About OCalpha
OCalpha is curated by Jeremy Horwitz, creator of the internet’s first dedicated video game site Intelligent Gamer, former executive editor of then-leading Apple publication iLounge, and pioneering developer of regional food blog Buffalo Chow. Moving between Orange County, California and Buffalo, New York, he helped build awareness of famous Buffalo culinary inventions (including Buffalo Wings) while introducing East Coast readers to West Coast and international trends, advocating for food trucks and culinary diversity.
A world traveler with a long-term passion for culinary innovation, Jeremy strongly believes that Orange County is becoming one of America’s greatest culinary centers, thanks in equal parts to its ethnic diversity and eternally youthful outlook. Orange County has famously become home to Little Arabia and Little Saigon, while attracting first-of-kind and best-of-kind local outposts of prominent international businesses. It is increasingly a hub for chain restaurants – an amazing place where new chains are built, and existing chains come to test new or new-to-U.S. concepts before rolling them out widely elsewhere.
Launching with hundreds of entries spanning restaurants and events in dozens of Orange County cities, OCalpha fulfills Jeremy’s years-long dream of advocating for Orange County’s place in the global food discussion – and seeks to positively collaborate with others to raise the region’s profile nationally and internationally.
OCalpha is unlike both traditional publications and Yelp in that 100% of our editorial content is self-funded and produced without any input from the subjects of our coverage. We haven’t been given free meals in exchange for editorial coverage: Like them or disagree with them, our opinions are our honest, unpaid takes on our own experiences, so if we say we loved, hated, or felt indifferent about something, you can feel confident that we’re telling the truth, without any secret agenda.
Unlike Yelp, we do not allow pseudonyms, staged photos, or fake reviews (positive or negative) to appear here. All of our photos were taken while seated as actual customers under normal dining and lighting conditions. At a time when artificial intelligence is being used to generate and manipulate both text and imagery, we proudly note that no AI was used to create or edit any of our editorial content.
