September 20, 2007

The Chuck Wagon

Steakhouses, mess halls, eateries, barbecues, fine-dining establishments, & gratuitous & thematically inconsistent Tolkien references
By Staff

Best Restaurant in Orange County
White Horses
610 Avenida Victoria, San Clemente
(949) 429-1800
www.whitehorses.us
If you’re looking for the best place to buy two tacos for a buck—plus free pineapple juice—then we’d give this award to Tacos el Chavito. But this title demands class, a place where you can dress up and play rich. And that place is White Horses, a stunning, cozy bistro at the bottom of Avenida Victoria, below a bed and breakfast and a short jaunt from the ocean. White Horses changes its menus every six weeks, so you can try a new meal every time, not because of free will but rather necessity. Regardless of season, however, the plates always stun: vaguely British, with hints of Mediterranean and Spanish cuisine, and always, always delivered like you’re the most important person since Jesus.

Readers’ Choice: Ambrosia

Best Steakhouse
Mastro’s Steakhouse
633 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa
(714) 546-7405
In every human lives a carnivore. When you decide to feed it the meat it craves, there’s no better place than Mastro’s. Their specialty? Steak. Beefsteak served sputtering in melted butter on a plate heated past the temperature of magma. Every slice you make will be an effortless task. The meat will offer little resistance to your knife. Order it medium-rare (why else would you eat steak), and you get a crimson core surrounded by a perimeter of pink, followed by a crust that’s beautifully charred to black. Upon chewing, you’ll find that it surrenders tenderly like Jell-O, a beefy, unobstructed taste of red meat worth its weight in gold.

Best New Restaurant
Old Vine Café
2937 Bristol St., Ste. A-102, Costa Mesa
(714) 545-1411
www.oldvinecafe.com
Old Vine Café has been open only a couple of months, but it’s already besting veterans with its affordable gourmet entrées such as Spanish omelets (stuffed with artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, shitake mushrooms, proscuitto and Manchengo cheese) and a tapas-style dinner menu that guarantees many nights of swapping. But this tiny restaurant’s best specials are in the refrigerator, where boutique wines, meats and cheeses are available at Wal-Mart prices, but Trader Joe’s quality.

Best Restaurant When Someone Else Is Paying
Bluefin
7952 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Newport Beach
(949) 715-7373
www.bluefinbyabe.com
As of this writing, the omakase meal at Bluefin runs $75 per person. But don’t count on it staying that way, especially now that this classy sushi bar is becoming better known outside its exclusive Newport Coast neighborhood. Omakase, a meal set in six courses, is the best way to taste the creativity at work. There’ll be an amuse bouche, where some items might be flecked with gold leaf; others, if in season, fresh caviar. Then slices of owner/chef Takashi Abe’s freshest sashimi take form as a brisk salad course, followed by two immaculately cooked courses of seasonal ingredients. Expect these dishes to feature anything from a stuffed quail with foie gras to a whole deep-fried mackerel stuffed with pumpkin—maybe even some Kobe beef medallions, if you’re lucky. But it’s not over—a sushi course is next. Finally, a slice of their chocolate cake and ice cream will top off a perfect dinner that you hopefully didn’t have to pay for.

Readers’ Choice: Mastro’s Steakhouse

Best Restaurant for Cheapskates
Nha Hang $1.99 Restaurant
7971-7981 Westminster Blvd., Westminster
(713) 893-8364
For cheapskates, it doesn’t get better than this place. The entire menu fits on the back of their business card. And yes, with the exception of four items, everything on it is $1.99. There are three types of noodles (rice, vermicelli and egg) that swim in soups, get fried to a crisp, or jiggle in a cooling salad with tiny egg rolls and crunchy veggies. Three kinds of rice (steamed, broken and fried) are paired with grilled pork, steak, or seafood. And if you can call it splurging, spend an extra $1.25 for their most popular dish: half a Cornish game hen with the fried rice. To drink, get the fresh-squeezed orange juice or the Thai iced tea for $1.75. And no, they won’t give you ice water from the tap. You have to buy it bottled for a buck each. These folks may charge $1.99 for a hot meal, but they’re not dupes: They know you for the tightwad you are.

