It's the most common question I'm asked: what are your top five restaurants? I was asked in my 20 Qs on Greer's OC earlier this year, and I punted on the question because every year we're told to make this list up, and it's hard enough to pick just five.
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Photo by Johannes Dewald

THE RANCH

If last year was spent finding our footing, this year was spent embracing our petiteness concentrated awesomeness. On the Line got a nip/tuck, and our subjects had more to discuss than ever (We're talking to YOU, Matt Strickland and Dean Kim). Our culinary crew discussed comings and goings, but we always contemplated our top five.

Where did we find knowledgeable artisans honing in on their craft? Establishments that cared as much about their service as their product. What we concluded surprised even us. Of course, there's a couple of high end. And yes, we found a consistent lonchera and great brekkie. That's what we love, and this is how we roll.
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Lucca's lemon curd

We wrap up the waning weeks of every year with a list of our favorite restaurants. Normally, I pick a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a small menu and a narrow specialty where you can pick any random dish and come up a winner. Looking at my list for 2012, your odds are not as heavily stacked. The common theme among my winners is that each brought out a sleeper of a dish from that blew me backward like Bruce Lee's one-inch punch.

In no particular order, here are my top five that delivered a knockout blow.

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Anne Marie Panoringan

The First Tee

Here's the thing about me and drinking-- from the time that I was "of age", I drank primarily wine. And champagne. My perception of beer was what I saw in commercials and bottles or cans at wedding receptions. It was crap. If I wanted different, it was some stereotyped cocktail in a martini glass.

In hindsight, I realize I had a reverse evolution. The last five years have been spent downing Moscow Mules for more than a copper cup, coveting glasses of red with great legs and opening myself up to craft brews. I appreciated a fine meal long before a fine drink, but I'm making up for lost times. Enjoy a recap of some memorable sips from this year!

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Flickr user reisverhalen

If you've spent the last several months at home with side-by-side translations of the Popol Vuh and the Chilam Balam, then you know there's no cause to worry about the world ending on Dec. 21, 2012, and you're also probably hungry for Mayan food... except that almost nobody in this country knows what Mayan food is.

It doesn't help that the familiar old Spanish and Náhuatl words we're used to seeing--enchilada, tamal, tortilla, mole de guajolote--have been replaced by words in one of the Mayan languages, a family of languages whose spellings appear to a Spanish speaker to be influenced by Basque, or possibly Martian. It's hard to guess what things are, so here is a guide to five traditional dishes, presented in menu order, to try in homage to the people who've managed to ignite such eschatological furor.
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As Gustavo mentioned earlier, Mexican alcohol is on the upswing. Its time is here; it's one of the only alcohols distilled from a native plant rather than a neutral grain spirit, the number of producers is on the upswing, and people are finally realizing there's more to tequila than the swill they put in those pre-mixed jugs of margaritas.

As our taste for tequila evolves, it's only natural that people would open tequila-centric bars. There are several of them in our distribution area, from Long Beach to Laguna Beach, but are they serious tequila bars, or merely pretenders? Here are five ways to know if you're in a true den of tequila.

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Flickr user ryanleighty

This Thursday, I fly to the University of Houston in what will be the official end of my Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America tour. It's been a great ride that has taken  me from the Bay Area to Texas about a million times, the South and virtually all other points, but while the tour ends, the conversation continues FOREVER.

At each stop, someone inevitably asks the following: what do you think will be the next big trend in Mexican food in this country? And, as always, I have an answer. For those entrepreneurial readers out there: capitalize on one of these fast, and you'll become a millionaire many times over--interested?

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Spiegel Online

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Flickr user jelene

Ever wait until the last second to buy candy to give out at Halloween? Gone are the convenient sacks with the Twix, the Kit-Kats, the Snickers, the Milky Ways, the M&Ms... all the stuff kids go for first. No, you're stuck with the second tier, with its Mounds and Almond Joys and Butterfingers, or even worse, the third tier, which has stuff that sounds like it just escaped from a 1960s-era cartoon.

Those candies that are located on the bottom shelf gathering dust at the Circle K, though, are sometimes pretty good. Here are five of the ones that deserve a place in your neighbors' kids pumpkins and pillowcases. (You're not really giving out raisins and nickels and those random strawberry-flavored hard candies--or, worse yet, candy corn--are you?)

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Did you read Michelle's post this morning on the Craigslist poster in Irvine who tried to give away a dish of shrimp because they didn't realize it included the heads?

I have to assume it was those wee beady eyes.

In a society where meat is often faceless, limbless, skinless and boneless, seeing the whole animal you're about to eat looking back at you is apparently still something of a shock.

Well if the person or persons who ordered that dish of shrimp is reading, here are a five videos of people who might not have been so squeamish...although after you see these clips, you might become even more so.

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