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.

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.

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.

Just off Trabuco Canyon Road near the fire station, the wood-porched Trabuco Canyon General Store is an old-fashioned place that sells, among other things, chicken feed. And it smells like it.  There, longtime canyon denizens followed the search for two Costa Mesa hikers who had been missing since Sunday from a tiny TV mounted from the ceiling.  Russ Thompson, 75, sat perched in a busted, old chair tucked among snacks and supplies.  He said his guesses about the fate of Kyndall Jack, 18, and Nicolas Cendoya, 19, were "totally wrong.

It's probably not right to have visions of cuisine when exercising, but it is excusable, I believe, when that food is served at Taco Mesa. One, it is right down the street from the gym I go to, and two, it is a miracle I don't think about this food all the time. This is one of the most unique Mexican restaurants I have ever visited and always my first choice when I am in Costa Mesa. Unfortunately, my workout partner, Tania, has the same mindset, so we are useless to each other from a willpower standpoint.

Kathy Mader Sometimes you learn the most useful information in the most unexpected places. If I hadn't returned my video to Blockbuster on time (which I confess isn't always the case), I might never have met Elgin, who might never have suggested the Ocean Front Bar and Grill on the Balboa Peninsula. Located directly across the street from Studio Cafe and tucked in the Balboa Inn, this restaurant is right in the heart of things, especially when summer comes.

The Costa Mesa home of a man who blew himself up last month contained an array of laboratory equipment, mysterious liquids and powders and a homemade shotgun, court documents show. Costa Mesa police responded to a home in the 3100 block of Bermuda Drive about 7:45 p.m. on April 14 after neighbors reported a loud bang or explosion. When officers arrived, they found Kevin Harris, 52, decapitated in the doorway. A cardboard box with wires was found next to the body, according to documents filed in Orange County Superior Court late last week.

Peruvian food is an interesting and delicious mixture of indigenous cuisine combined with influences from the Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and West Africans who settled there. At the family-run Inka Cantina in Fountain Valley, you will find a menu featuring the operators' own traditional family recipes from the Andes and the northern coast of Peru. As you enter this pleasant little strip-mall restaurant, the owner greets you warmly as if you were family. His daughter was our waitress, and she was new on the job. He joked that we should be kind to her, but no need, she was quite perfect.

Just off Trabuco Canyon Road near the fire station, the wood-porched Trabuco Canyon General Store is an old-fashioned place that sells, among other things, chicken feed. And it smells like it.  There, longtime canyon denizens followed the search for two Costa Mesa hikers who had been missing since Sunday from a tiny TV mounted from the ceiling.  Russ Thompson, 75, sat perched in a busted, old chair tucked among snacks and supplies.  He said his guesses about the fate of Kyndall Jack, 18, and Nicolas Cendoya, 19, were "totally wrong.

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.