Edwin Goei

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ProfessorSalt.com

DeSimone's Cuban Sandwich

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Can you get a proper medianoche sandwich in Orange County? Orange County, Florida, certainly. Here in our Orange Acres? Not so many places make this specialty.

You know where you can easily find one? Quiznos. No, really, stop laughing. In this edition, we pit the Quiznos Cuban sandwich against the one at DeSimone's Deli & Bakery in Orange.

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​We have a friendly competition around here with our counterparts over at the Register's Food Frenzy blog. Sometimes we discover the place; sometimes they do. Sometimes we concur with their findings; sometimes we don't. In this case, Claudia Koerner was the winnah, writing about a place called A Bite of Jersey, a little corner place in a strip mall in a really desolate area of West Garden Grove.

Well, it was like a red cloth to a bull. You see, as a proud son of New Jersey, I love cheesesteaks. I love them even though they come from the Extreme Eastern Philadelphia part of New Jersey, not the Extreme Southern New York part that I hail from. I don't know what else I would've lived on during the long days staring jadedly at skinny Québécois touristes parading down Jenkinson's boardwalk if there hadn't been a lot of greasy cheesesteakeries.

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Edwin Goei

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For this installment of Eat Here, Not There, I revisit Mick's Karma Bar in Irvine, which is owned by Michael and Megan Schepers, who also own Kitima Thai next door. I came back for the burger combo that so impressed me back in March, and found that it is as good a deal now as it was back then.

But first, here's what I wrote about it a few months ago.
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What can I get for two dollars?

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There's a plaza on the corner of Trabuco and Bake in Lake Forest that houses a McDonalds. For a buck, you can indulge in processed sausage burritos, sausage McMuffins, a small cuppa joe, a sausage biscuit and/or hash browns. If you require a drive-thru, and want to pay as little as possible, this is acceptable.

However, this is about finding not only a cheap brekkie, but one made with a little more TLC; and it's coincidentally in the same plaza. If you've got five-ish minutes to spare (and it's before 10 a.m.), we've got a better alternative.More >>

Anne Marie Panoringan

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Let's face it, soft serve is generally found at three places: McDonalds, buffets (Vegas, Soup Plantation or otherwise), and the occasional Korean establishment. Sweet, cheap, and appealing to the masses, nothing says "Let's finish our reasonably priced meal" like a dish or cone of all-American vanilla. Expectations don't run high because the bar has been set too low.

Sorry Watson's. Maybe next time, Cherry On Top. The summertime heat isn't going away anytime soon, but one stand in Orange is worth sweltering in line over, and they don't even specialize in dessert.
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Edwin Goei

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This post is another one of our series under the category "Eat Here, Not There". But this time, I could also put this under "fast food guilty pleasures I shouldn't like". What I'm about to recommend comes from the chain known as Sushi Boy, which a typical sushi purist would never come near for fear of public shaming. If you're one of these, relax. I'm not recommending their sushi. I'm recommending their poke bowls. Why? Simply because they are good. And unlike some of their other items, worth the $4.99 charged.
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Everyone craves pizza because we're talking a meal based on bread and covered in cheese. Chains involving tables, huts and brew houses work in a pinch. Neighborhood joints can be nostalgic, almost Cheers-like.

To go beyond the acceptable taste of Costco-style, but not so chic as Pizzaria Ortica, we travel along the eastbound 91, almost to the 909. A pizza freakish enough that others turn a blind eye. We're talking about meat, pickles and mustard . . . the pastrami pizza.
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Edwin Goei

​By now, you should've gone to Rick's Atomic Cafe and had his breakfasts. You haven't? Stop reading and go. You back? Okay, now try his veggie burger. Seriously. Try it. Yes, I, too, was skeptical. Why would any meat-eater opt for a veggie burger when you don't have to? Answer: When Rick LeBlanc makes it.

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Edwin Goei

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Notice the flip-flopped title of this post. This week, I'm calling it "Eat There, Not Here". What I'm saying is that despite the promise of a non-itinerant "Kogi Taco" at Koba Tofu Grill's walk-up window in Irvine, you're likely to find better, tastier Korean tacos at the original truck that inspired it, or at Dos Chinos, or anywhere else for that matter.

Or better yet, just go inside Koba and order up a proper meal. Take your chopsticks to their dangerously fatty, luscious wheel of pork belly with sauteed kimchi, your spoon to their gurgling pots of lava-red soondubu, or any and all the other wonderful dishes I covered in my formal review of the place. Leave the tacos be. More >>