Chicken

Where’s it at: BC Broiler, 1866 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa, (949) 650-8080 What’s in it: The chicken is slowly rotated on the restaurant’s large rotisserie for three hours until golden brown. The chicken comes either plain or with a lemon and garlic butter sauce. A barbecue sauce is also available. Cost: $13.99 whole chicken, $8.49 half chicken, $6.49 quarter chicken Why you should order it: This is a great way to eat chicken, and owner Barry Afshar has been part of the family-run business for 23 years.

Where it’s at: Bukhara Cuisine of India, 7594 Edinger Ave., Huntington Beach. Why you should order it: If you’ve avoided Indian food in the past because you think it’s too hot, we would like to recommend chicken korma, a creamy, silky Persian-Indian dish, which can be traced back to the 16th century, when the Mughals ruled India. Bukhara marinates the chicken and cooks it in a tandoor (a clay oven), which reaches high temperatures in order to quickly seal in the juices.

I'll give you one guess. Don't blow it. Ready? What is the oldest joke in the world? Wait, here's a hint: What is the oldest, dumbest joke in the world? Wait, wait, one more hint: There's a chicken and ? this is important ? there's a road. Anyone? Yes, that's it! I'm so proud of you. But by the time we're done, you will know at long last exactly why the chicken crossed the road, and it was not, hard as it is to believe, to get to the other side. I first heard about the chicken from Heather Klein, a close friend who lives in Newport Beach in general and Belcourt in particular.

Veterinarian Joel Pasco could hardly believe his eyes when Costa Mesa resident Abel Octaviano brought Angel, his 3-month-old, hen-pecked pit bull pup, to All Creatures Care Cottage. Angel sustained scratches and pecking wounds across the top of his head and on his ears from being attacked by the family’s pet chicken, named Peww. While kids in Octaviano’s neighborhood love the friendly dog, they call the aggressive chicken a menace. “Everyone loves Angel, but Peww might end up as dinner in December,” Octaviano said.

Every once in a while, when you least expect it, a random treasure shows up in your week: a gift that puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step. This week, with a schedule filled with demons, I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of an angelic gesture. Jayne Lally, who chaired the 2002 Newport Harbor High School Home Tour, held a wrap-up meeting at her house and treated us all to lunch. And lunch truly was a treat. As much as I enjoy a great Ho Sum chicken salad, Plum's grilled romaine or Haute Cakes' chicken and date salad, this was lunch a la Jayne.

Fifteen years ago Jack Jasper opened Jack Shrimp in Newport Beach with just one menu item -- his grandmother's famous Louisiana-style peel-n-eat gulf shrimp. The trademark dish is wonderfully spicy and addictive. While the shrimp cooks, a sauce with a dozen herbs and spices simmers alongside. The savory spicy sauce is served with fresh C'est Si Bon bread for dunking, and it was good enough to launch a successful trio of restaurants. Jasper seemed destined to be a cook. As a fourth-grader growing up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, he entered his "crazy-chocolate cake" in a 4-H baking contest and won first prize.

As I was biting into a mahi-mahi taco, a less-than-original name came to me to categorize the type of cuisine Caliente Southwest Grill serves: “Nuevo Mexicano.” While the name won’t catch on, the food certainly has. Owner Rick Flanagan started the restaurant more than 10 years ago, and the facility has been managed by his daughter, Heather, for the last few years. The restaurant serves Mexican food in the style similar to Taco Mesa’s. The standard ingredients are there: cilantro for the tacos, pico de gallo for the chicken asada tacos and queso fresco for many of the burritos.

Amorelia is something special. Distinguishing itself from the plethora of Mexican restaurants in Costa Mesa, this new storefront eatery brings fresh new energy to classical Mexican food. Tucked into the southwest corner of the Kmart mall on Harbor Boulevard, it’s an attractive little place with faux stone walls, chunky Mexican wooden furniture, warm lighting and a very pleasant ambience. This is a family business based on Momma’s recipes from Morelia and Michoacan, but the menu is continually evolving.

Young Chang People eat chicken for dinner, go to sleep, wake up the next morning and have scrambled eggs for breakfast. But they rarely connect the dots between the chicken and the egg, said Ann Raia, small animals supervisor at the Orange County Fair's livestock department. "They know the eggs come from chicken, but they never think about it," she said. The 85 chickens at the fair's Egg Laying Contest/Exhibit show passersby what really happens.

Two Corona del Mar neighbors can end their flap now that the City Council decided to keep chickens out of most residential neighborhoods. The "Goldenrod 6" have to go. The hens attracted widespread publicity in recent months when the city asked their owner to remove them from quaint Goldenrod Avenue in December. In response, people lined up on either side of the fence - literally. At least one neighbor to the hens found them offensive, while others thought they were charming . At a study session Tuesday, the City Council agreed with city staff members who recommended that the current law be upheld.

City officials are shaking up the Newport Beach Aviation Committee and other citizens groups with long-standing community members. Beginning at its regular meeting Tuesday, City Council members will begin replacing appointees, some of whom have served for more than 10 years. The Aviation and Special Events Advisory committees and other such groups advise the council on specialized issues. Officials apparently established some of them without specifying terms for members, or made terms indefinite.

CORONA DEL MAR — Six Corona del Mar chickens will get another moment in the spotlight at Tuesday's City Council meeting, Newport Beach officials have confirmed. "Yes, I'll be bringing it up to see if the council supports staff coming back with information on the subject," Mayor Nancy Gardner wrote in an email to Corona del Mar Today, an online newspaper. If a majority of council members agrees, the council could ask staff to work on amending the municipal code that bans chickens in Corona del Mar, said city spokeswoman Tara Finnigan.

CORONA DEL MAR - As Michael Resk moves around his Spanish-style home, small bobbing heads mirror his actions, following him to the front gate, backyard and alley. The chickens make it clear that he rules the roost. When he walks around his Goldenrod Avenue yard, he's occasionally followed by the six members of his feathered flock - nicknamed the Goldenrod 6 - as they cluck, peck at the grass and dig holes in search of bugs. Resk has owned the chickens for 16 months, but he ran afoul of city ordinances that prohibit owning poultry in Corona del Mar. But it's all a mix-up of semantics, Resk says, because his birds aren't for meat or eggs; they're largely ornamental.

COSTA MESA - Casual-eatery aficionados will soon have another dining option to "eat more chicken. " Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based quick-service chicken restaurant franchise, broke ground Wednesday for a 4,217-square-foot location at 3181 Harbor Blvd. Set to open mid-April, the eatery joins other chicken-selling establishments, such as El Pollo Loco and Wingnuts, on Harbor. Chick-fil-A will be operated by franchisee Tammy Guadagno, who will be selling her Santa Ana Chick-fil-A location back to the company in order to open this one. "We're going to take with us the same business philosophy of treating people with honor, dignity and respect," said Guadagno, who had operated the South Bristol Street location at MacArthur Boulevard for six years.

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’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.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on Jamie’s hometown, Bishop. Hopefully my column on the fish opener last week inspired some of you to visit Bishop this weekend. If you decide to stick around for a week, you can hit up the Taste of the Sierras on April 30 in the Charles Brown Auditorium at the Tri-County Fairgrounds there. At $20 a pop at the door, you get to try all-you-can eat samples from some of the area’s restaurants, including Whiskey Creek, Simply Delish Catering, Convict Lake Resort, Tu-Ka-Novie, which is part of the Piute Palace Casino, and Eagle’s Landing, which is in June Lake.