I wouldn't have thought that The Camp in Costa Mesa would become the nexus of all things hip and foodie in OC; but that's exactly what seems to be happening lately.
A few weeks ago, Dave revealed that the still buzzy Haven Gastropub folks are planning something called taco asylum there. Not too long before that, Ecco, the Italian restaurant that I had been spying on for at least a year, finally opened its doors. And let's not forget Mesa, Old Vine, Valhalla Table, Native Foods, 118 Degrees and Milk+Honey.
Now, apparently a new banh mi shop (banh mi are Vietnamese sandwiches, if you didn't know) has opened right underneath our noses.
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EAST/BOROUGH (caps are theirs, not mine) is the newest Camp joint that our good friend and tipster Brekkie Fan says opened two weekends ago. She found it located “across from Native Foods Cafe, under the Active R/S sign.”
“It's a walk-up, step-up” she tells me. And she's not kidding.
I was there at The Camp mere hours before Brekkie Fan texted me of its existence and I had no idea. I must have walked by it as if it were invisible, because it sort of is. To call it a restaurant might be very generous. You get a sense of what it is from this video. It's more of a hole-in-the-wall. No really. It's a hole in a wall.
Perhaps that's all it needs to be to serve a tidy roster of Vietnamese coffees, teas, banh mis, spring rolls, and even Vietnamese beef stew.
So with this development and the things to come, it makes a quite an eclectic list of eats for what previously was only a must-go destination for high-end outdoor hiking gear and bike equipment enthusiasts, wouldn't you say?
EAST/BOROUGH, The Camp, 2937 Bristol St D102, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, http://www.east-borough.com
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.