Hello World!

Welcome to Orange County Food Blogs, a food blogger community covering all of the tasty treats that Orange County has to offer. Orange County is one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. With a population of over 3 million, we're the second largest county in California, after Los Angeles County, and the fifth largest in the country. Our cultures and eating habits are highly diverse, with ethnic enclaves such as Little Saigon (more than 3,000 Vietnamese businesses), the Korean Business District in Garden Grove (1,000 Korean businesses), the city of Irvine (30% Chinese & Taiwanese), Costa Mesa's Little Mexico (30% Latino), and the city of Santa Ana (76% Latino). We boast a number of exceedingly fine dining establishments, as well countless mom & pop eateries offering authentic food from countries around the world. Yet we're often overshadowed by the culinary giant that is Los Angeles, with our restaurants overlooked in some quarters and mocked in others. A few months ago, I was cruising through two of my favorite food blogger communities, LA.Foodblogging, which covers the food of the city of Los Angeles, and Bay Area Bites, which does the same in the San Francisco Bay Area, when I had an epiphany. Los Angeles and San Francisco both have thriving communities of food bloggers connected through community sites like LA.Foodblogging. However, Orange County, with its equally plentiful dining opportunities and diverse cuisines, has fewer food bloggers and lacks a centralized community in which they can share their discoveries, interact with each other, and offer support to new food bloggers. So, why not build one? From this simple thought, Orange County Food Blogs was born. The idea is to create Orange County Food Blogs as a team-driven community blog of Orange County food and food-related subjects open to all OC food bloggers, food lovers, and bloggers who apply. My goal is to have a number of blogger and writers from across OC posting about all the great edibles we have here. I've contacted a number of my food blogging friends in Orange County and found them just as eager as I am to be a part of this project. Our starting lineup includes such notables as: Elmomonster of Monster Munching Bee of Rasa Malaysia H.C. of L.A. & O.C. Food Adventures Christian Z of Orange County Mexican Restaurants Professor Salt of You Gonna Eat That? Julian Hsu of Julian's Weblog We've also got a few newcomers to the food blogging scene, although they're all experienced writers in other fields. Wandering Chopsticks of Wandering Chopsticks elonweis of Fey Touched Joy of Joyful Eating (who writes professionally) I'm your humble host and site admin: Chubbypanda of The Epicurious Wanderer Now that you've found us, we hope you'll come back again and again as we present to you some of the best that Orange County and Southern California has to offer. - Chubbypanda The Epicurious Wanderer OC Food Blogs is open to all OC food bloggers, food lovers, and bloggers. If you're interested in joining us as a food article contributor, please read through the information below. Instructions for applying are at the bottom of the page. Requirements: An active blog with at least three months of archived articles. This is to help prevent spammers and advertisers from using us to spread their message. If you don't meet this requirement, please feel free to email me anyway with a short sample article about your favorite restaurant. A commitment to post at least one, unique, OC food related post once a month. This content can not duplicated anywhere else, although you're encouraged to link to it from your own blog. A brief post on your own blog linking to each OC Food Blogs post you make. A link to OC Food Blogs in your blogroll. Our Promise: No censorship of any kind. You say what you want to say and handle responses from readers as you see fit. I will never edit or attempt to influence your posts. Complete content control over your posts. The site will never generate a profit. I will not place ads or revenue generating objects of any kind on the site. I will pay for any costs out of my own pocket without the expectation of reimbursement. Why Join: The prospect of interacting with other OC food bloggers and food blog readers in a community environment. The ability to work on collaborative posts with other OC Food Bloggers. Giving OC food blog readers a centralized location to find out about OC food blogs they may not familiar with. Making the organization of OC food blogger meets and events much easier. The ability to organize OC food blogger charity events, or to participate in existing events, such as Chez Pim's Menu for Hope. If you are interested, please create a Blogger.com account (if you don't already have one) and send me the email at cp[at]chubbypanda.com. Include the email address connected with your Blogger account, the URL of your blog, and a short paragraph explaining why you'd like to join OC Food Blogs.