Edwin Goei

1. There'd better be some strawberry croissants left by the time I get to the front.

2. They need more than two cash registers.

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Anne Marie Panoringan

Bavarian banana croissants

Slowly but surely, we're rediscovering Sunday brunch. And so is everyone else, as SideDoor demonstrated last month. Expanding from their bar to the greenhouse, they also feature artists, DJs and other merriment in addition to brunch one weekend a month. But our first priority is that favorite meal. Here are a few morsels craved during our research.

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Slapfish

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Edwin Goei

I am a sucker for Cream Pan's sandwiches, especially the korokke pan. House-made hoagie bread, a deep fried potato korokke that's as close as Japanese food is going to get to the falafel, glops of Thousand Island, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a wad of leafy lettuce. It is a great sandwich, one that I wrote up as #70 in our Favorite Dishes list.
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Anne Marie Panoringan

We used to love heading into LA for dinner, but over time that tolerance for Sig alerts and traffic waned our patience. Nowadays, we're mostly content with a 25-mile radius of somewhat predictable traffic, and surface streets we can navigate (with minimal help from Google maps). When we were made aware of a shiny new food court featuring Patina Restaurant Group brands, it was a no-brainer to check out.

If you can locate Park Place off Jamboree and the 405, you're almost there. This is the same plaza that lost Fatburger and Taleo, and brought Panini Cafe plus additional branches of Which Wich? and The Counter Burger. There's also the perpetually bustling Houstons. So why build more in a plaza notorious for bad parking? Convenience and planning.
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Anne Marie Panoringan

Breakfast sausage hash

In our ongoing quest to locate a solid first meal of the day, we were introduced to the cuisine of Nathaniel Nguyen. We should preface this by mentioning that brunch is served inside a Greek restaurant across from South Coast Plaza. It's offered on weekends from 8 a.m. to noon at this location only. If you are a rise and shiner, you'll be in for a treat.

Menu items were very affordable, as pricing capped at $10 for meals both healthy and flavorful. Nguyen's nod to Thasos Greek Island Grille's standard menu is found in every dish, providing a unique breakfast theme in a neighborhood of conforming tastes. While sweet options included parfaits and multigrain pancakes, we gravitated towards savory.
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Dave Lieberman

"This place is the real deal," I said. My friend Angelo, who spent his formative years playing calcio in a dusty lot in Catanzaro, near the toe of the Italian boot, rolled his eyes.More »

Anne Marie Panoringan

More often than not, when we think holidays, we think FEAST. Overindulging, eyes bigger than your stomach, "Where's the Aperol?" feasting. But what if your family is a single parent (or comparable mini-family) who wants peace and quality over quantity? Our holiday alternative to the big brunch resides in a preferred neighborhood: Seventh Tea Bar inside the OC Mix.

Stereotyped as a high-falutin' concept, tea service is only as stuffy as its setting. Cast off those notions of lace doilies and Mrs. Potts: We're in Portola country.
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I've been served by hundreds of waiters and waitresses over the course of five years as a food writer in Orange County. Most encounters are unremarkable, and that's a sign of good service in my book. We once had such an inattentive waiter at the now-shuttered Carino's that I actually covered for the deadbeat, stacking plates to the side and filling up water for the table after we finished our meal.

The staff at Morton's have always been my favorite for their continual crumb-catcher action and willingness to ply customers full of onion bread, but it's a server at the new Slater's 50/50 in Lake Forest who'll go down as the best waitress I've yet encountered in Orange County. A big shout out to Nicole R. for her honesty, authenticity and willingness to patiently help a couple of hungry customers in a packed sports bar!
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Since the founding of Harvard back in the 1600s, college students have always frequented the open-til-two or the 24-hour restaurants, whether it was grog they were seeking or ramen, either as a study break or after a long night of partying at the generic frat house. Six hours of sleep and under has nothing on us, and our metabolisms still function at a rapid pace, so what's a couple thousand calories consumed at 3 a.m. to us?
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