessert, when what should appear but the petit fours. The salted caramels went straight into our pockets while the macarons and the chocolate marshmallows we crammed into our unwilling mouths. They were good, but at that point we couldn't be bothered about how it tasted.

After we left, we asked each other what we thought of the meal, and it was unanimous: though we agreed that Providence was everything we expected to be, and that it was worth every penny of our $110, five courses would've been plenty. It was after the fifth course that our enjoyment turned into dread. It was also at that moment when we realized our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. And that Adam Richman? Freak of nature.

Providence
5955 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038-3623
(323) 460-4170

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
The Pint House - Fullerton

Medieval Times - Buena Park

It was OC Restaurant Week last week, and what discount did I take advantage of? Medieval Times at $30...practically half price.

Half price to get into the Kingdom of Kitsch. Half price to watch actors/stuntmen in shiny armor clang swords and charge towards each other atop galloping horses with bolsa wood lances that splinter into a million pieces.

Half price to see a dirt patch become the stage for pseudo-Shakespearean prose with words like "doth" and "sire", all of it unintelligible because of the poor acoustics and an antiquated sound system. Half price to have "wenches" serve you food out of troughs and that you eat sans cutlery while wearing a colored paper crown on your noggin.

Yes, it's been a while, and I am not ashamed to say I loved every corny, hokey, hammy, hollerin'-for-your-knight thrill of it: pro-wrestling for the geeky, Renaissance-fair-going, Lord-of-the-Ring fanboy set, and you get a meal with it.

I remembered fondly how I sold bags upon bags of Blow Pops for some high school club all those years ago, just to raise enough funds to cover our year-end dinner there. Medieval Times, like Sizzler, back then, was a special treat. Only The Velvet Turtle carried more panache.

These days, it's easy to get cynical about it. It has been, and probably always will be, a tourist trap--a side trip for the Disneyland-bound out-of-towner who happens to be from a metropolitan area that doesn't already have a Medieval Times in it.

The bill of fare hasn't changed much. Soup, a thin tomatoey thing with bits of veggies cut down to grain-size, is poured from a jug into a metal bowl which will sap the heat from the liquid and be too hot to handle for the better part of 10 minutes.

Next comes a butter-soaked garlic bread, and then the roasted chicken (something they called a "buzzard"), which is larger than I remember. It's followed by a teensy piece of tender pork rib, half of a skin-on baked potato basted with the same sauce as the ribs, and a warm apple turnover for dessert.

Drink was Pepsi, poured into our mugs from jugs similar to the ones they used for the soup, and already flat.

So did I enjoy the meal? Yes, especially at half price where most of money ($25 of it, as the receipt broke it down) paid for the show, which saw our Fabio-like Red Knight become the evening's champion, besting the evil and sneering Green Knight.

And to our Fabio-like Red Knight: We're sorry to have doubted you, and for mocking your striking resemblance to the oft-ridiculed male model. You deserved every bit of your staged victory!

Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament
7662 Beach Blvd.
Buena Park, CA 90620
(866) 543-9637
medievaltimes.com‎

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Seasons 52 - Costa Mesa

Pat & Oscar's Breakfast Pizza - Santa Ana

It may not look it, but what you see before you is a breakfast pizza. Yes, a breakfast pizza. I repeat. A breakfast. Pizza.

I did not seek it out, nor would I have been interested in it if my co-worker didn't come back from lunch one afternoon and excitedly proclaim that he just saw it on a poster at Pat & Oscars.

By the time he finished describing it--that it came with country gravy, eggs, bacon, and sausage--another co-worker was already saying "When?".

"When were we going to pool a few bucks to try it?" the dude asked like an eager, bright-eyed kid who's just been told the circus is in town.

When? Apparently, the next morning.

And not only did he order one, he asked for the largest pie, retailing at close to $18, even after our protestations that it would be too big, that we only wanted a taste.

"If you guys can't finish it, I'll just have the rest for lunch!"

That's the kind of guy he is. Practical. And also, obviously quite confident that Pat & Oscars wouldn't make a bad pizza, a point that I had to politely agree to disagree with him on.

But as it turns out, as far as the breakfast pizza is concerned, he was right. It was a good breakfast pizza. Admittedly, there was no previous benchmark I could measure against. Still, the thing was much better than I expected. In fact, I ate two slices though I only really needed one.

The eggs, the thing I was most skeptical about when I heard of its existence, was not overcooked. Nicely scrambled and still somewhat blubbery, it accounted for most of the thickness and was covered with thin, insulating top layer of cheese. The pizza was so loaded with egg, it was just a millimeter shy of being called a deep-dish, or maybe, a quiche.

There was no sausage unfortunately, but there was bacon, crispy, crackly shards sprinkled over the top like pork confetti. And beneath it all, the country gravy was spread out like it was red sauce, but without any of its oomph. It didn't need to be there at all, and might as well have been omitted.

The sliced tomato and basil chiffonade was, in contrast, indispensable. It cut through the richness with a bright splash of fruit, refreshing acid, and cleansing herb. The only thing that was missing to help it out was a bottle of Tabasco.