Best Romantic Restaurant
Chat Noir
655 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa
(714) 557-6647
www.culinaryadventures.com
Red is the color of passion, and it’s used in ample amounts in velvet and silk at Chat Noir. Dimly lit and as sultry as your date, the rooms are inspired by the Moulin Rouge as imagined by Baz Luhrmann (minus the grating presence of John Leguizamo as Toulouse-Lautrec). Snuggle over French food prepared with a Parisian flair and feed each other soufflé drizzled with warm chocolate sauce. As for the rest of the night, you’re on your own.

Best Restaurant for Tolkien Geeks
The Hobbit
2932 E. Chapman Ave., Orange
(714) 997-1972
www.hobbitrestaurant.com

If you’re only familiar with the movie versions of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s Middle-Earth books, you could be forgiven for thinking the defining trait of a Hobbit is the ability to stare homoerotically at your best friend for hours on end. But as readers of the books well know, Hobbits love their food far more than male bonding. They’re a bit like the French in the way they savor multicourse feasts, but if going to France isn’t an option, why not hit up the one restaurant specifically designed to give you the full Hobbit gourmet experience? It isn’t cheap—$74, excluding tip and beverage, and their wines tend to be the fancy, pricey kind—but you get seven gourmet courses, with a main course that’s often a variation on filet mignon (always USDA prime), veal (always free-range), lamb or duck, and there are one or two alternates if the daily choice doesn’t suit. This isn’t some cheap movie cash-in—no Lord of the Onion Rings, or anything like that—but a great place to impress a date, if the name doesn’t put her off.

Best Place to Dine Alone
Kaisen Sushi
3855 S. Bristol St., Santa Ana
(714) 444-2161
Sushi places have always been ideal for eating solo. You can sit at the bar and bond with the itamae. You eat a little. Drink a little. Later, there’ll be a shared toast with the chef and the fellow sushi-lover next to you. A night out alone, well-spent. But say you’re not in a sociable mood—what then? Go to Kaisen Sushi. There will be minimal human interaction, since most of the bar seats are in front of the conveyor belt. It’ll be just you staring down the tasty sushi parade. And if you’re worried about attracting undue attention as the dateless sad sap you are, don’t worry—everyone else is also focused on the goodies passing by.

Readers’ Choice: In-N-Out Burger

Best Sunday Brunch
Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel
1 Ritz-Carlton Dr., Dana Point
(949) 240-2000
Sometimes, luxury is better—especially when it’s the Sunday brunch at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel. For about $50, you receive almost anything—prepared-right-there omelets and pancakes, seafood, sushi, and all the low-grade caviar your taste buds can handle. But the best part is the unlimited champagne—the one time in your life you can act like a classy lush.

Readers’ Choice: El Torito

Best Brewery
Tustin Brewing Co.
13011 Newport Ave., Ste. 100, Tustin
(714) 665-2337
www.tustinbrewery.com
Located in a medieval chateau—or maybe it’s a strip mall—on the corner of Newport Boulevard and Old Irvine Boulevard in Tustin, this microbrewery isn’t the fanciest, newest, oldest or biggest in Orange County, but it is the best. The no-nonsense interior includes a bar facing the large brewing machinery and a big open-space dining area. The beers, with names like Lemon Heights Hefeweisen and Red Hill Red, pay respect to nearby neighborhoods, furthering Tustin Brewing Co.’s already-solid local-bar agenda. And for $6.75, you can run the gamut of beer flavors in the form of five mini-glasses, which begin light and finish with a dark, rich porter. Undoubtedly, you’ll find the brew that best complements your savvy-ass self. Try to make it for the weekday happy hour (3-6 p.m.), when most pints are a paltry $3.

Best Waterfront Dining
Sapphire
1200 S. Coast Hwy., Laguna Beach
(949) 715-9888
www.sapphirellc.com
Technically, Sapphire isn’t on the waterfront. But the beach is a short walk away, and if you’re game and you’ve got a beach blanket, buy a picnic box of cheeses, charcuterie, bread and wine from Sapphire’s gourmet shop before you make the trek. It’s one of those dating-show moments you can pull off on your very own. But for romance without sand, dine in their cozy/breezy room and feast on dishes such as their barramundi, which tastes as good as any fish ever cooked—and it’s healthy, too.

