Surf City Saloon (Episode 001) Airing on Time Warner Public Access

The first episode of OC Dining & Entertainment will air on Time Warner North Orange County Public Access Channels on Sat., Oct. 10th at 10:30 PM.! Additional airings on Sat. Oct 17th, Sat. Oct. 24th, and Sat., Oct. 31st (all at 10:30 PM). A clip of the episode is also available on You Tube via this link
Featured are OC bands The Go-Sheilas, Psychostar, and Lugie shot at Surf City Saloon in Huntington Beach. Also featured is an interview with Jimmy, the owner.

K'ya Restaurant Debuts Bistro "Street Fare" Menu & Lowers Happy Hour Prices

K'ya is inside the Hotel Menage at the corner of Harbor and Ball in Anaheim. Previously, their Bistro menu was a combo of downsized items from the regular menu, plus pizza, paninis, and cheeses. Their new Street Fare Menu emphasizes small bites from around the world. Prices have been slashed to under $10! 12 of the menu items are on the updated Happy Hour Bar menu and at 1/2 price are really a bargain ($1-3). The only bad news is that the Happy Hour times have been shortened from 3-7 PM to 4-7PM. They still run 7 days a week, which is great! Some of the highlights include Pork Wontons with a plum soy sauce and BBQ Meatballs.

Celebrity Food Show tastes

I checked out the Celebrity Food Show at the Anaheim Hilton last Sunday. Here are a few of the booths I encountered:
Blackmarket Bakery (Irvine)- easily one of the best booths in the convention hall and one of the few truly respresentitive of Orange County food providers (I guess that's why they didn't include "Orange County" in the show's title). MORE TO FOLLOW

El Fortin's Taco Weekends

El Fortin #1 (Commonwealth near Lemon in Fullerton)and #2 (Cerritos and Dale in Stanton) offer Taco nights on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This echos other Taco nights (note: NOT on Tuesdays)at such places as Taqueria Garcia and Taqueria Mi Pueblo in Anaheim. I'm sure other Taquerias and restaurants around are doing similar events. But El Fortin does it a little better. At a price. Tacos are $1.25 each, a bit pricier than most other Taco Nights which average $1. The tortillas are freshly grilled with small sticks of butter, the meats are leaner (I had the tasty Carne Asada and Al
Pastor), and the radishes, limes, onions, and chiles are freshly sliced. On top of that, their regular menu of reasonably priced Oaxacan dishes is also available.

Bar Louie Burger Tuesday changes

Now, instead of $1 burgers on Tuesday, Bar Louie at Anaheim's Garden Walk is doing $5 sliders on Tuesdays. Not as great a deal as $1 burgers but there are some positive changes. First, no minimum drink order is required. Second, it applies to all slider dishes, even the $9.95 crab cake sliders (which are naturally what I tried). Not the best I've had but you get three good quality crab cake sliders on very good buttered buns with Tarter sauce for $5!! Other sliders include Turkey burgers, Philly cheese steak, and beef.

More Taco Tuesday Bargains in North OC

Cantina Lounge on Nutwood and Commonwealth in Fullerton has a three taco for $2 deal! No minimum drink purchase required! The tacos are small, but are packed with meat. They give you free chips (pretty good quality, somewhat dry) and delicious salsa with large chunks of sweet tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and diced Jalapenos. Most importantly, the quality of the taco fillings is better than at most Taquerias! Carne Asada was the best, followed by Pollo and Carnitas. The Carnitas were a bit too dry, however they were very lean-one thing I dislike about most Taco Tuesday carnitas are the globs of fat attached to them!

Taco Boy on Euclid between Orange and Ball has 75 cent tacos, plus they're open until Midnight! They have all of the usuals: carnitas, lengua (tongue), pollo, asada, chorizo, and pastor. I think the pollo is the best. It's marinated (mostly) white meat, very tender and tasty. Carnitas and chorizo are a bit more variable but can be quite good. The pastor is good but is sometimes dry and/or fatty. The carne asada is a bit tough and also sometimes fatty but can also be pretty good. Their horchata is creamier and has more cinnamon than the watery versions found at most other taquerias i.e. Festival brand. They also have fairly good dulce tamales, tinted a nice shade of pink, with a sweet coconut flavor, also not that common at other taquerias (my favorite are at La Casita LC in Orange, El Gallo Giro in Santa Ana, and Los Golodrinas in Laguna Niguel).

Taco Tuesday bargain in North OC

Actually, the best Taco Tuesday bargain is not a taco but a good ol' American burger! Where? At Bar Louie inside the Anaheim GardenWalk. For $1.00, you get a full-sized 1/2 pound burger on a fairly good crispy bun with shredded lettuce! What's the catch? Firstly, it begins at 7 PM and ends around 1:45 AM when they close the kitchen. Secondly, you have to buy a drink. You can buy a refilllable soft drink or lemonade for $2.49 or go for alcohol at their special prices. Thirdly, all of the toppings are extra. Dressings such as their excellent toasted onion ranch or blue cheese) run 25 cents each, cheeses are 50 cents and other toppings run 50 cents to $1.00 for stuff like guacamole. Still, if you don't go crazy, you can get two burgers, two toppings, and a drink for $5.50! The only other caveat is that on my first two trips there, the burgers were cooked medium well, thus somewhat dry and charred. The last time I went, I wrote Medium on the order menu, and although it clearly states "all burgers are cooked Medium Well", it seems that the chef didn't char my burger and it was cooked a perfect shade of medium, along with the attendant juiciness! Next Tuesday, I'll list some taco bargains on Taco Tuesday!

Welcome to OC Dining & Entertainment!

This is a companion to my show of the same name on Time-Warner Public Access channel for North Orange County. The first show will be completed soon and will feature Surf City Saloon in Huntington Beach and three local bands. I've also shot four restaurant segments: Regina's (Argentinean-Garden Grove) Mil Jugos (Venezuelan-Santa Ana), Victory Bakery & Rest. (Middle Eastern-Anaheim), and Andaluz Bakery & Rest. (Middle Eastern-Anaheim) which are being edited now. However, this blog will encompass much more than can be included in a 30 minute TV show and will have many tips and bitys from my daily gustatory endeavors!

Taste of Ladera

I checked out all of the food booths at last weekend's Taste Of Ladera. Here's the verdict:

There were less food booths than last year and once again Bahar Persian Rest. from Mission Viejo had the best deal at the Taste. One ticket ($3) bought a full plate of chicken and/or beef kabob pieces with cucumber yogurt, saffron rice, and a small piece of Pita bread!Simply Fondue (formerly La Fondue) had a nice bowl of fruit and rice crisps doused in a very good milk chocolate bath for one ticket. El Tarasco, well-known in the South Bay but with only one location in OC (Fullerton) also featured a good deal with two tacos, rice, beans and a drink for two tickets ($6). Riptide Rockin' Sushi had bowls for two tickets but a nice variety of rolls handmade on the spot for one ticket apiece. That was also a great deal , thus a half-hour wait in line. But it was worth it! The quality was pretty good, especially for this kind of set-up!