Anne Marie Panoringan is Culture OC’s well-informed food columnist. She reports industry news, current events and trends. Anne Marie also contributes regularly to Eater Los Angeles, LAist, TASTE and a host of other well-respected publications. Anne Marie joins us in-studio to discuss her work as Food Columnist for Culture OC and discuss her current columns.
Along the way Anne Marie will highlight her recent European sailing aboard the Caribbean Princess, a Grand Class vessel in Princess’ fleet. She will also chat about the upcoming Tastemakers or Orange County benefit event at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in the Julianne and George Argyros Plaza benefiting the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA) and her dining column in the new issue of Taste.
This is Anne-Marie Panerinkin, Culture OC's food columnist. You can follow me online at cultureoc.org. When I want the best in food and dining news outside of Orange County, of course, I tune into the SoCal Restaurant Show on AMA 30K LAA. Hey and welcome back. It is the SoCal Restaurant Show and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon right here on AMA 30K LAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2025 and the area host for Las Vegas Raiders football. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show and remember you can also catch us on the AMA 30K LAA Angels app and speaking about Anne-Marie Panerinkin but before we do that we do need to mention that we're proudly presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and we are delighted to welcome Culture OC's food writer back to the SoCal Restaurant Show for her every couple of month updates on what she's been doing but particularly with a focus on the Orange County dining scene because what Anne-Marie does is she always has her ear to the ground on what's happening in Orange County and I chuckle because frequently she gets restaurant until before some of the big boys do and I know what Culture OC they really enjoy that and Marie welcome back and good morning. Good morning Andy it's good to be back. How's it going? Anne-Marie we are delighted to have you back in studio and as always there's a lot to talk about but as I mentioned in the previous segment until a few years ago you were really not sure if the crew's experience was worth the effort there was a question you know is there enough to do isn't it kind of boring for someone that is not a senior citizen and I love the fact that you know okay it was something with your parents family deal you decided to give it a try and by golly you decided it actually might be pretty good so you've been on some different cruise lines I know your most recent experience in Europe was with Princess on the Caribbean Princess tell us a little bit more about the itinerary before we talk about the food and that particular ship. Sure so what Andy's talking about is that I recently came back from being on a princess cruise the Caribbean princess like he said it was I believe it was it had a couple of nicknames so it was like the October Fest cruise or the Northern European you know capitals we began we flew into London for a couple days which honestly was one of the best parts of the trip because a year ago I couldn't go to London because of medical reasons so that that made up for a whole lot and some of the places we once we boarded the Caribbean princess the we went to Brussels, Hamburg, Oslo, Copenhagen I mean after a while it was kind of a blur I will say about half our cruise was either rain, mist, drizzle so you know it's kind of hard to see if I'm cleaning my glasses like every 15 minutes but we you know we just made a point of going to some really cool places with regards to historic churches and things like that but I think you guys probably want to hear more about the food. Well before we do that how many days was the cruise? 12 days, 8 ports. And where was your where did you end? London okay so London London. Unlike my very first cruise where I started in Rome and ended in Dubai that was epic five years ago regarding the food I'm actually working on an article for my next column with Culture OC and I wanted to talk about like things that new cruisers like myself five years ago or even seasoned cruisers who have a very set way of going about their their time on a ship maybe little hints and tips that I discovered that I wouldn't have known about if I wasn't paying attention or just experimenting it one really big thing that I think never occurred to me or maybe I just did not want to admit happened to be that the two two of the main places that people would eat at on the ship you're right either in the formal dining room or the buffet there are yes there's a couple other places you know the unlimited soft serve the pizza place the burger place but if you're with if you're cruising with family which I was the you're either at the buffet or formal dining and if what I would tell someone who isn't as familiar with cruising is that the dining room is if you have a lot of time in your hands on your hands and you just want to enjoy looking out the window you know to travel in the ocean at the buffet is a more I think what you're saying is in terms of the the main dining rooms which is part of the package this is kind of a more formal kind of fussy affair I mean there were two formal nights out of twelve so I had to remember to pack that but otherwise yes it