Best Restaurant for Gluttons
Agora Churrascaria
1830 Main St., Irvine
(949) 222-9910
www.agorachurrascaria.com
Be prepared for what awaits you at Agora. It is, after all, a churrascaria: the all-you-can-eat read-meat-feast, the Brazilian antidote to vegetarianism. Loosen your belt and check your pulse periodically, since the procession of meat won’t stop until you cry mercy. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon, chicken hearts and bloody chunks of lamb are grand marshals in the protein parade. And all are gorgeously spit-roasted. Best part: You don’t even have to leave your chair! They come to you skewered on sabers brandished by waiters dressed as gauchos. How’s that for gluttony?! The buffet line of side dishes? Immaculate. But you’re there to eat meat and more meat. And meat is good.

Best Seafood Restaurant
California Fish Grill
5675 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills
(714) 777-5710
10569 Valley View St., Cypress
(714) 252-0001
3988 Barranca Pkwy., Ste. B, Irvine
(949) 654-3838
www.cafishgrill.com
Who said a seafood dinner has to be expensive? For less than 10 bucks, you can nosh on a meal of grilled fish, complete with fries (or rice) and coleslaw at California Fish Grill. Your filets will shine and pulsate with a vigorous dusting of Cajun spices (or as one Food Network star would say it, “bammage”) or slathering of garlic butter. And if you’re still feeling peckish, there’s fried shrimp, scallops, even a clam chowdah that’d make a Bostonian proud!

Readers’ Choice: McCormick & Schmick’s

Best Coffeehouse
Coffee Factory
15582 Brookhurst St., Westminster
(714) 418-0757
15455 Jeffrey Rd., Irvine
(949) 552-5735
To get the full range of Vietnam’s jolting coffees, pull up a table at the Anglo-named, French-themed Coffee Factory on the edge of Little Saigon. Sip slowly on the ca phé sua nong, which is as black as Larry Agran’s heart (and just as shudder-inducing), or some ice-cold ca phé den da, complete with black tapioca pearls. They’ve recently opened a second location in Irvine to follow the county’s second Vietnamese diaspora.

Readers’ Choice: Alta Coffee

Best Breakfast
Original Pancake House
1418 E. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim
(714) 535-9815
www.originalpancakehouse.com
If there’s any doubt the traditional American breakfast isn’t hearty enough, try Original Pancake House’s bacon waffles. Yep, they put the bacon inside the waffle batter. Just one of the many ways you can say good morning and good riddance to your heart health at the Original Pancake House. Another way: the corned-beef hash—perfectly formed patties of salty chipped beef, with a crispy crust and an interior so smooth it eats like pudding. Still some room? Get the German pancakes, which are lighter than “99 Luft Balloons.” Good ol’ buttermilk pancakes are, of course, excellent—ethereally fluffy until you drench them with syrup.

Best Cheap Lunch
Banh Mi Che Cali
15551 Brookhurst St., Westminster
(714) 839-8185
You can credit the French for introducing the baguette and charcuterie to the Mekong Delta, but all thanks are owed to the Vietnamese for inventing the bánh mí sandwich, where these components are brought together with cilantro, carrots and daikon. On average, you won’t spend more than $2 for one, but at Banh Mi Che Cali, the deal is even better than that. Buy two, and the third is free. And for this pittance, you’ll get crackle-crusted, freshly baked hoagies stuffed with your choice of meats—shredded chicken, barbecue pork, Vietnamese ham, head cheese, smears of paté, even sardines. And if you’ve got some room and some change left, there are plenty of choices of the Vietnamese dessert che to tempt your sweet tooth.

Best Teahouse
The Teahouse on Los Rios
31731 Los Rios St., San Juan Capistrano
(949) 443-3914
www.theteahouseonlosrios.com
When ladies seek tea—and yes, it’s always ladies; men prefer swill—they seek quaint cottages ringed with flowers, fences and china. Lots of china. They seek the Teahouse on Los Rios, a Jane Austen novel come to life in one of the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhoods in California. The teas are fine; the soft-as-cotton scones even better. But it’s the genteelness of it all—almost everyone wears a foofy hat! And did you hear the Amtrak chug along a couple of minutes ago? How about the mission bells?

