Lists are always fraught with omissions and bad choices the best of OC lists from OC Weekly and The OC Register are in their own class of awful. Truly terrible.
After living in NYC and West LA for the better part of 15 years before moving to North OC I can enthusiastically say that the food scene is much better today than it was when I first moved to the OC 8 years ago. Thankful to have discovered, found, been recommended to many great places like Cream Pan, Fuoco, Zait N Zataar, Cortinas, Young Dong, Portola Coffee, Kitikata, Playground 2.0, Earthen, Olive Pit, J Zhou, Sidecar, 8 KBBQ and so many more.