“The Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA) brings back its always anticipated Tastemakers of Orange County fundraising event on Thursday, October 10 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Julianne and George Argyros Plaza at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. More than two dozen local chefs will celebrate the Asian and Pacific Islander community and culture by providing guests the opportunity to indulge in one-of-a-kind Asian and Pacific Island-inspired tapas dishes in an all-you-can-enjoy setting. Proceeds from tickets sold for this event go to support OCAPICA's numerous programs and services in mental health and health, youth development, housing assistance, policy education and combating anti-Asian racism.”
More than two dozen area celebrity chefs will be participating ranging from Executive Chef Rich Mead of Farmhouse at Rogers Garden to Chef/Restaurateur Amar Santana of Vaca.
“In addition to the food tastings, guests will have the opportunity to enjoy beverages by Brewery X and BondleWines. This fundraiser will feature groovy tunes from a live DJ, a silent auction with luxury experiences and unique items, and an exciting opportunity drawing. Tickets are available to the public for $250 for VIP, which allows early entry at 6 p.m.; and $195 for General Admission from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. More information and tickets can be found at ocapica.org/tmoc.”
OCAPICA’s long-time Board Chair, Sora Park Tanjasiri, and participating chef Tarit Tanjasiri of Crema Cafe (Seal Beach) and Crema Artisan Bakers (Irvine) continue with us providing all the salivating details.
Hi, I'm Kavuri Soremin. This is the head of Halineria. The mini-maker, when I catch Peruri, that's me, come sell with us when I want the Alaskan king crab of food news. I list the South Cold restaurant show on AM A30 KLA radio. And welcome back. It is the SoCal restaurant show and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until 12 noon right here on AM A30 KLA the home of Angels baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM A30 Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. Thanks for joining us and we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. Well, we're returning back to Orange County. And as I mentioned, it is the start of the fall food and beverage festival season. And one particular event that is, I think, always a note, and I believe it's been done for the last nine years, is the Taste Makers of Orange County event that's coming up Thursday, October 10th, benefiting Ocopeka, which is the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance. And we are speaking with the chairman of the board of Ocopeka, that being educator Sora Tangisserie. And also Tereet Tangisserie, who is a prominent baker and restaurateur in Orange County, with the crema cafe in Seal Beach and the wholesale crema artisan bakers. Ladies and gentlemen or lady and gentlemen, welcome back. Sora, if you can, one more time, give us all the details of Taste Makers of Orange County on Thursday, October 10th, in terms of the times and VIP entry and general admission entry and where listeners can go to buy tickets, because that's what we want them to do. Oh, thanks, Andy. It's such a great pleasure to be able to come up with this event. So for all the booties, I include myself as one of them. You bet. You can get your tickets at oca pica.org/pmoc for Taste Makers of Orange County. The event itself is Thursday, October 10th, for VIPs. It starts at 6pm, for general admission, it starts at 7pm. And what you can expect is food, wine, beer, craft cocktails, dessert, music. We never DJ. We've got silent auctioning activities. And it's just a really fun event. And so what I recommend to our listeners is VIP isn't that much more and again, yes, it's a great time and great food, but you're also benefiting a worthy cause. And I recommend that they step up to that level because getting in an hour early and being able to case everything that's there and kind of pick your favorites and have early access to them, that's kind of a professional strategy. So I highly recommend it. Bringing Tariit back into the conversation, Tariit, you started in Orange County in a pretty modest way with the crema cafe in Seal Beach. For those of our listeners that might not be familiar with crema cafe or may not even know where Seal Beach is, can you tell us a little bit about it because Seal Beach still is kind of a sleepy little neighborhood community where on that main drag there where crema is, everybody seems to know everybody. And then of course everybody has a dog. Tell us more. Yeah, I think our cafe was founded in 2005 actually. And I fell in love with Seal Beach having visited it a few years earlier. It's sort of, you're right, it's such a sleepy town, but the folks that live there and that frequent there are fantastic neighbors. They are supportive of the local businesses and I've been there going on 19 or 20 years now. And it's incredible the support I feel from the Seal Beach community. And actually, Seal Beach is right on the ocean. So my demographics from my customers are kind of a half circle situation because no one comes from the ocean obviously. So many communities around the area from Long Beach, all over Cyprus and Los Angeles County do come down and visit. I really appreciate the support. And to read over the years, at least as I remember, you've expanded at least a couple of times. Am I correct in my recollection there? Yes, I think we've done maybe three major renovations in the past 20 years. Each time just adding more seats and more, you know, we've taken our bakery that used to be half of our restaurant there and taken it out and