Food

A popular Eastside Costa Mesa restaurant has expanded into Newport Beach with a menu geared toward the grab-and-go surf crowd. Eat Chow's new location - described by owner Brian McReynolds as "modern Californian cuisine, like a gastropub with Mexican food" - on 62nd Street in West Newport is having an invite-only, grand-opening party Thursday to celebrate. The restaurant is Eat Chow's second, the first being at Newport Boulevard and 18th Street, which opened about four years ago. A soft opening in Newport was held April 23. So far, the response has been positive, McReynolds said.

COSTA MESA — Area churches and church coalitions have agreed to move their "food sharing activities" away from Lions Park to appease residents who said they felt uncomfortable and unsafe because of the homeless population that frequents the park. Saddleback Church has also agreed to put a halt to Sunday morning services for the homeless, according to information released by the Homeless Task Force, a group of volunteers established by the City Council in January to address the issue of homelessness in Costa Mesa.

Deepa Bharath Those looking for a little help to put festive food on their table this Thursday can get it from a Westside organization. Share Our Selves, a local nonprofit organization that has helped thousands of families celebrate Thanksgiving for the last 35 years will do it again, as it gives away 300 baskets or more every day. It began doling out the goodies last week. The group, with the help of its strong base of donors and volunteers, puts together bags with turkeys, vegetables, canned goods and bread, said Karen McGlinn, executive director of Share Our Selves.

As far as Lowell Bernstein is concerned, food can be tied into almost any academic subject. Even swing. Bernstein, who visited Victoria Elementary School last week, runs food preparation workshops at schools around Southern California. The name of his presentation is Jazz Kidchen — with the "d" in "Kidchen" being intentional — and as he explained to fifth-graders at the start of class on Thursday, there's a similarity between whipping up an open-face sandwich and riffing on a theme by John Coltrane.

Various slices of Orange County?s diverse neighborhoods and people will be brought together for a day at Sage Hill High School. The school will celebrate its seventh Annual Multicultural Fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 5 on its campus, with music, food and religious organizations. About 25 international food booths will feature favorites from all over the world. Joining the booths will be performances from Christ Our Redeemer Church?s Gospel Chorale, Mayan/Aztec flute performances, a Native American drum ceremony, the school?

Curves for Women, a Costa Mesa fitness center, will host its annual food drive to benefit Share Our Selves next month. The local gym -- whose motto is "no men, no mirrors" -- is encouraging Newport-Mesa residents to drop off bags of nonperishable food during the month of March. Members who bring in a bag of food, exercise three times a week and lose five pounds or five inches in the month will be awarded a "Food for Friends" T-shirt. Those who wish to join Curves for Women can bring in a bag of food during the week of March 11 and get the usual registration fee waived.

The Costa Mesa swap meet collected more than 2,000 pounds of food for the needy during the holiday season this year. Over the past four weekends, the $2 admission fee for the swap meet was waived for guests who brought in a canned or dried food item. All of the food will go to South County Outreach, a nonprofit that distributes provisions to people who are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless. Earlier this year the pantry shut down for several days when its food supplies ran out. The food raised from the swap meet’s promotion will allow them to feed 22 families for a week, according to Shawna Herren, who coordinated the drive on the nonprofit’s behalf.

-- Todd Karella The Hilton Costa Mesa received an award of excellence from the county's Environmental Health Division on May 31, recognizing it for consistently maintaining exceptionally high food safety and sanitation standards. "We are delighted to be recognized for our efforts to maintain superior food safety and sanitation standards for our guests and staff," said Joe Bann, general manager of the Hilton Costa Mesa and president of the Costa Mesa Conference and Visitor Bureau, in a prepared statement.

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series on how the recession is affecting the Newport-Mesa area. 8 a.m. Bob Jordan got in his company van, set a single cup of water in a cup holder to quench his thirst, and headed off on the route that he’s taken nearly every Monday for the last 12 years. The van, one of two owned by the Westside nonprofit Share Our Selves, maneuvered its way out of the cramped parking lot on Superior Avenue, inching around parked cars and families who had come for their daily needs.

An application for what is being described as the first upscale, late-night food delivery service will be the subject of a public hearing at Thursday's Newport Beach Planning Commission meeting. Jeff Reuter, owner of 3-Thirty-3 Waterfront restaurant in Newport Beach, intends to fill the food nighttime niche with Dry Dock, which would deliver "fall-off-the-bone" barbecue throughout Newport and also serve dine-in customers along Mariner's Mile. "There are a lot of people doing dinner later these days than ever before," Reuter said Tuesday.

