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Tag: Food

Taco Maria

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Carlos Salgado Costa Mesa, Calif.
There’s a reason why Taco Maria, a snug, tasting-menu focused joint roughly an hour from most places in Los Angeles took the number five spot on Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list, just out this week—Salgado is just that good. An Orange County native, he first blipped on the radar of SoCal diners after launching a taco truck back in 2011, his (to most eyes) illogical follow-up to decade or more of toiling in various Michelin-starred (Coi, Commis) kitchens up in the Bay Area. The truck begat the sleek little fine-dining spot where you find him today, and while you can still get tacos here, it’s really all about the four-course prix-fixe menu of what Salgado likes to refer to as Chicano Cuisine.      

Read the full article here.

 

Fall Events in OC and More!

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GREAT OC EVENTS THIS FALL

Fall has arrived, and we have a list of the best fall events – from costume parties to scarier thrills – to enjoy in Orange County this season.

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“SOMETHING ROTTEN” COMES TO COSTA MESA!

The hit Broadway show comes to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in November. Watch as two brothers hilariously decide to write their first musical.

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CHEF SPOTLIGHT: JOHN BEBER

Pueblo’s Executive Chef John Beber, at Costa Mesa’s foodie paradise The OC MIX, shows us how to make his Gambas al Ajillo. (VIDEO)

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YOUR 5 TOP CRAFT COFFEE SPOTS

Fall really puts you in a coffee state of mind. Whether you like hot or cold, here’s 5 top spots in the city to get your craft brew on.

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THRILLIST: THE BEST RESTAURANTS IN 15 ORANGE COUNTY CITIES

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ARC Food & Libations

Most everything here is cooked on a wood-fire grill and comes away with a distinctive smoky flavor, from the meatballs and quail to the charred bacon (served with quite possibly the OC’s best wedge salad). A well-executed menu of artisanal cocktails (like the Italian Snow Cone made with Aperol, or Hyland Old-Fashioned crafted with black walnut bitters) balances out all the earthy, woodsy flavors.

Taco Maria

Don’t be fooled by the name: Taco Maria’s more than a simple taqueria (although it does make a particularly memorable shiitake mushroom taco). While the prix-fixe dinner menu changes regularly, it always features elegant, modern interpretations of Mexican food, like scallops served with a soft Oaxacan cheese and black squid ink crumbs.

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Must Read – Five New Tenants at SOCO and The OC Mix!

Posted on by Kirby

Happy Thursday! We’re excited to share with you five new tenants now open and opening soon at SOCO and The OC Mix. Be sure to check out our event calendar for grand opening events, in-store promos, and much more. We look forward to you visiting these new stores and giving them a warm welcome to SOCO and The OC Mix – and our valued community and neighbors!

Eggslice pop-up inside Shuck Oyster Bar at The OC Mix 
Visit Eggslice every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 7AM-10:30AM inside Shuck Oyster Bar to enjoy perfectly crafted breakfast sandwiches that were born at local Farmers Markets in Sydney, Australia more than 18 years ago. These delectable breakfast sandwiches feature unique locally madeChili Jam, combined with fresh, local ingredients. You’ll get your sandwich piping hot, stacked with flavor and served with a reverence towards sustainable, local ingredients in a timely manner. Visit http://www.eggslice.com/  for more info and menu options. 

Bono Spera at The OC Mix 
Bono Spera, meaning ‘Good Hope’ in Latin, is a new women’s athletic apparel and beauty store now open inside The OC Mix at SOCO. Bono Spera’s goal is to help women in their pursuit of a healthier version of themselves without compromising style. In addition to offering trendy athleisure wear, Bona Spera specializes in all natural, eco-friendly Korean skincare products as well as Korean cosmetics and body care that no one should go without in their daily regimen.  

Natuzzi Italia at SOCO
Natuzzi Italia is Italy’s largest furniture house and one of the most recognized in the furniture industry. As the best-known luxury brand in the furnishings sector worldwide, Natuzzi Italia is committed to social responsibility and environmental sustainability. The SOCO location will showcase the new store design, merchandising concept and overall Natuzzi Italia consumer experience. Opening this winter at SOCO.

Bang & Olufsen at SOCO
For more than 90 years, Bang & Olufsen has been an iconic brand, known for its highly distinctive and exclusive range of televisions, music systems, loudspeakers, and multimedia products, which combine technological excellence and emotional appeal. The company – opening this Fall at SOCO – will offer a proud legacy of excellence in both design and engineering as a statement of timeless quality, ensuring that each new generation is as compatible with the past as it is with the future.

Chuck Jones Gallery at SOCO and The OC Mix
Founded by four-time Academy Award recipient, animation director, creator and creative genius Chuck Jones, and his daughter, Linda Jones Clough, Chuck Jones Gallery is best-known as “the” gallery for the art of American Pop Culture. This second, smaller location in The OC Mix (now open) will focus on finding the art people love to collect and helping them place it in their homes and offices. In addition to its fine arts collections, the gallery will carry Looney Tunes-inspired gifts and offer archival framing for your own treasured works of art.  

New Worlder: The Reinvention of American Mexican Food

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The price point is not cheap at any of these restaurants, and nearly all the chefs say they’ve struggled with customers who think Mexican food should be purchased for pocket change. The chefs have also pushed back against the idea of authenticity, fielding complaints from diners who say the food isn’t actually Mexican. They’re serving dishes that my own grandmother (a Mexican-American born and raised in Los Angeles) would not have recognized as Mexican food—things like blue corn sopes with morel mushroom mole at Californios in San Francisco, charred octopus pozole from Lalito in New York City, gorditas with fingerling potato, hoja santa, anchovies and caviar from Taco Maria in Costa Mesa; chochoyotes (masa dumplings, below) in a green garlic and chile pasilla-laced broth from Broken Spanish in Los Angeles, and fideo noodles with cauliflower and smoky Oaxacan chintextle paste from Mi Tocaya Antojería in Chicago.

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OC Register: These are the 20 best full-service Mexican restaurants in Orange County

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Here’s something I think we can all agree on: Orange County has better Mexican food than anywhere else in California. And I firmly believe we have in Taco Maria the single best Mexican restaurant in the United States, and the chef who tilts the scales heavily in our favor. But we also have some of the best old-fashioned, family-operated California-style Mexican restaurants in the state.

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Photo by Cindy Yamanaka

Restaurant Marin Among Eater’s 10 Orange County Restaurants Worth the Drive From San Diego

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Chef Noah Blom and wife-partner Marin built on the success of Arc at The OC Mix with Restaurant Marin, a chic diner that also features wood-fired cooking. Grab breakfast, lunch, or dinner on the covered patio in a blue cushioned booth or grab a blue plastic table indoors, all set to French accordion music. Breakfast is as luxurious as you want to be, whether you prefer a basic bacon and egg sandwich or crab hash browns. Later in the day, they pile buttery lobster rolls with shrimp and serve a downright architectural chicken pot pie. Don’t leave without eating dessert, whether it’s supple donut holes served with whipped cream and quad-berry jam, or a towering slab of cake.

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OC Register: The Taste: Consider the Lobster Bisque

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We are standing in the bustling kitchen breezeway that connects Restaurant Marin to its older sister, ARC, both of which anchor the burgeoning food mecca at SOCO in Costa Mesa. We face an imposing black door with a glossy high-tech keypad to the left. It’s an oddly tentative, interstitial space – think of it as a brief Tibetan Buddhist bardo, a space one inhabits after death before being transported to nirvana.

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