moved it to a new wholesale facility in Irvine and therefore renovated that bakery space to make more comfortable seating for our customers for breakfast, breakfast and lunch. Yes. Now to read for your product line wholesale, you know, this is something that you've developed over the years and expanded and you have quite a following. What is the range of offerings that comes from your wholesale line of crema artisan bakers? Yeah, we started out focusing a lot on breakfast pastries, lamination and we do a lot of artisan breads as well. And now, nowadays, we are kind of a little bit more of an all-around and we still do about 60% of our business in breakfast pastries business and some individual desserts. But the rest of it is actually artisan long fermentation type breads that restaurants, hotels and cafes really appreciate. You know, and again to read you, developed quite a reputation over the years just roughly to give our listeners an idea of the range of crema artisan bakers. Roughly how many wholesale accounts do you have? We have I believe around 220 something. You know, just a little sideline for you to read, right? It's very grown. Yes, yeah, yes, it has and you know, you can't say this but I can say this in terms of the wholesale bread and pastry business in Southern California. You want to talk about the restaurant business being competitive now. In terms of wholesale bread and pastries, there are a lot of players out there right now and it is definitely very competitive. So, to have north of 220 active accounts at this point in 2024, to read Tangisserie Isolutu. Now, to read getting back to the event and you mentioned that there's some new things going on this year, I noticed cereal restaurateur Leonard Chan is doing a tiki bar. Can you give us any information on that because that's intriguing? Well, Leonard is a man of many, many hats, right? But I mean, there's still a way tiki bar has actually been around for a little bit. He's moved on his location from the district over to a little old town tustin and he just has the magic touch. He makes people feel comfortable. His tiki bars are just fun, island-style foods, crazy cocktails and you know, Leonard's also kind of really into fernets. I don't know if you know, but the little cough syrups they think. No, no, you know, for the Italians, Italians, it's a digestive and gaining popularity, but definitely not for the uninitiated treat. Yes, but he will, you know, it's like an initiation when you go to throw away when you're there and you've gotten a shot of fernet from Leonard, you're in. Okay, you know, we got a little tip there. Now, you know, just in terms of the range of restaurants and chefs that you have participating in this treat, it's really a who's who of the Orange County dining scene and we can't begin to do it justice, but you know, we'll pick out a couple. Certainly one of the most celebrated fine dining chefs in Orange County is our good friend, Rich Mead. When you see farmhouse at Rogers garden in an event, you know, right away, that's got the good housekeeping seal of approval. And I think Rich has been involved in this event since the beginning. Am I right about that? He has been involved, I think, for the last four or five years. And unfortunately it was too scared to ask him in the early days, you know, and we started with like literally 10 chefs and, you know, of course, the closest one at hand I will have. What you want to mention, Vaca, or oh, I think we may have lost treat. All right, Sora, we're going to let you jump back in. So I think what he was what treat was about to talk about in terms of high-end restaurants that are very close to the event site. Probably he was talking about a Marcentena of Vaca, or he was talking about Ross Pendulina, who within walking distance has terraced by a mixed mix. And then at the O.C. Museum of Art, the new vegetarian verdant cafe. So that's some pretty spectacular locals, wouldn't you say? Yeah, and I want to say, you know, these chefs do all of this purely donating everything, their time, their talent, their food. And most of them will actually be there. So you talked about a Mar, you talked about Ross, you know, you've got amazing chefs like Al Ivan Calderon from Taco, Mesita, James Hamamori from Hamamori, you know, and you've already mentioned rich meat from farmhouse. I mean, these are, and it's such an eclectic group, but there's a commonality. They're all chef owners. They own their place, they're dedicated to the food and the quality. They're so creative for these events. They're oftentimes serving things that you cannot find in their restaurants. How wonderful this is. That's what makes it really special. Trit and Sora is we need to say goodbye one more time on the date and the time of taste makers of Orange County. And most importantly, that website for ticket information. Thanks. So it's Thursday, October 10th. It starts at 6 p.m. if you're a VIP and I can't stress enough how that is a daylight. You can interact with all the chefs. You can see them, etc. So I do and I'm hoping that that's appealing. It's at the Seagrstrom Plaza for the arts. And you can go to oca, P-I-C-A.org. So it's oca, P-I-C-A.org to buy your tickets. It's not too late. You can still get the IP and general tickets, but we always sell out. And I just want to say, I hope we can see you there. And I hope to see our listening audience there because this really is a wonderful event. Ladies and gentlemen, again, taste makers of Orange County, benefiting Ocopica, the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. Yes, is promised when we return Chef Andrew Gruell. It is the SoCal restaurant show we're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. We'll be right back.