A popular Eastside Costa Mesa restaurant has expanded into Newport Beach with a menu geared toward the grab-and-go surf crowd. Eat Chow's new location - described by owner Brian McReynolds as "modern Californian cuisine, like a gastropub with Mexican food" - on 62nd Street in West Newport is having an invite-only, grand-opening party Thursday to celebrate. The restaurant is Eat Chow's second, the first being at Newport Boulevard and 18th Street, which opened about four years ago. A soft opening in Newport was held April 23. So far, the response has been positive, McReynolds said.

The Second Harvest Summer Food & Wine Event returns to Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's South Coast Plaza from 6 to 9 p.m. May 16, an event organizer said. The event at the Costa Mesa shopping center features award-winning wines and gourmet food, a silent raffle and music by KCRW 89.9 DJ Jason Bentley. And, because the event is sponsored by South Coast Plaza, 100% of the ticket sales will benefit Second Harvest's food bank, said Anton Segerstrom, a shopping center executive who serves on the Second Harvest board.

In a perfect world, parents can grab a beer, sit down to watch a game with friends while their children are perfectly entertained and well-behaved without them. Restaurateur Jeremy Foti can't guarantee a child's manners, but he is trying to provide the entertainment. Opening in about a month, Tapshack in Newport Beach and Taphouse in Huntington Beach will offer a wide array of draft beers, lunch and dinner menus, plasma-screen TVs and video game consoles. "It was sort of trial and error with my own three boys," Foti said of coming up with the concept behind the sports-themed bar and grill.

All is fair in cake and war. Costa Mesa native and Estancia High School alumna Megan Faulkner Brown had a winning strategy when she battled on the popular reality TV show"Cupcake Wars. " The Utah resident's dark chocolate, brie, nut, cranberry and red wine cupcakes knocked out the competition in the April 8 episode of the Food Network show. "It turned out as this great combination of sweet and bitter," Brown said. For the episode, she was challenged to create a recipe using ingredients that a rock star might have in his dressing room.

A farm industry group's charitable arm has said it will give 100 California preschools and day-care centers $1,000 each to help them start gardens for growing food. The Irvine-based Western Growers Foundation said Monday that the project is intended to let young children see firsthand where their food comes from and teach them healthy eating habits that could help curb increasing rates of childhood obesity. "School gardens create wonderful a-ha moments for students to truly understand where their food comes from and the work behind growing what we like to call the best medicine in the world," Paula Olson, a vice president of Western Growers, said in a statement.

People often forget that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tenn., while he was standing in solidarity with sanitation workers as they sought justice in their workplace. I could think of no better way to honor his legacy than by celebrating his birthday continuing the struggle against injustice. I spent the weekend in Immokalee, Fla., with tomato farm workers. Like the sanitation workers of King's day, they held signs declaring, "I am a Man. " Today's workers remind us "soy humano" — "I am human" — and thus deserve to be treated as such.

If you haven't yet heard about the Korean wave, get ready to be submerged. The annual Irvine Korean Cultural Festival, a free arts and food bonanza, returns for the third year Jan. 14 at the Irvine Civic Center. "There is a big wave nowadays about to hit the U.S., but it has been very popular already with Korean soap operas, Korean pop music and Korean food," said Irvine Councilman Steven Choi. "People have a lot of interest of what this Korean wave is all about. " Korean barbecue vendors, pop and traditional musicians, fan and drum dancers and other artists will converge at the Civic Center.

COSTA MESA - Tanya Petrovna's love of cooking dates to childhood, when she helped her mother cook vegetables from other countries and traveled with her parents through Europe, sampling different flavors along the way. Today as the founder and chef of Native Foods Cafe, a popular chain of vegan restaurants with locations in Costa Mesa, Aliso Viejo, Tustin and other cities, she draws on those familial experiences and uses international seasonings in...

Irvine is looking to collect 5,000 pounds of canned foods through Jan. 15, according to the city's website. The Healthy Food Drive hosted by the city and in partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank aims to gather nonperishable items such as canned fruits, juices, soups, vegetables and meat, pastas, rice, cereal, jelly, peanut butter and spaghetti sauce. Food items will benefit families in need though Irvine's food pantry distribution programs, including: AIDS Service Foundation, Christian Mission Alliance Bethel Korean Church, Christian Outreach Center, Families Forward, Illuminations Foundation, Mariners Church, St. Thomas More Church and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church.

NEWPORT BEACH - Evan Snow's face was set in concentration as he tried to add a bag of rice to each cardboard box that slid past him on a conveyor belt. His arms barely reached over the top of the boxes, but luckily for Evan, 4, he had a solid slam dunk and a cheering team. "Go! Go! Hurry!" cheered father Steve Snow, helping Evan. "Last one!" The Snows, with 6-year-old Ben in a sideways baseball cap, were some of the 450 of PIMCO's Newport Beach employees and their families who volunteered their Saturday morning to fill up 5,000 boxes with more than 9,000 pounds of holiday food for Orange County residents in need.