Mastro's is a steakhouse in Costa Mesa that is famous for its steak. And when it's all done, there's the intoxicating complimentary mint tea poured from an ornate, long-necked vessel. For dessert: a baklava so sweet it makes your teeth hurt thinking about it. Both are served in a tagine, a platter capped with those funnel-shaped vessels that look like ceramic bullhorns. There's a lamb leg dripping with honey and chicken roasted with olives, preserved lemon and thinly sliced fried potatoes. The fluffy couscous tastes so feather light, it feels as though it were infused with helium. You sip the lentil soup straight from the bowl after squeezing some lemon. The bread called khobz is served in wedges and perfumed of anise. The most important thing is that her toned abs move so rhythmically to the music, it has the power to convince even the most unwilling participants to dance with her. Never mind that the belly dancer shimmying over to your table with dollar bills tucked near her nether regions is often the tall, statuesque blond who's also their hostess. You eat as you lounge around like sheiks under the shelter of a Bedouin tent. Marrakesh is one of the more transportive restaurants in our county. And most important, when you bite into his crust, it crackles with the prickly sound of a million tiny molecular bonds breaking. And at his modest square of a restaurant kitty-corner from Triangle Square, he skims ever closer and is seemingly determined on fine-tuning his pies toward the Neapolitan pizza ideal. Roberto Bignes holds a certificate from the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, an Italian group of pizza makers that keeps track of this sort of thing. In one of O.C.'s best restaurant cities, there are at least 20 more that are worthy. But know that it was difficult to whittle it down to just ten.
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Should any Travel Channel show host, visiting businessman, or a recent transplant ask me where to eat in town, this is the list I'd give them. This is a list of restaurants your humble food writer has deemed his ten favorite in a city that's arguably one of the best restaurant cities in Orange County, one where OC Weekly World Headquarters happens to reside (lucky us!).