Edwin Goei

DX Peruvian--the restaurant at the corner of Bristol and Sunflower next to Bella Cuba and technically in Santa Ana although it's directly across from South Coast Plaza--has closed and now become the fourth branch of Inka Mama's. The switch-over happened this week.More »

LP Hastings

Steve, holding out his mug of Pliny the Younger

The cult surrounding Pliny the Younger from the Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa is well-known in the beer world, and it's the kind of cult that'll have people waiting six hours just for a pint. For those who don't know: the Younger is a triple IPA, created via a fiendishly difficult process with spectacular results that are released once a year.

You can only taste the Younger during February, on draft and at select locations. One location to host the event was the beloved Hollingshead's Deli in Orange, and the crowd yesterday was as orderly as a mass of beer lovers could possibly be.
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Edwin Goei

Irvine is still 85 Degrees C's turf, but it isn't stopping other Taiwanese bakeries from vying for a piece of the pie. Kiki Bakery is a third the size of 85 Degrees C, but it hails from SGV, where there are more of them, in Monterey Park, Alhambra and Rowland Heights.

This is its first venture into OC, and it's currently in soft opening mode. As others of its ilk are known to do, Kiki offers bread products from what seems like the same batch of sweet dough. Almost all of its products are derived from it, molded into shiny egg-washed domes; injected with custard cream; wrapped into little danishes filled with ham and cheese.

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Edwin Goei

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Courtesy Slater's 50/50

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Yasmin Nouh/OC Weekly

The thought of eating an oozingly delicious all-halal BBQ chicken pizza at another restaurant besides Anaheim's San Giovanni's Pizza seemed blasphemous at first, but the more (halal) pizza, the merrier, right?

The New York Pizza Faktory has opened its second location in Tustin, after having well-established its first one in Laguna Hills. After the ownership switched over to a Turkish Muslim family, this parlor now proudly serves halal pizza, and delivers to several places throughout Orange County.

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Edwin Goei

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Baja & Bella. Stella's and Bella. La Fogta Baha Grill. Depending on where you look, these are the many names and aliases that this puzzler of a restaurant that recently opened on MacArthur Blvd. near Bristol uses. But that's not the most beguiling part in all this. The restaurant that can't decide what it wants to be called also doesn't quite know whether it's a Mexican restaurant or an Italian one...so it has become both.

The restaurant serves both Italian and Mexican dishes out of the same kitchen, simultaneously, with a menu that sees tacos and burritos on one side, pizza and pasta on the other. Its tagline is "Where Italy Meets Mexico", but mistake this not for some sort of fusion restaurant. There's a clear dividing line between the disparate cuisines and that line is never, ever crossed.
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Hold the pickles!

​The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit weighed in today in the case of a sheriff's deputy who claims severe emotional trauma after two ex-cons working the drive-thru at a Burger King added an extra ingredient during his late-night burger break.

Suspecting the fast-food employees were ex-cons, Washington state Deputy Edward J. Bylsma pulled off the road, removed the burger bun to his Whopper and found a "slimy" white glob of phlegm atop the meat patty.

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Taylor Hamby/OC Weekly

Mmm...donuts...

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The Rogue Ale Brewery of Newport, Oregon has created a trifecta of culinary trendiness: Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale. The concept works on so many levels: Gourmet donuts are en vogue, and Rogue paired with Voodoo Doughnut, the granddaddy of hip donuts. They have fun varieties such as the "Captain My Captain," topped with vanilla frosting and Captain Crunch with Crunch Berries, "Cock and Balls," shaped like male genitalia, and "Texas Challenge," a donut six times the regular size that, if you eat within 80 seconds, you get fo' free. More »

Edwin Goei

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The good news is the ramen at the newly opened Santouka inside the newly opened Mitsuwa Marketplace is identical to the venerable and always consistent Santouka in Mitsuwa's Costa Mesa store. The bad news is that the food court is half the size.

Actually, it's a stretch to call it a food court. What it is is just left over space they set aside from the market where there just happens to be chairs and a few tables. It is not more than a few square feet separated from the supermarket aisles by way of a low-slung wall.

I've already decided I'm going nowhere near it at lunchtime. Not only will I have to compete with other Santouka customers for the few seats there is, there are at least three other vendors there, including a takoyaki stand that hasn't yet opened.

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