people dressed up a little no matter what and we for the last part of the cruise I would say we spent most of it upstairs on the 15th floor deck this being the buffet yes they got like the international cafes and we enjoyed that a lot because we can come as in goes we please you know grab a muffin on our way back to our room we could start and stop whenever we wanted to because you know maybe my parents want to go see a particular show or I didn't realize I'm addicted to trivia and so I was you know hurry up we got to go so that's one of the most important things and with the buffet and Marie as I remember from Princess there is kind of an incredible array of selections so you can really get exactly what you want how much you want and then you know if you're still in the mood you can definitely go back and get replenishments of anything that you've discovered along the way that's particularly appetizing or appealing to you I always find it fascinating that whether you're at a specialty restaurant or in the mean dining room or the buffet that or buffet make sense but that you can get more of everything just because you order it once the main dining room doesn't mean you can't order it again and it doesn't mean you can't get a second entree whether or not you finish it that's you know I have nothing to do with that but I thought that was always really cool but also very challenging to have all sorts of plates on the table and get really exhaustive eating like I it makes me think of those all you can eat places but one specialty restaurant in particular that we did make was called steamers so is steam seafood muscles clam shrimp kind of reminded me of like in Orange County the Cajun Asian places where it's in a bag where they didn't use a bag on the ship we had these like little pales picked our seafood picked our like dressing sauce and you know got our hands clean before they got really dirty which we really enjoyed because one person in our group really loves seafood so that made all the difference for us now for the specialty restaurants there usually is a surcharge to die in there do you need to make reservations in advance how does that work for everything except for specialty restaurants you can more or less show up so if there is a specialty like the steakhouse on board that I believe there was also one other place actually I think this instead of a steakhouse it was a barbecue place for the specialties because the dining rooms are much smaller than Maine or buffet you you do need to arrange your start time and they it just depended on what day it was whether we were at sea or at port sometimes the hours varied a little or sometimes they weren't even open because we got to stay out till after nine o'clock so they assumed that most of us were eating on land or just coming back for a drink now and Maria I'm going to put you on the spot because one thing princess is very proud of that they promote rather aggressively is the quality of their pizza at sea I know the original recipe was actually developed for the dough was developed by an Italian pizza chef and in terms of the pizza opportunity as you were explaining guests any time of day can get a slice of pizza and it's very very popular so you have partaken of a lot of pizza restaurants locally where do you think on the spectrum that the princess pizza that you experienced on the Caribbean princess rates okay Andy don't forget you're talking to someone that like loves square pizza more than circular these days so I'm probably way too biased as it is but I think it kind of falls just a little above the middle like out of ten I would probably put it at maybe closer to seven it is good but like being in Orange County like square dish has really gotten popular last night I actually was at the new location for Prince Street and Costa Mesa and you know so was there a line yes a small line it was still early in it was only like six there is so much there is so much hype and Marie that goes with princess and the last time I was at Triangle Square and another restaurant I just had to chuckle at the line that was you know halfway down the block for Prince Street because you know being courteous to everyone you know part of this is publicity and hype yep but I still thought it was great you know again no aspersions on on the quality but in terms of the marketing effort that's behind them you know they definitely get the gold class award because they definitely know how to promote themselves and I mean you know good for them because as you were saying there is a lot of good pizza available in Orange County and Marie before we need to take a break and pick up the conversation on the other side the one thing that we haven't done is can you remind our listeners where they can find your writing in culture OC sure if you just go on the main page or any you know screen actually there's headers and one of them is food and drinks so you select that and you'll find myself you'll find other Anne and Valaspino and a couple of contributing writers periodically we rotate since I've been away I haven't had any current columns but you know that's what vacations are for trying to enjoy yourself and Marie you're entitled you are listening to the SoCal restaurant show we're speaking with Anne Marie Panerungan culture OC's will informed food writer we're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce we'll be back before you know it.
