Dishes

Sullivan may be the most curiously named Chinese restaurant we've ever been to, but more about that later. First, let us introduce you to Shiu Mei Liu, the effusive, warm and generous proprietor who welcomes you into her world with her wide, charming smile. This small, bright and pleasant storefront restaurant in Huntington Beach is definitely worth a visit. Think of all the times that you and a companion or two have gone into a Chinese restaurant and envied some large party with a Lazy Susan in the middle of their table, sampling a banquet of dishes.

DINING OUT It would be hard to find a better place to celebrate Cinco de Mayo than Don Ramon's on Goldenwest Street. When it opened about eight years ago, the free-standing building was decorated by artist Clayton Parker with expansive murals, trailing vines and flowers. It's a catacomb of separate dining areas, a cantina and a glass-protected patio. Owned by Sally and Ray Gutierrez, Don's Ramon's Kitchen has two excellent cooks Jesus Navarrete and his nephew Israel.

Leery is the feeling I get when I see a Thai restaurant that offers more Chinese dishes than Thai ones. What usually happens is neither cuisine is very good as the restaurant is faking its way through Thai food and serving up marginal Chinese fare. The initial test on a restaurant’s Thai authenticity is when I walk in the door and await for an employee to greet me. When I walked into Thai Princess the waitress who seated us said hello, instead of the Thai equivalent Sawadee kah. That didn’t quell my fears and when I opened the menu and saw many Chinese dishes I got very apprehensive.

An open door welcomes you to Sunday Champagne Brunch ($9.95) at Bukhara, on Edinger Avenue across from Huntington Center. It's the only Indian restaurant in Huntington Beach and its steam table is a perfect introduction to dishes that may be new to you. The pleasant rose-colored room has double-clothed tables and upholstered banquettes with the brunch buffet toward the back. Informative labels over the hot trays help as you make selections. First are a fruit chutney, a bright green mint sauce and a creamy white yogurt dressing for the salad greens.

Despite its romantic name, China Moon in Huntington Beach is a no-nonsense restaurant with self-directed diners who know exactly what they want for lunch ($5.50) or dinner ($6.95). Patrons of this small buffet-style restaurant on Edinger Avenue and Goldenwest Street are familiar with the seasonal fresh offerings and have their favorites. Take it slowly so as not to miss anything -- this is a compact kind of place with two big, round family tables and a long banquette backing generous-sized round booths.

W e've all had the experience of walking into a Chinese restaurant and being handed a menu that looks exactly like the menu in every other Chinese restaurant we've been to: egg rolls, wonton soup, kung pao chicken, moo shu pork, sweet and sour shrimp, you know the drill. Mandarin Restaurant in Fountain Valley has all that, but also some intriguing authentic dishes that will titillate the tongues of adventurous diners. These dishes are classics in China but less well known here except among the Asian community.

We were flabbergasted. We found ourselves eating possibly the best shrimp we had ever tasted. Caught in the wild, the shrimp were jumbo in size, incredibly tender, moist, juicy and tasting so fresh. We chose the shrimp with honey garlic from a selection of three preparations. The sauce was light and delicately sweet, with a hint of garlic that subtly enhanced the perfectly cooked crustaceans. A sprinkling of sesame seeds completed the dish. The florets of broccoli that came on the side were also as fresh as vegetables can be, with just the right touch of crunch.

Jenny Marder A lavish array of culinary delights will garnish the grand ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa Sunday on Sunday as Surf City's finest chefs strut their stuff. Restaurants are already cooking up a storm to prepare for the fourth annual Taste of Huntington Beach event. A sampling of dishes ranging from shrimp cocktail, to pesto tortellini to California rolls will be served up to celebrate the city's food and beverage purveyors.

Soheila Siadate is an amazing chef, working quietly in the kitchen of her little Persian restaurant, Green Rice Kabob, in a Huntington Beach strip mall, where she turns out some wonderful cuisine. Chef Soheila has a distinctive way with Middle Eastern and Persian classics. Dishes we have all eaten many times are subtly transformed by her magic touch. Our first taste, a dipping oil for pita bread, studded with garlic and chili and sprinkled with a little Parmesan, hinted at good things to come.