Best Food Court
Mitsuwa Marketplace
665 Paularino Ave., Costa Mesa
(714) 557-6699
www.mitsuwa.com
Oodles of noodles in bowls of boiling broth—this is why you go to Mitsuwa Marketplace. Whether it’s for the thick and chewy udon, or the emperor of all noodles, the ramen, you’ll find no better place than this food court to slurp up your lunch. You can’t go wrong with any of the vendors, but gravitate to the corner stall with no English signage, and you’ll find Santouka, a Hokkaido-based ramen shop that specializes in tonkotsu soup—a sweet, murky, milky-white elixir made by boiling pork bones rigorously until they surrender all their body and flavor. Take a sip, and the richness will have you swearing there’s butter in the broth (there isn’t). One thing’s for sure: This ain’t the Cup O’ Noodles you bought in bulk and ate in college. If ramen soup doesn’t float your boat, there are other options, even pasta. A shop called Maestro cooks up a tasty Japanese take on the Italian staple (think Iron Chef Italian, Masahiko Kobe), along with aromatic curry doused over rice with meats fowl or porky. For your sweet tooth, check out Italian Tomato, where the cheesecake comes flavored with green tea.

Best Really, Really Clean Fast Food Restaurant
Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits, Santa Ana
1244 E. 17th St., Santa Ana
(714) 834-9709
No joke: There are certain expensive South Coast Plaza-area restaurants that aren’t as clean as the Santa Ana Popeyes. Each time we’ve visited over the years, the counters, tables, seats and floors are spotless. Even if guests make a mess, the staff quickly clean the area in the same thorough way you would if it were your home. It’s a remarkable achievement in the fast-food industry. But there’s a simple explanation: 30-year-old manager Vee Ithivongsuphakit. His mother and father have owned a chicken franchise (at one point, it was a Pioneer Chicken) on the spot for almost three decades now. You can often see all three in the store happily working with the hired help. Ithivongsuphakit, who studied business management at Cal State Fullerton, says the diner is his family’s joy: “We take pride in this place.” It shows.

Best Diner
La Palma Chicken Pie Shop
928 N. Euclid St, Anaheim
(714) 533-2021
We try to highlight new businesses and people every year in our Best of OC, but some things simply can’t be beat—like La Palma Chicken Pie Shop. No amount of money or buzz can top this Anaheim institution’s flaky, golden-brown pies plump with gravy and juicy chicken breasts, the delicious chocolate cakes concocted by the German owner but prepped by Latino cooks, and the ancient waitresses who slipped into menopause during the Reagan administration. And, of course, the wonderful neon chicken outside that didn’t buzz for years but now casts a warm glow into the Anaheim sky nightly.

Readers’ Choice: Ruby’s Diner

Best Soda Fountain
Watson’s Drug and Soda Fountain
116 E. Chapman Ave., Orange
(714) 633-1050
Many restaurants these days score cheap nostalgia points with a jukebox or “old-fashioned” cooking, but Watson’s earns its nostalgia cred by having been around since 1899. It’s been updated a bit since then, but not so much as to resemble any of these newfangled chain joints. The food is fine, but the real appeal here lies in the drinks, whether you choose one of their dozen or so obscure bottled beverages (one of which looks like Windex but tastes substantially better) or head straight for the ice cream concoctions, which is what any sane person would do. The ice cream soda is a thing of beauty, styled like a work of art and intoxicating like a summer bouquet. You can take a first, tentative sip just to taste, then look down at the glass and realize you’ve just inhaled a quarter of the thing. It’s liquid heroin, the most fun you can have while drinking that doesn’t involve alcohol. They’ll tell you that President Bush stopped in once for a malt, but don’t hold that against Watson’s—rather, marvel that every once in a while, Dubya actually knows what he’s doing.

Best Deli
New York Deli Case
28570 Marguerite Pkwy., Mission Viejo
(949) 364-0321
Deli-lovers will know the drill at New York Deli Case: A long, frosty display case contains slabs of meat that patiently wait for their date with a cleaver. Silver trays are filled with different kinds of salads, none of them particularly visually appealing, all of them yummily nostalgic. Cookies, pickles, cheesecake. A fading menu hangs overhead, with daily specials taped on and scribbled out in cardboard paper. Plop this place in LA’s Fairfax district, and the lines would extend out the door starting at dawn. And the daily sandwich specials are South County’s best.

