Stefani Peterson of the OC Register reported that a few weeks ago Takashi Abe's Sea Smoke in San Clemente closed permanently. Then our buddy at OC Register's Food Frenzy blog, Niyaz Pirani, revealed the shuttering of Q Restaurant, the crawfish and funnel cake hole-in-the-wall that I reviewed not too long ago.
Both developments were unexpected, but really, not a surprise.
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What did surprise me was finding out that May Garden (the Americanized Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant which has been doing business in Costa Mesa for what seems like eternity and a day), not only shuttered recently but was summarily replaced by Happy Family, a Chinese vegetarian restaurant which has two outlets, one of them on Colima Road in Rowland Heights.
I'm looking forward to trying Happy Family, having vaguely remembered that I had a good meal at the Rowland Heights restaurant once, but I will miss May Garden and Chef Eric Chen's special Taiwanese menu–his chilled Queen's chicken especially.
If anyone knows where he and his bird ended up, please chime in.
Happy Family, 1400 Bristol St. Costa Mesa, CA 92626
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.