Dave Lieberman

Van Restaurant's bún chả Hà Nội

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Long before chefs with fancy certificates from the CIA and stages in uppity French kitchens decided to reimagine classic dishes, long before the New Wave chefs of the 1980s separated the ingredients of a dish onto those giant white discuses they called plates, and before Jacques Derrida, the coiner of the term "deconstruction", was even a twinkle in his father's eyes, the Vietnamese were deconstructing the dish bún.
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ProfessorSalt.com

Pho King Way's brisket two ways, and a side order of oxtail

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Little Saigon's pho shops make the best in the Orange County, and we dare say, the best in the country. That community is home to the largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam, after all. We haven't yet found a pho joint south of the Y that makes a bowl that comes close to Little Saigon's top tier. But sometimes, like on a limited lunch hour, the drive to pho paradise just isn't possible and you settle for Mr. Right Now, instead of Mr. Right.

For this week's Eat Here, Not There: It's Mission Viejo's Pho King Way versus Lake Forest's Pho Bo Vang.

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Edwin Goei

Flame Broiler

​Have you noticed that wherever you are, you're no more than a few clicks from a Flame Broiler? There are three in Santa Ana, four in Orange, six in Irvine, and probably at least one in every single Orange County city. I don't know how many there are exactly in OC (I'm really too lazy to count them all), but in Irvine alone, Flame Broiler outnumbers McDonald's.

If there's a fast-food chain more prevalent and ubiquitous it would have to be Subway. That the teriyaki chain, born in Fullerton, has already far eclipsed Yoshinoya and has become a force to be reckoned with is obvious when you actually go into a Yoshinoya these days--it is apparent that Yoshinoya has changed the way they do their chicken bowls to emulate Flame Broiler.

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​Martin Diedrich. The father of the coffee revolution in Orange County, owner of the first coffee shop to make an unapologetic, small, truly Italian cappuccino, as well as the first to introduce la naranja to the idea that coffee needn't be roasted to dust in order to taste like something.

Jeff Duggan. The mad scientist who started out in a cramped corner of a bakery in Irvine, the equipment specialist whose setups at Portola Coffee Lab look like something out of Dexter's Laboratory, and the first one to bring truly third-wave coffee to Orange County.
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Edwin Goei

Sushi Boy's Sushi

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Fast-food sushi. If there's a better food oxymoron out there, I think it'd have to be "veggie burgers." But that's disingenuous of me to say. I've actually enjoyed more "fast-food sushi" than veggie burgers. Most of the time, it's Sushi Boy; not usually for the sushi, but for their poke bowls, which are not only better than the sushi there, but much more satisfying and cheap to boot.

But sushi is the point of today's Dueling Dishes. I'll compare their decidedly "fast-food sushi" with the "supermarket sushi" at Whole Foods. Why Whole Foods? Well, other than Sushi Boy, it was a chain-like entity where I assumed I would spend less than sushi-bar prices for a sushi meal.

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ProfessorSalt.com

Freebirds burrito wrapped in cayenne tortilla

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Earlier this year, Freebirds World Burritos opened its first location in Orange. In case you haven't heard about this Santa Barbara-by-way-of-Texas chain, it competes in a very specific niche of the fresh-Mex quick-serve restaurant industry against Chipotle Mexican Grill: the sort-of-naturally raised meat, do-gooder, save-the-world-one-burrito-at-a-time niche.

Chipotle is committed to increasing the number of farmers who raise livestock sustainably, humanely and naturally fed. The chain makes a big deal about this business practice, but at the same time, weasels itself out of 100 percent compliance. Its website claims, "It means that, whenever possible, we use meat from animals raised without the use of antibiotics or added hormones." Whenever possible?!? The beans and meat you get might be organic, sustainable and ethically raised -- or not. Really, there's no way to know.

This sustainable-food ethos is a worthy corporate mission, but bottom line: How are the burritos?More >>

Blueberry doughnuts displayed at Anaheim's M&M Donuts

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Two hours. That's the reported length of the line to get blueberry doughnuts at M&M in Anaheim, if the shrieking horde of hipsters on Yelp is to believed. Two hours stood in a dreary parking lot in a section of Anaheim that's desperately trying to slough off its run-down past, watching men smoke on the patio.
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This year's Summer Guide issue referred to Morangak's version of naengmyun as "a stainless-steel bowl of chewy noodles served in broth so cold it should have ice chips in it." And this goes without saying: these bowls seemed to have been spawned from the OC Fair's Ice Museum. Eat until your organs are frostbitten, then enjoy the sun's rays as they tickle your spine and spread its fuzzy warmth.

Well and good? Not quite--there are flaws. Flaws that might be restored by Gombo Wang, a smaller Cerritos eatery whose sole specialty is naengmyun. See which restaurant has the better tasting (and priced) nirvana-in-a-dish, after the jump.
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Edwin Goei

Harry's Reuben

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​Chocolate. Drink of the Aztecs, modern-day obsession, and Mexico's second-best food gift to the world (the first, of course, is nixtamalization, which kept two entire continents from starvation).

Mexican chocolate comes as a shock to those who've never had it. It's not a block of smooth, emulsified, glossy dark shards. It doesn't break like a fancy chocolate bar; it doesn't have a fancy Swiss or Belgian pedigree. It's rustic, but full of soul.

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