I’m not one to post press releasy information, but these free classes caught my eye on the King Arthur Flour website. Starting this week in Southern California and moving eastward through Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska, the Vermont based baking gurus are taking their bread seminars on the road. I’ve not taken these demonstration classes, so this is not an endorsement, more like a neighborly heads-up on a reputable outfit. And it’s free. I like free.

King Arthur runs the oldest continuously operating mill in the United States, and is the largest of the artisanal milling companies. They make flours for both retail bakers and the commercial trade, such as 50 pound sacks of Sir Lancelot high gluten flour I prefer to bake bagels with. They also sell all manner of baker’s needs through their catalog, publish highly regarded baking books, and offer great information on their website.

Click on the first link above for full details:

Pasadena: January 31, 2007

Ventura: February 1. 2007

Ontario: February 2, 2007

Irvine: February 3, 2007

You probably didn’t notice that I upgraded my site’s software today. From my end of the screen, the new Wordpress v 2.1 release installed without a hitch. If the three of you reading along are having issues, let me know.

In contrast, yesterday’s train wreck of a site upgrade at Chowhound has thousands of angry villagers lighting the torches and sharpening their escargot forks. CNet management continues to respond to pissed off site users, and repairs to the massive pooch screwing flow forth.

While the Chicken Little types run around like Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens, I’m certain a company with Cnet’s resources will sort out the mess they made. It’s easy to get pissed at them. Chowhound’s about us, the community. Hell, them’s are us. What’s with the hating, people?

Give it time, chowhounds. These site changes will work out. In the meantime, I’ll be twiddling the knobs on my own little website, waiting for the inevitable day when something breaks…

Mexican restaurants in Mexico cover the gamut from prehistoric peasant cooking to world class sophistication. Yet despite the vast number of Mexican restaurants in Orange County, they fall into three basic camps: great grubbing at the low end of the scale; old school Gringo Mex smothered in greasy yellow cheese and red sauce; and Nuevo Gringo Mex, the sort of overpriced fare decorated with ancho or cilantro colored crema fresca spooged from a squirt bottle. Very few wade deeper beyond those familiar and overcrowded waters.

Orange County Mexican food lovers deserve to fill some of the missing gaps in that spectrum, and the quietly lauded Gabbi’s Mexican Kitchen leads the counterstrike with traditional, yet gussied up Mexican food.

How many places serve the Yucatecan bar snack panuchos, and a delicious version at that? This one’s served with a pickled red onion relish supposedly spiked with habanero peppers that lacked any of that chile’s distinctive flavor or heat. Those cebollas moradas added complexity to the terrific dish, but it forebode a tendency toward too much sweet and not enough heat in the three other antojitos I sampled on this first visit. If there’s a gabacho compromise in the very likable food, this might be it.

Now let me puff up the churro maker’s head a little. Its crisply fried, cinnamon sugared crust yields to an ever-so-slighly loose, custardy center. They’re served with a not-too-sweet, dark chocolate sauce and a crackalicious, sweet-bitter burnt caramel sauce. The menu should simply say: “Sugar coated, deep fried, hot sex dunked in liquid crack.” If you see some destitute addict hanging out at the back door in dessert withdrawls, that would be me.

Orange County craves sophisticated Mexican food without dumbed down flavor profiles, and the CIA trained Gabbi Parker might be our best hope yet. But please, Chef Gabbi, bring on the heat. Bring on the funk!

Gabbi’s Mexican Kitchen
141 S. Glassell
Orange, CA
714-633-3038

Gabbi’s occupies an unmarked storefront next an Army Navy store on the east side of Glassell.

Tucked into a hidden crag along a scenic stretch of Orange County’s coastline, The Beachcomber Cafe occupies a repurposed beach cottage in Crystal Cove State Park. You’d never see it from Pacific Coast Highway, which ferries harried drivers on the bluffs above this restaurant. If you happened to know about the sketchy staircase leading down from behind the Shake Shack, you might make your way down to the sand, and this ridiculously crowded beachfront restaurant. How the hell did all these people find out about this place, anyway?

This view from the patio is the payoff. That, and the chance to maintain a good buzz through the afternoon into a rosy sunset. On this day, we started with a disappointing calamari appetizer: flaccidly fried, unseasoned greasy squid bits that the house-made tartar sauce and cilantro aioli couldn’t save. Famished after a 30 minute wait for a table, we devoured them anyway, like makos in a chum slick.

Salad with a view. Many Orange County “ladies who lunch” keep this spot hopping, but that view keeps tables from turning quickly.

Beachcomber Burger. Great bun and a free form, hand-patted, beef burger cooked to a true medium rare. I really liked the Asian influenced apple & nappa cabbage slaw, flecked with black sesame seeds. The paper cup keeps the presentation from getting too uppity.

Shrimp po boy, with a cornmeal battered shrimp. Not remotely close to the quality of the late Uglesich’s in New Orleans, but I liked it all the same. Note the chipotle Tabasco sauce on hand.

The rule for restaurants that tout fantastic vistas is: the better the view, the worse the food. I haven’t had enough of the food at The Beachcomber to gauge the extent of that notion, but our sandwiches were just fine. I need to go back and explore the menu further, especially for the beignets and steel cut oatmeal served at breakfast.

The Ruby’s Diner group owns this restaurant and the historic shake shack on the cliff above it, but takes great pains to distinguish their independence from their corporate, faux`50’s diner cousins. I like that the chefs prepare most of the sauces in house, and innovate with some interesting flavor combinations on the menu. Will untraditional items like the apple-nappa slaw cross over to the Ruby’s menus eventually? Don’t bet on it. It wouldn’t mesh with Ruby’s retro burger joint positioning.

Let’s appreciate The Beachcomber on its own merits: great view, good casual dining menu, and an enviable location that you’ll call your friends from. “Hey, guess where I’m sitting right now… ?”

The Beachcomber at Crystal Cove
15 Crystal Cove
Newport Coast, CA 92657
949-376-6900 tel

No reservations are taken. Call the restaurant for directions & parking instructions, as vehicles must be left in a remote lot on the other side of Pacific Coast Highway.