Coma como en el D.F.

The OC Weekly has a good read about Santa Ana's taco trucks. Check out the postings from Los Hermanos Lonchera sin Frontera at twitter.com/loshermanosLSF. They've certainly taken their cue from the Kogi folks.

I lived in Japan for a year in the '90s, and I spent an inordinate amount of Tokyo time searching for a half-decent burrito. The best I found was at a restaurant called El Sol in the Umejima district, but the most interesting was from a beaten up roach coach in Shibuya. The owner had decorated the green truck with Don't Mess with Texas stickers, and he was quick to warn me that "Japanese no like beans," so naturally the burrito was beanless. I'll have to dig up my photo and post it up, but in the meantime the photo above is from Garden Grove's Korean District.

Thai me up! Thai me down!

Thai Nakorn in Garden Grove is still rebuilding after a fire closed them up in 2007. They finally applied the stucco color coat to the exterior walls over the weekend. Man, this has been a looooong wait. Hurry up!

Garden Grove landskimping

One of these things is not like the other...one of these things just doesn't belong...

Ok, these aren't the most exciting apartment buildings in the world, much less Orange County or even Garden Grove. Very ho-hum designs for what should've been an excellent opportunity to reinvent this small stretch of Garden Grove Boulevard between Harbor and Haster. Goodbye Me-N-Eds Pizza, demolished to make way for these housing projects...I never even gave you a chance.

My biggest axe to grind is for the weak(er) landscaping in front of the most recent of the three developments, the Harbor Grove Apartments at 12777 Garden Grove Blvd. The front setback is entirely unwelcoming, with boring six-foot high metal fencing crammed up to the sidewalk. Behind the fence and in front of the building, only accessible from an awkward side gate, is your standard sod. I guarantee nobody will ever go in there.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this is "luxury" senior housing. (Location, location...walking distance to the hospital!) Rather than choking the residents with pesticide and allergen-laden grass, wouldn't setting aside areas for organic gardening be a better use of open space?

Rebuilding Thai Nakorn

A year and a half after a fire destroyed the Thai Nakorn restaurant in Garden Grove, the rebuild is finally shaping up. Looks like the framing is moving along. I bet the urology business next door can't wait to start chasing away Nakorn customers from their parking lot.