Readers’ Choice: Big Belly Deli

Best Restaurant to Take the Kids
The Lazy Dog Cafe
16310 Beach Blvd., Westminster
(714) 500-1140
1623 W. Katella Ave., Orange
(714) 769-7020
www.thelazydogcafe.com
This canine-themed dining establishment is definitely a mixed breed. On the one hand, father-and-son founders Thomas and Chris Simms have given their budding chain all the serious, sit-down restaurant stuff a grown-up could want: dark-wood and piled-stone décor, a hunting-lodge-sized fireplace, boutique draft beers, a menu bristling with sure-fire big-kid fare from around the world at reasonable prices (the buttery bliss of the Hawaiian ahi poke appetizer? A value at $8.95), and portions ranging from generous to enormous. On the other, numerous touches both big (the colossal dog portrait, the wide, high-chair- and stroller-friendly spaces between tables and booths, the varied kids’ menus, with both 8-and-under and 12-and-under divisions) and small (the kids’ dessert, a sealed plastic cup full of Froot Loops and booby-trapped with a red licorice whip) make it a fun, fascinating and flavorful dining destination for the wee ones. On top of that, they actually give your budding Matisse blank sheets of paper with the crayons, and several of them. That kind of forethought brings a trip to the Lazy Dog as close to a stress-free restaurant experience as any parent of small kids is gonna get.

Best Place to Eat in the Magic Kingdom
The Little Red Wagon
1313 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim
(714) 781-4000
www.disneyland.com

You wouldn’t want to work where two of the unluckiest Disneyland “cast members” do: inside a truck with a deep fryer parked at the end of Main Street. But their sweat and toil produce one of the best (if not the only edible) treats inside the park: the corn dog. Theirs is a thick and juicy wiener, hand-dipped in cornbread batter and deep-fried to the lopsided and gnarled shape of a caveman’s club. Inherently greasy and decadent, it begs for a thorough slathering of yellow mustard to cut through it all. Once you finish one, your napkins and fingers will glisten with enough oil to lube the axle of a Disneyland locomotive. All aboard!

Best Late-Night Dining
Lee’s Sandwiches
13991 Brookhurst St, Garden Grove
(714) 636-2288
www.leessandwiches.com
Norms is always great, and the Shore House Café chain will make pancakes at all hours. But for the past couple of years, ever since a cute Vietnamese girl broke our hearts but left the cheap Vietnamese sandwiches called bánh mìs in its place, we’ve fulfilled our midnight munchie cravings at the Lee’s Sandwiches in Garden Grove. The prices at this chain (there are 11 locations in OC) have increased the past couple of years, but all that means is you’ll spend $2.50 for a meal that rightfully should cost 6 bucks at least. Warning: Meals after 10 p.m. must be eaten on a parking lot curb and usually within elbow distance of loud teens. But again: $2.50!

Readers’ Choice: Harbor House Cafe

Best Soul Food
Rick’s Secret Spot
1030 Calle Sombra, Ste. G, San Clemente
(949) 429-7768
www.rickssecretspot.com
Rick’s is in the unlikeliest of spots—on the San Clemente frontier east of Interstate 5, up a winding road, toward the back of an industrial park, a cubbyhole where the scent of sauces and meats smacks your senses like the summer sun dipped in molasses. Get there early— Rick prepares his barbecue and okra in the morning, but it’s usually gone come lunchtime.

Best All-You-Can-Eat Vegetarian Buffet
Gauranga’s Vegetarian Buffet
Hare Krishna Temple
285 Legion St., Laguna Beach
(949) 494-7029
You don’t have to shave your head or drink the Krishna Kool-Aid to enjoy the dirt-cheap vegetarian feast every Sunday. Get in touch with the “source” as you meditate to instrumental music and, if you like, chant along. For just a $3 suggested donation, you’ll be catered to by robed monks carrying a variety of delicious vegetarian and vegan dishes. Chow down while sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the floor, but don’t worry about cleanliness—monks never get sick.