After other cubicle mates gathered around to see and try the oddity themselves, we were all agreed that this was a much better idea than that time we went out to try the Double Down.

Pat & Oscar's Restaurant
(714) 689-3181
3811 S. Bristol St
Santa Ana, CA 92704

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Felix Continental Cafe - Orange

Mrs. Knott's Chicken-To-Go - Buena Park

We are not cheapskates when it comes to food; but we are impatient. Height-of-the-hype Kogi days included, any line that wraps around a building is usually a sign we should go somewhere else. And so when when we saw what looked like a queue for Star Wars leading up to Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner restaurant, our hearts sunk, because by then, we had fried chicken on our brains and mashed potato cravings in our gut.

Then we saw salvation: a way to get our chicken without so much as a ten-minute wait. And even better: without paying a single dime on tip.

Mrs. Knott's Chicken-To-Go counter was mere feet where people were still standing around for the sit-down experience. These folks would all eventually get in, get served by probably a happier Knott's employee than the frowny-faced cashier who took our order at the Chicken-To-Go joint; but by our estimation, we were already licking our fingers and rubbing our tummies full from a meal well-eaten while they were still mulling menu choices.

And on top of that, it was inexpensive to boot. The dinner bucket we chose for $19.95 could have easily fed four people. It was certainly enough for the three of us with 9 pieces of hen, 2 tubs of mashed potatoes we couldn't even hope of finishing, 1 tub of gravy, 1 equally tall tub of a side of our choice, and more biscuits (of the tender and fluffy variety) with boysenberry preserves (a fruit that was popularized by Walter Knott, donchaknow) than we knew what to do with. They even gave us paper plates and utensils.

We took our haul to picnic tables conveniently located behind Pink's and promptly started diving in, slopping the creamy mashed spuds onto our plates, dousing the entire thing with a thick, white gravy so rich we saw it congeal to sludge the longer it was exposed to the cool night air.

Then we bit into the chicken.

Now, it must be said that none of us, in our decades as OC residents and food boosters, ever tasted the fried chicken at Knott's. I think I was the first one to say it: "What took us so long!?"

Though I can't unequivocally proclaim that it's the best fried chicken in the world, it's certainly one of the best in Orange County.

First thing we noticed is that it's not oversalted, not overbreaded, and not underfried. You know the lead-weighted feeling like you've just downed a cup of grease and salt after KFC? Not here. If it is possible, this fried chicken left us feeling light in our step, like what we ate was health food. I picked clean three pieces but I could've eaten a fourth. A fifth, however, would've probably killed my mobility. It's still fried chicken, after all.

But for sure, if this is the same chicken that Cordelia Knott produced to such acclaim that it begat an amusement park, then it all makes sense. In fact, I'd imagine it would have been much better back then. Of course, in the 1930s, there wouldn't be a Chicken-To-Go option, just a line that wrapped around the building.

Mrs. Knott's Chicken-To-Go
8039 Beach Blvd
Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 220-5055

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Myung In Dumplings - Garden Grove

Jerry's Dogs - Irvine

Jerry's Dog is homegrown and that's the way I like it. The chain, started seven years ago in Santa Ana by one Jerry O'Connell (no, not the guy in Piranha 3D who married Rebecca Romijn) has grown to four outlets, each with buckets of free peanuts, and all exclusive to Orange County and Orange County alone (at least for now). This one's the newest and to me, closest. So close it can be walked; but far enough that doing so can be called exercise.

I took the hike after some urging from my lovely companion who thinks I could do well with a little cardiovascular activity once in a while. I agreed on the promise that a glistening, fat-spurting sausage sandwich was at the finish line.

Yes, my carrot was a Jalapeno Hot Link flecked with nicely sooty black spots where a wood fire kissed it. The bun? It was grill toasted too. And that part's essential because since they use a particulary soft roll, you need the extra protection from the moisture that will leech out from all the free toppings you will be invited to pile onto it.

I've matured some over the years and stick with maybe just two sauces, grilled onions, grilled peppers and some tomato. That's about all I need. Any pickle (and they have a lot of that) distracts from the sausage in my opinion. And you want all the juice, all the fatty goodness, and in my case, the jalapeno-amped flavor of the grilled tube of meat to speak loudly and clearly.

Mine was nicely spicy even before I asked to get a drizzle of chipotle mayo squirted on top.

The bratwurst, seen here on the right, is a kinder, gentler dog. It cozies up to you with a sweet milkiness--a contrast to the rude and spicy bark of the Jalapeno Hot Link.

So yes, I walked to get a dog and it was a good one. On our next trip, I have my eye on a bacon-wrapped wiener they call the "L.A. Dog". I think I'll drive to get it, because nobody walks in L.A.

Jerry's Dogs
(714) 665-1480
13786 Jamboree Rd
Irvine, CA 92602-1202

THIS WEEK ON OC WEEKLY:
Ecco - Costa Mesa