Orange County Food Blog

The Travel Channel

Pass the Nexium, please.

​Adam Richman, the host of the Travel Channel's Man Vs. Food, is bringing his live show, Eat Your Heart Out, to the Wiltern on Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. He'll be talking about the making of Man Vs. Food, handicapping the Los Angeles food scene and there will be audience participation.

This is the guy who, in his trip to the City of Angels, ate one of those 8-zillion-calorie El Tepeyac platters, a French dip at Philippe's and then the spicy ramen challenge at Orochon. His picture is on the wall at Orochon, as well as in the dictionary next to "cast-iron stomach".

Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. at Live Nation. If you're allergic to "convenience" fees, show up at the Hollywood Palladium (6215 Sunset Blvd., between Vine and Gower) for the 10 a.m. on-sale.

Bonus question for the readers: If Adam Richman came down here to OC to do a show, what would we feed him?

I'd love to link to this week's edition--a break-in at a Taco Bell in Celina, Ohio, wherever the hell that is--but the newspaper that reported the story has a pay wall prohibiting non-subscribers from reading stories on its website. Strangest part? Its publisher is Freedom Communications, parent company of the Orange County Register, recent filer of bankruptcy. Want to know why you ain't making cash, Freedom? Because your idea of Internet journalism is stuck in the 1970s.

For some reason, I don't think such an affront to liberty would've please this man: 

Out of touch I may be--I only came across this today--but if you haven't seen it yet, take a look. As Cleveland would say, it is somewhat amusing.

Two times I had a post; twice, it disappeared. I give up. The link is here; the story, below. From Hattiesburg, Mississippi:

Two employees of Taco Bell of Laurel were jailed Thursday night after an investigation into reports of credit card fraud, Sheriff Alex Hodge said. Hodge identified the suspects as Julia Caldwell, 32, of Brown Street in Laurel, and Jacqueline Colbert, 19, of Windsor Court Apartments. They are charged with stealing credit card information from customers and using the information to purchase personal items and pay utility bills. They are being held in the Jones County Adult Detention Center. Hodge said more charges may be forthcoming.

My chica has recently enrolled in a food preservation course offered by the University of California all the way in San Bernardino. She usually carpools every Monday with a chef who works at one of the Disney restaurants, but I drove the two of them last week, hoping to finally enjoy the mythical Rosa Maria's.

Clockwork Coker, who grew up in San Berdoo, first mentioned this restaurant years ago as a place that opened and closed according to the owner's whims but that served amazing tamales. He never revealed its name (or, at least I don't remember) until last Monday, when I asked him what was the name of that restaurant he always raved about. Coker quickly sung its praises, suggested I try the chile relleno burrito, was amazed it now exists in three other outposts. But as I left the Weekly world headquarters, he mentioned something curious: "If you don't want to try Rosa Maria's, there's always Lucy's across the street."

Coker must be a prophet because guess what happened: after finally reaching Rosa Maria's and coming across a bit of hole-in-the-wall heaven--no inside seating, in a residential area, with a menu stolen from a high school's Spanish-American fiesta circa 1969--a chilly breeze swept across the 909. "Too cold to eat outside," my chica complained, and off we went to Lucy's: think a primordial El Conejo, with fading murals, Chente on the speakers, and the type of gabachos that exist only in the 909 and certain parts of Fullerton and Orange, more wab than white. Its menu was classic borderlands, and I gorged on a chile relleno burrito unnecessarily drowned in a red sauce, as delicious as it was. No fresh chips: these were thin and wonderfully stale. The best part of Lucy's? It has a vaguely New Mexican DNA. One of the house salsas featured roasted chilies reminiscent of Hatch, and there was a bona fide New Mexico-style enchilada on the menu. The Disney chef, whose family hails from the Land of Enchantment, ordered the dish: three corn tortillas piled on top of each other, smeared with onions, cheese, and beans, then topped with an over-easy egg. I know of only one other restaurant in Southern California that sells authentic New Mexico-style enchiladas: Anita's in Fullerton, and it's nowhere near as good as the forkful I ate at Lucy's. Clockwork Coker, you cabrón: finally, a reason to visit your deranged homeland! But I gotta go to Rosa Maria's...

Lucy's Mexican Restaurant, 4151 N. Sierra Wy., San Bernardino, (909) 883-4638.

As a young cabrón, I loved nothing more than to gorge on AM/PM hot dogs, to unwrap each from its foil and pile on onions, relish, chili, mustard, and jalapeños. For nostalgia's sake, I bought two on the way back from Los Angeles last week, at an AM/PM-Arco hybrid off the I-5 Freeway South Carmenita Road exit in Santa Fe Springs. Isn't it funny how memories warp the truth? Too much salt inside each processed wiener and crappy chili made for an unpleasant taste, and while the bun maintained its structural integrity under the weight of the toppings I crammed inside, they just didn't compare to what they sell at PCH Hot Dogs or Jerry's Wood-Fired Grill. Even at two for $2. You're better off boiling Farmer John's franks and rolling them around a bit in dirt.