Best Vegan-Friendly Restaurant
Native Foods
2937 Bristol St., Costa Mesa
(714) 751-2151
www.nativefoods.com
Even in California today, being a vegan isn’t easy. Many restaurateurs seem to think vegans are members of an esoteric religious cult who remain best ignored, not a hungry demographic deserving of at least a few centimeters of menu space. Thankfully, a handful of enlightened entrepreneurs in Orange County sate vegans’ picky palates, the most satisfying and worry-free of which is Native Foods. The airy, circular bistro (located in the Camp anti-mall) boasts a scintillating array of non-dairy offerings, as well as concoctions featuring tempeh and seitan as meat substitutes. Of course, vegetables are the stars of this production, and Native Foods’ are all A-list caliber. Brown rice also does yeoman’s duty in many dishes, and just because the joint’s vegan, it doesn’t mean it’s full of flavorless fare. On the contrary, the items we’ve sampled saturated our taste buds with hedonistic glee. Ultimately, though, Native Foods is more than just another place to fill your stomach with healthy comestibles; it’s the engine driving an entire lifestyle and philosophy. Pamphlets detailing the horrors of carnivorous habits are shelved near the door, along with PETA booklets and free magazines promoting alternative, mystical world-views. The chalkboards contain stats further explicating the dangerous foolishness of a non-vegan lifestyle. You might come to Native Foods for the Scorpion Burger and by meal’s end decide to live on a commune in the country. Whatever the case, inner peace and excellent digestion await you.

Best Raw Food Restaurant
Good Mood Food Café
5930 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach
(714) 377-2028
www.goodmoodfood.com
Leave your expectations at the door when you enter the tiny Zen space at Good Mood Food Café. Don’t let the idea of “raw” discourage you, though—what you’ll find here is scrumptious, unusual and energizing. Diners can munch on vigorous salads, their own sandwich creations, or such Good Mood favorites as Ursula’s Famous Nutburger (a hearty patty of mashed raw vegetables and nuts piled high, with just-ripe slices of avocado, date-carmelized onions, pickles and plenty of greens). Save room for dessert: You’ll be amazed at how good an apple pie pressed into a nut “crust” can taste without an ounce of wheat, milk or eggs.

Best Japanese Restaurant
Honda-Ya
556 El Camino Real, Tustin
(714) 832-0081
Being that Honda-Ya is a pub, it’s not open for lunch. But come 5:30 p.m., the beer starts to flow, and it doesn’t stop till 1 a.m. The best seats are in the tatami room, where you sit cross-legged on a woven mat of reeds. Start the evening by ordering one of the Big Three beers: Sapporo, Kirin or Asahi. Then order some food, which you choose from a menu designed for grazing. As Honda-Ya is a proper izakaya (a Japanese pub/restaurant), the portions are as small as tapas. Most dishes are listed by cooking method, ranging from the deep-fried, to the simmered to the grilled and the steamed. Grilled yellowtail collar, crisply fried soft-shell crab, button-cute steamed dumplings filled with fish mousse, and teriyaki chicken can be had. Although you can get sushi, why bother when you can get it anywhere? Instead, opt for the skewered kushiyaki, produced by the grill master, whose lungs are probably jet-black after years of inhaling the emissions of the binchotan, the best charcoal in the world. But the expenses (and his health sacrifices) are worth the flavor that the ribbons of smoke impart to any food cooked over it. Quail eggs threaded on a stick, for one, get a carbon-laced complexity and subtle sweetness so thrilling it’s hard to believe—a flavor impossible to get from your Kingsford grill (believe me, I’ve tried).

Best Two-Hour Wait for Food
Anjin
3033 Bristol St., Costa Mesa
(714) 979-6700
Japanese barbecue places can be tricky. One wrong move, and you end up at a bland, touristy teppanyaki like Benihana, where semi-impressive food tossing is abundant, but taste isn’t. A general rule of thumb: Head where the crowds are. And Anjin has crowds. The wait can be almost unbearably, dissuadingly long—as long as two hours on the weekends. The trick is to get your name on the list a good hour before you anticipate hunger pangs. Anjin’s polite wait staff is forgiving; they’ll take down your cell number so you can wander Bristol’s shopping centers until your table’s ready. Unlike Benihana, Anjin is a yakiniku restaurant, meaning you cook your own plates of thinly sliced meat on a grill placed in the center of your table. But with a variety of fragrantly flavored meats marbled with just the right amount of fat, seafood (scallops, shrimp, salmon), and a nice variety of dipping sauces, you won’t mind the DIY factor of it all. In fact, it can actually be fun. (And for vegetarians, Anjin offers an admirable-sized array of delicious rice dishes, as long as you don’t mind the background aroma of burning flesh.)