We were flabbergasted. We found ourselves eating possibly the best shrimp we had ever tasted. Caught in the wild, the shrimp were jumbo in size, incredibly tender, moist, juicy and tasting so fresh. We chose the shrimp with honey garlic from a selection of three preparations. The sauce was light and delicately sweet, with a hint of garlic that subtly enhanced the perfectly cooked crustaceans. A sprinkling of sesame seeds completed the dish. The florets of broccoli that came on the side were also as fresh as vegetables can be, with just the right touch of crunch.

China has a great variety of regional cuisines yet, locally, we only see a few of these represented, mainly Cantonese, Szechuan and Beijing, or a combination thereof. We went in search of something different, and found Chef Chen, an attractive, small restaurant that serves a variety of Taiwanese dishes as well as an extensive mélange of more familiar fare. We focused exclusively on the cuisine of this mountainous island, which has access to plentiful seafood. With the advice of our waitress, we were able to choose typical Taiwanese dishes.

There's a new chef at Wildfish, Keith Stich, but the scene is still wild and the menu is still all about fish. It's a rare visit when the bar isn't buzzin', yet the restaurant continues to serve serious food. The dramatic, ultra-modern décor is accented with theatrical lighting. The bar area is the focal point of the imposing space with a huge, abstract, whale backbone sculpture floating above it. The rest of the very attractive, large room is broken up into cozier dining areas.

T'was the season to be jolly but now tis the season of our discontent. We are unhappy with the size of our bank accounts and even more dismayed by the size of our waistlines. Yet don't despair, we have discovered a sweet little place in a strip mall in Costa Mesa called California Wok that offers very healthy Chinese food for a very good price. It's located in a little Asian enclave on South Bristol Street near the big Mitsuwa Japanese market. The same strip mall is home to a Korean barbecue place, a Japanese restaurant, a pan Asian spot and Orchid, an Iranian restaurant.

The battle is just two days away. Two schools, separated by only 2.5 miles, will meet again. There's quite a history on the gridiron between Marina and Westminster, and on Friday the neighborhood rivalry heats up again with the 48th meeting between the Vikings and Lions at Bill Boswell Field. The teams, who have played each other since 1963, also share the same field when hosting games on the Westminster campus. This year, the Lions are the designated home team for the game, which is known in these circles as the Black & Blue Game.

Sullivan may be the most curiously named Chinese restaurant we've ever been to, but more about that later. First, let us introduce you to Shiu Mei Liu, the effusive, warm and generous proprietor who welcomes you into her world with her wide, charming smile. This small, bright and pleasant storefront restaurant in Huntington Beach is definitely worth a visit. Think of all the times that you and a companion or two have gone into a Chinese restaurant and envied some large party with a Lazy Susan in the middle of their table, sampling a banquet of dishes.

The top 10 dishes of 2010 (in no particular order and not a list of the 10 best restaurants): Café Grill (Fountain Valley): Sweet Potato Ravioli is a winner! Looking more like cannelloni, the toothsome pasta is wrapped around an exquisite sweet potato puree, whipped into a state of sublime creaminess with an astonishing depth of flavor. The nut-brown butter sauce with sage accents adds a whole other dimension of mouth-watering delight. The final fillip is the crispy, deep-fried sage leaves on top. Unbelievably, only $5!

How to describe Le V Cuisine? The closest we can get is: oodles of French, a helping of Asian, a dose of American, a touch of Italian and a smidgen of Mexican, all coexisting in tasty harmony. So, in addition to a Vietnamese banana flower salad with baby clams and fresh basil, there's a rib-eye quesadilla and seafood spaghettini with garlic marinara sauce. But it's French cuisine that dominates the menu, with classics such as escargots de Bourgogne and duck a l'orange. The attractive contemporary dining room features Chinese red damask drapery on the windows, black linens on the tables and a dramatic red-light fixture in the center of the room shedding a rosy glow.

W e've all had the experience of walking into a Chinese restaurant and being handed a menu that looks exactly like the menu in every other Chinese restaurant we've been to: egg rolls, wonton soup, kung pao chicken, moo shu pork, sweet and sour shrimp, you know the drill. Mandarin Restaurant in Fountain Valley has all that, but also some intriguing authentic dishes that will titillate the tongues of adventurous diners. These dishes are classics in China but less well known here except among the Asian community.