There French revolution continues in Costa Mesa and Marché Moderne is there at the forefront. That’s because the “modern market” goes beyond even the best bistro fare, updating almost all the classics of French cuisine with the necessary modern touches. The spontanée (Marché Moderne’s three-course prix-fixe lunch) is one of the best high-end values in [...]

Ikko’s superior spectacle

PHOTO by RICK POON
Ikko hums with the tiniest vibration. It’s there in everything from the low tones of the restaurant’s jazz fusion to the clanging sounds of conversations from its six small tables. And that makes for a definite pulse about the place, a gentle resonance that shakes the chairs and plates before [...]

Scan the menu streetside at George’s Greek Cafe and it’s the meats that jump off the page, a roll call of beef, lamb and chicken—as gyros, souvlakia, keftethes and dolmathes—that, to anyone who has ever for even a bite enjoyed Greek cuisine, sounds like a winner. But for the casual herbivore, this can also spell [...]

Digging through the details at Nosh Café

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Susan McKenna rolls up words with the kind of ease only an Australian accent can produce, tying together quick jumps of the tongue that sound through most of her tiny Nosh Café. She’s there most days (the place closes down when McKenna heads out of town) [...]

Silk Thai The Redeemer

PHOTO by RICK POON
Silk Thai is a place of pure color. Beyond its nautical façade, the restaurant opens up like an orchid: leaves of green, petals of red, bulbs of golden yellow. On the table, plates burst with patches of purple and orange. Even the sun seems colored here, refracted past the [...]

It’s a wonder why the bento box hasn’t gained more ground among the lunch crowds, a concept that covers a literally square meal that’s both affordable and mobile. Plenty of restaurants pack their own bento variations, but few focus exclusively on the things. But that’s why Bentoss makes the perfect lacquered lunch, portioned just right [...]

Suzanne Tracht’s eponymous spot on Ocean Boulevard was a big culinary coup for those with appetites for downtown dining. Though Tracht’s has already become a fixture along that beachfront stretch of town, it was just a year ago that the restaurant was firing through its first few months. Those were tough times, too, because the [...]

Inside! Free million-dollar Indian breakfast idea!

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
My Indian friend M brought me to Kamal Palace on a spectacular July weekday, noon sun slanting through the restaurant’s nearly floor-to-ceiling windows, boats like a SoCal still-life in the adjacent Marina Pacifica, waiters in actual ties drifting silently up to the table with just mounds of [...]

Grappa

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
A large meal got your stomach singing the blues? You could go the sissy American route and take an indigestion pill—or you could do as the Italians do and drink grappa, an after-dinner pomace-based beverage sporting anywhere between 50 and 80 percent alcohol. Formed from the remnants of wine-making, grappa has been [...]

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