Best Chinese Restaurant
369 Shanghai Place
613 N. Euclid St., Anaheim
(714) 635-8369
For a couple of reasons: First, the name. Maybe it signifies something in Chinese (mystic, no doubt, in accordance with the ways of Celestials), but we like it for its faithfulness to multiples of three. We also enjoy its unassuming location in a shopping plaza, which tricks you into believing it’s just another Chinese restaurant and not one that specializes in Shanghainese cuisine. Most important, the food is cheap, diverse (everything from fish-head casserole to crispy-fried rice) and delicious. Whenever you go, order the Chinese fried bread, with a decadent taste that makes Krispy Kreme seem like lettuce.

Readers’ Choice: Ho Sum Bistro

Best Vietnamese Restaurant
Brodard
9892 Westminster Ave., Garden Grove
(714) 530-1744
www.brodard.net
To pick one restaurant out of the hundreds lining the streets of Little Saigon is tricky. For one thing, with Vietnamese cuisine, there are subgenres. But we like Brodard because it’s got a little of everything. Fried yams served with mountains of herbs. Plates of rice with grilled meats. Noodles swimming in soup or stir-fried with crab meat. But no trip is complete without their famous nem nuong rolls. Pork or shrimp, chopped lettuce, and a crunchy eggroll skin is wrapped in rice paper and served with a secret dipping sauce that has beguiled all who’ve tried to replicate it.

Readers’ Choice: Pho 99

Best Thai Restaurant
Thai Nakorn
11951 Beach Blvd., Stanton
(714) 799-2031
Without so much as a plane ticket, you can eat Thai food at its most authentic, here in Orange County. The place: Thai Nakorn. Sure, there are plenty of other Thai restaurants to choose from, but none has a fan base so devoted that one patron actually offered to pay for a new restaurant when the first burned to the ground. Now resurrected in Stanton and serving scorching plates laced with Thai bird chiles like no time had passed, Thai Nakorn continues to wow. The best of the lot exists on a section labeled “Specials,” where the funky, sweet, salty, hot and sour flavors of Issan cooking cut a path through your taste buds and leave you begging for mercy one moment, for more the next. The mango salad with crispy catfish, for instance, will burn a hole through your mouth and set your head ablaze, but you won’t want to stop eating. Innocent shreds of the tart, tropical fruit meld with onions, chiles and crunchy crumbles of catfish the size of Grape-Nuts, making for a refreshingly bright, but unimaginably spicy ordeal for your palate. Now you know what that tall glass of iced Thai tea is for.

Best Filipino Restaurant
Kapamilya
10964 Warner Ave., Fountain Valley
(714) 593-6212
Orange County lacks the great Filipino joints our neighbors in Artesia and Cerritos take for granted. So where to go to satisfy your adobo addiction and other Pinoy pinings? Kapamilya in Fountain Valley, where the turo-turo is tasty-tasty and eight different almusals (the Filipino answer to the all-American breakfast) are served throughout the day, complete with a fresh tomato, a fried egg and enough rice to sop up its runny yolk. The longanisa, the porkiest of pork sausages, pops with sweet fat. Their tapa has lots of sugar and love, and their corned beef is salty, sloppy and wet—precisely how a Filipino mom would make it.

Best Indian Restaurant
Dosa Place
13812 Red Hill Ave., Tustin
(714) 505-7777
www.dosaplace.com
Dosa Place has made our Best of OC list for the past couple of years, and with good reason. It remains the county’s sole restaurant to specialize in dosas: cheap, crepe-like leviathans accompanied by a spicy soup and made 17 different ways—stuffed with potatoes, melted with Cheddar cheese, crammed with ground curried goat meat, or plated hollow, in a presentation that looks like a bazooka. Don’t like dosas? No matter—they also stock a traditional South Indian buffet and specialize in the tamarind-friendly dishes of Andhra Pradesh.

Best French Restaurant
Marché Moderne
3333 Bristol St., Ste. 3001, Costa Mesa
(714) 434-7900
www.marchemoderne.net
Even if it weren’t in the toniest part of South Coast Plaza (above Tiffany’s), Marche Moderne would still be one of the best French restaurants in the county. Impeccable service by actual Frenchmen, a gorgeous patio with potted fruit trees, and a food tour de France prepared by owner/executive chef Florent Marneau that marches through bistro staples like steak frites and steamed mussels with white wine. But he takes you to other places, too: sea urchin, harissa and rose-petal ice cream will make you forget you’re in a mall.