Nevertheless, I'll return to this location again and again. See, this is one of the cheapest places to find gas in Southern California I've yet to discover, almost always at least a nickel less than Orange County's lowest prices at any given moment. Better yet, the gas station is right off the freeway exit and entrance, meaning you can pop in and out really quickly. Finally, a reward for having to endure the hell that is Los Angeles!

AM/PM Arco, 13460 E. Firestone Blvd., Santa Fe Springs, (562) 404-1018.

For all you armchair gourmands out there, here's a new roundup of the 50 best food blogs, courtesy of the Times in London. They range from the well-known (Chocolate & Zucchini) to the obscure (pretty much all the others), and are written by food lovers from across the planet.

With useful recipes, hilarious asides and enthusiastic ramblings, if these don't get the juices flowing, nothing will.

But if 50 aren't enough for you, scroll down to the comments sections, where readers have  chipped in with some of their own personal faves (to which we'd add our very own Edwin Goei's blog--not that we're biased, of course).

Happy reading!

One of the pleasures of belonging to Village Voice Media is that the company hosts the best roster of food critics in the country--but you don't have to believe my boosterism? Who's the only food critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize? Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly. Who's going to be releasing a memoir of his food life for a mega-publishing house? Westword's Jason Sheehan. And what paper employs Robb Walsh, the expert on Texas food culture? The Houston Press.

I was in Houston over the weekend for a book signing and asked Walsh--who's my Facebook friend!--if he could take me to eat at his favorite dives. Instead, Walsh suggested I go over to his house for dinner, where he was going to spend his Saturday trying out recipes for a coming cookbook. In the meanwhile, Walsh was kind enough to send me a list of places to try--I settled on Thelma's, a 'cue joint just down the street from Minute Maid Park located in a former house and home to bracing sauce, tender brisket, and the best pecan pie on Earth.

After my signing, I drove to Walsh's house, where he promptly greeted me with a glass off grapefruit juice and tequila as he expounded on the history of the margarita and its Dallas roots. Guy is funny, humble, and a walking encyclopedia. We spent the next three hours (also accompanied by his two young kids, wonderful wife, and a cute dog) talking, laughing, and--most importantly--eating.

The eats, without giving away too many of the ingredients (Walsh has to sell a cookbook, after all):

*Ceviche with a kumquat and pineapple salsa, topped with grilled shrimp. The salsa sang with sweetness, a sneaky heat, and a lightness matched by the shrimp's smokiness.

*Small tacos of pork strips, smeared with guacamole. I have previously stated my aversion to avocados, but this guacamole didn't offend my pocho palate. A bit too much on each taco, though, and Walsh agreed.

*A big cut of pork, rubbed with some divine powder

*A couple of bites of steak, because I devoured most of said pork--a miracle, considering I much prefer beef to pork.

Walsh sent me off with yummy Texas Ranger and cowboy cookies--a perfect treat that I gobbled up on some damn tollway or other.

Moral of the story. Whenever fate takes you away from Orange County, email the alt-weekly food critic in whatever region you may be. They probably won't cook for you, but if the person truly understands his role as a food ambassador, they will give you a list of places to hit up, and you will be the better--and fatter-for it. Now, go buy Robb's books!

If we're in a recession, someone forgot to tell the Chinese.

Yesterday, the dim sum crowd at New Capital in Rowland Heights was as crazy as always.  Judging by the number of people milling about outside waiting for a table, this go-to place for dim sum in the eastern part of San Gabriel Valley is as good as recession-proof.

The going rate for all dim sum plates on weekends is now $2.39. Two years ago it was just $1.98. But everything is as good as I remembered from my last visit.

Dim sum seems just the right kind of food for Sunday's gloomy weather. And tea, the perfect drink.

I had a slightly funky fish maw soup, fried things, steamed things, silky sheets of rice noodle blanketing shrimp, and more pork fat than I probably would intake in a typical American breakfast of bacon and eggs.

For dessert, it was mango pudding that actually tastes like mango, drizzled with a stream of canned evaporated milk.

You, too, can see the dim sum restaurant that the recession forgot by traversing just north of the O.C. border to Rowland Heights, the closest Chinese community to Orange County.

And I plan to chronicle other sites like it in posts like this, the first in an occasional series I'm calling "Out-of-County Experience".

New Capital Seafood Restaurant,(626) 581-9813, 1330 Fullerton Rd., Rowland Heights