This issue’s Foodie Jr. is celebrating our Readers’ Choice Award winners in the oh-so-delicious category. If you haven’t enjoyed the below OC faves, you are missing out!
Best Pizza Place
Blaze Pizza
3 Year Winner
If you’re looking for yummy oven-roasted pizza with made-from scratch dough and fresh, artisan ingredients, this is your place. The ambiance is great and you couldn’t find an easier spot to hit for satisfying all the picky eaters in your crew, they literally build their own meal. Mom and Dad will love the cold brews and unique natural sodas on tap, not to mention tasty homemade sweet treats like the warm s’more and chocolate chip cookies to end the meal. The pizza parlor is growing in popularity as it continues to add shops throughout Orange County.
blazepizza.com | Locations throughout OC
Best Family Restaurant
Ruby’s Diner
13 Year Winner
Its mouthwatering milkshakes and tasty burgers make this 40s-styled diner a family favorite. With locations throughout Orange County, it’s a good standby to visit when you’re ready for a bite.
rubys.com | Locations throughout OC
Best Foodie Jr. Menu
Whole Foods Café
Debut Winner
At Whole Foods Café, customers can always count on finding fresh, plentiful ready-to-go meals. Its offerings include sandwiches, burritos, pizza and a build-your-own salad bar.
wholefoodsmarket.com | Locations throughout OC
Best Place to Satisfy a Sweet Tooth
Yogurtland
7 Year Winner
This dangerously-delicious frozen yogurt parlor can be impossible to resist on a hot summer’s day — or any other day, for that matter. The deliciousness of its self-serve, flavored yogurts only improves with fruit, candy and syrup toppings.
yogurt-land.com | Locations throughout OC
Best Place for Pancakes
Flappy Jack’s
Don’t let its name fool you – this popular eatery offers a range of breakfast foods, including steak and eggs, waffles and crepes. But of course, it’s the pancakes that are the real draw. Its selection includes sweet caramel and walnut pancakes, bacon-loaded cakes and Hawaiian pancakes filled with freshly-diced pineapple and coconut flakes.
flappyjackspancakehouse.com | Orange
Best Day of the Year for Pancakes
IHOP Free Pancake Day
Editors’ Choice
It’s one of the greatest days of the year for pancake lovers. Every National Pancake day, IHOP dishes out a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes to each customer. It return, it asks customers to pay it forward with a donation to children battling critical illnesses.
ihop.com | Locations throughout OC
Most Creative Ice Creams
Creamistry
Editors’ Choice
This ice cream parlor uses liquid nitrogen to prepare custom, hand-crafted ice cream for hungry customers. Its favors include Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Tiramisu, Thai Tea and plenty more.
creamistry.com | Locations throughout OC
Churned Creamery
Imagine a world where you can buy a buttery croissant stuffed with freshly-churned ice cream and covered with your favorite toppings. Well, you’re living in that world. The crocream one of the many menu options offered at some local parlors.
churnedcreamery.com | Irvine, Tustin, Cypress
CREAM
This is a place where you can build your own ice cream sandwich using freshly-baked cookies and premium ice cream. Customers choose their cookies – options include snickerdoodle, chocolate and butter sugar – before deciding which flavor of ice cream to sandwich between them. They pick toppings, too.
creamnation.com | Irvine, Aliso Viejo
Casey’s Cupcake
The heavenly tastes of cupcakes and ice cream are combined in this Casey’s Cupcake creation.
Cupcakes are soaked in cream for two days before they’re blended and passed through a “world-class” Danish gelato machine. They ice creams are available in half-pint sized containers.
caseyscupcake.com | Irvine
Dad’s Original Balboa Bar
There’s been a battle of the Balboa Bar brewing on Balboa Island, where ice cream shops are competing to serve the best chocolate-dipped ice cream. Some stores, including Dad’s Original Balboa Bar, are also serving chocolate-covered frozen bananas.
balboaisland.com | Newport Beach
Most Fun for Family Dining
Rainforest Café, Downtown Disney
Editors’ Choice
It’s a jungle in this downtown Disney eatery – and we mean that in the best possible sense. After choosing a meal from the jungle-inspired menu, diners will eat to the sounds of elephants trumpeting and birds chirping. They’ll be surrounded by moving animals, exotic feathered friends and more.
disneyland.disney.go.com/dining/downtown-disney-district/rainforest-cafe | Anaheim
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