For diners of a certain ilk, a Greek meal would be utterly incomplete without an order of flaming saganaki cheese and the festive sound of smashing plates. But if you were to escape that kind of dinner theater and somehow find yourself amidst the crystalline waters of the Mediterranean, your meals would probably be built around the meze, the small, shareable plate central to Greek cuisine. At Kentro Greek Kitchen, the majority of the menu is devoted to the meze plate. Order the vibrant beet salad tossed with figs, crumbly manouri cheese, and drizzled with a walnut vinaigrette before moving ... globalfare

With ramen houses opening across O.C. faster than the most dedicated noodlers can slurp, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Costa Mesa remains the center of our ramen universe. It’s there that shops such as Santouka dispelled the stereotype of ramen as just a college-age cup of noodles; rather, they showed how the Japanese noodle soup could be refined into the obsession it has become. Ramen’s classic iterations are well represented in Costa Mesa. There are plenty of shoyu-based soups built from intense chicken broth fortified with soy sauce, and bowls of tonkotsu ramen, renowned mainly for its milky, ultraporky ... globalfare

The charms of a good Indian buffet are obvious: rows of chili-spiked curries and fragrant basmati rice, colorful vegetables, and a price that won’t bust your budget. But when the inevitable monotony of those steam-table lunches becomes too much, turn to a thali instead. Thalis are the classic combination plates of Indian cooking, a collection of small, complementary dishes that together form a complete meal. Each follows the same basic formula: a constellation of little metal cups filled with vibrant curries, stews, soups, pickles, and dips arrayed on a large tray like dabs of paint on an artist’s palette. There may be ... globalfare

Among the many diners who scour the Korean corners of Orange County for roiling tofu soups and fiery kimchee, the siren song of Korean barbecue remains almost impossible to ignore. But when it’s time to move beyond the basics, many inevitably turn to bibimbap, the ubiquitous rice dish found at virtually every Korean restaurant. Its history is murky at best. Some accounts claim it originated as a royal snack to sate the king between meals; others trace it to a 19th century peasant uprising. The only widely accepted fact is that the best bibimbap is found in the South Korean ... globalfare

Anaheim’s Little Arabia was built on the Pavlovian power of charred kebabs and crisp falafel. For years, diners could carom among the neighborhood’s best restaurants and happily consume nothing but those blackened skewers of meat and fragrant fritters. Yet as the community has matured, so have its tastes. A growing cast of wonderful regional restaurants and bakeries now wrestle for claim to the neighborhood’s best manakeesh, glorious pizzalike flatbreads from the Levant region. The flatbreads take minutes to cook. Each man’oushe (the singular of manakeesh) is rolled out from a ball of dough to about the size of a personal ... globalfare