Best Pâtisserie
Café Blanc
298 E. 17th St., Ste. B, Costa Mesa
(949) 631-9999
www.cafeblanc.us
Do yourself a favor the next time you finish a meal at a fine restaurant: skip dessert. Then drive to Costa Mesa and go to Café Blanc, a pâtisserie (cakes and tarts), glâcerie (gelato and sorbetto) and confiserie (chocolates and candies) crammed in a space no larger than your average taco stand. If you eat in, they’ll doll up your dessert on nice china, drizzle it with sauce, and add a complementing dollop of gelato. Tea is served in dainty cups and poured from tiny pots. Their macaroons and house-made truffles are works of art. You’ll be glad you didn’t waste your appetite on that other restaurant’s boring crème brûlée.

Best Outdoor Dining
La Galette Creperie
612 Avenida Victoria, Ste. E, San Clemente
(949) 498-5335
www.lagalettecrepes.com
There’s a certain magic in San Clemente’s rolling, Spanish-named streets, almost all of which end up in Avenida Victoria, the basin just across the street and sand from the San Clemente Pier. Enjoy this view from La Galette Creperie—along with the requisite hot chicks, fat tourists and occasional Amtrak train—while inhaling the yummy crepes.

Readers’ Choice: Las Brisas

Best Italian Restaurant
Onotria Wine Country Cuisine
2831 Bristol St., Costa Mesa
(714) 641-5952
www.onotria.com
Massimo Navaretta is a fixture on the county’s dining scene, and many local eaters still fondly remember his late Scampi restaurant. They’re all now at his newest place: Onotria, which continues to expand its culinary horizons every month with the freshest organic produce, artisan ingredients flown in from Italy and various dining events. With all the attention placed on ensuring the highest-quality products, it’s a wonder Navaretta ever gets the chance to cook, but he does: just taste the pheasant breast with golden raisins and pine nuts and find out for yourself.

Best Mexican Restaurant
Gabbi’s Mexican Kitchen
141 S. Glassell St., Orange
(714) 633-3038
www.gabbimex.com
We’re still waiting for a table at Gabbi’s, the Old Towne Orange restaurant that hasn’t had a slow night since its opening last summer. And as long as Gabbi Patrick continues to cook up a fine overview of Mexican regional favorites—Yucatecan sopes (called panuchos), fried cheese slathered in a mild green mole, and the hottest salsa around—the wait will still be an hour minimum. Our advice: call ahead. And be prepared to eat some of the best Mexican food not served from a roach coach.

Readers’ Choice: Taco Mesa

Best Fusion Restaurant
Cafe Hiro
10509 Valley View St., Cypress
(714) 527-6090
www.cafehiro.com
“Fusion” is a restaurant buzzword that’s fallen out of favor. But for lack of a better term, that’s what we’ll call chef Hiro Ohiwa’s food (“French and Italian-influenced Japanese” just doesn’t roll off the tongue). Seaweed meets spaghetti; uni flavors the risotto; osso bucco collapses at the touch of a fork. Entrées come with a homemade soup of the day and a brisk salad dressed in ginger and miso. Whatever you decide to classify it as, there’s no debate over the word that sums it up best: Delicious.

Best Restaurant Décor
Mesa
725 Baker St., Costa Mesa
(714) 557-6700
Imagine hundreds of ivy plants glued to one wall of Mesa, the latest decadent restaurant to hit the Lab/Camp complex. Imagine the bar roof allowing a view of the nighttime sky and retracting during balmy eves. Imagine large, luxurious dining booths. If you can’t quite imagine this, then you must visit because the Mesa owners arrogantly won’t allow people to photograph their restaurant’s interior. Seriously, fellas: Your design scheme is wonderful, but the face of God it ain’t.

Best Service In a Restaurant
Angelo’s Burgers
511 S. State College Blvd., Anaheim
(714) 533-1401
Girls in skirts and roller skates: What more does man need to go along with his dinner? Nowadays, this pleasure can only be found at Angelo’s Burgers.