Eating At a Restaurant That Starts With "B"

Anaheim, CA

Francis is incorporating Tai Chi into his morning routine

Half A Rest Day

We had a full day planned in Orange County but half of the plans fell through so now we have a half of a rest day which will be enjoyed.  Not sure if you have been keeping up on past posts, but we have been active!  

We started the day out by drinking our morning coffee and having some Avocado Toast with a side of Mango.  Donna read The Seattle Times and The LA Times.  We still have a Seattle Times Online subscription and The LA Times sent us a 3 month for $1 offer so we took that too.  It's nice being able to read the local paper even though the paper isn't what it used to be.  While Donna read the papers, I blogged, made sure no recent bills were overlooked, and obsessed over the trip plan.  We also took Francis for a walk.  He will stay at home today so we need to help him get rid of the small amount of energy he builds up while napping.

Francis was more inclined to sit in the sun on the patio than to go for a walk but we talked him into the walk

Late Lunch and a Home Tiki Bar in Anaheim

We headed to Anaheim mid-day.  Traffic isn't too bad at that time.  Our first stop was Stater Bros. Grocer in Buena Park.  We had to pick up more coffee, half and half, and supplies to make granola (the granola that is officially endorsed by the squirrels at Silver Falls State Park).  After our stop at Stater Bros, we headed to Darrin's.  Darrin has been a friend of ours for years and years. I met him working at Disneyland in 1990.  He is the type of friend you can travel with and we are already trying to plan our meet ups while we are on the road. 

Last year when we visited him, (he actually invited us to stay with him) we went out for lunch.  Donna chose a place that was close to his house and he had never been there before.  The food was great and he said something like, "I need to get out and explore my local area more.  I end up going to the same places and I should try new places."  We suggested he start going through the Alphabet with restaurants.  We did this with bars in San Francisco and it was really fun.  He liked that idea so we ended up going to an "A" restaurant with him before we left last year.  This year he is on "B" (you seem we got this pandemic going on and it keeps people inside) so we went to Baran Mediterranean Restaurant.  It just opened so the staff was incredibly attentive, or it could have been because it was 3:30 in the afternoon and they didn't have many others to attend to.  The décor is really Insta worthy and the food was delicious.

The entrance

Insta-tastic right?

My awesome skewers

They are working really hard at building a customer base.  We got a free Humus for checking in on Yelp and when Donna ordered a dessert they didn't currently have, they gave us free baklava.  Great food, great decor, and great service.  I hope people support this place.

After lunch, Darrin invited us in and showed us his new Tiki Bar set up.  He moved it to the front of the house because he needed more space for it.  It's really cool.  He is great with technology gadgets so lights cycle through different color themes every half and hour, the blinds automatically raise and lower based on position of the sun, and he has quite a few objects lit with animating lights.  It's a very comfortable space to sit.  He made us a Mai Tai and we sat and talked about his recent trip to Vancouver and adjusting to going back into the office.  A bit later we hopped into his hot tub and let the stress of our work day (Ha, just kidding) melt away.  

Cocktail please!

His bar is legit

He really uses lighting well

He goes to Tiki conventions and picks up cool stuff

I'm chilling

More animating lighting

An awesome coffee table complete with coffee table books

He bought this hot tub a few yeas ago and still uses it almost every day.  He knows how to relax!

Soon it was time to say goodbye and head back to LA to attend to Francis.  I owe him a list of free days between now and when we leave.  We don't have many so we will see if we can squeeze in another get together before we head to Arizona and Colorado.  The drive home was uneventful and Francis was very happy to see us.  

Yesterday we went to a museum and ate a pastrami sandwich at Canter's Deli.  Read about it here.

Reunions in LA and Orange County

 Costa Mesa, CA

Francis buckled in for his adventure

Heading to Long Beach to See Friends

Today is set aside for catching up with friends. We grabbed our Sans Rival cake, a beer to share, and a few other things and hit the road.  Our first stop is in Long Beach.  We are having lunch with Leigh-Anne, Gina, and Echo the Italian Greyhound.  We arrived right on time and were invited in and given a tour of their lovely house.  It was built in 1925 and has a ton of style.  A lot of windows and great wood floors (no I am not trying to sell you a house).  After the tour we went out back and shared our Fremont Brew 5000 Barleywine while the dogs lounged in the sun and Leigh-Anne worked the grill.  

Francis enjoying the warm SoCal weather

This is Echo The Italian Greyhound.  She is difficult to
photograph because she is full of Zoooooooooms!

Echo was suspicious of Francis at first.   She hid behind Leigh-Anne and ducked out to bark at him.  Francis reacted the same way he reacts to most things, he looked into the sun and blinked.  The barks from Echo quickly went from, "Will you please leave my backyard?" to "Will you please play with me?"  Francis continued to ignore her as she tried her best to rile him up using cute barks and play bows.  It really reminded us of when we had Tom and Larry, our Italian Greyhounds, and how much fun they had playing with other Greyhounds.  

Soon lunch was ready and we made our way to their dining room where Francis continued to sit on his bed and Echo continued to do her best to get Francis' attention.  The BBQ Chicken (the sauce was a Texas BBQ recipe), Potato Salad (a family recipe), and Spinach Salad were great.  At some point Francis decided to team up with Echo to try to get chicken bites.  They stood side by side and gave us their best good dog beg.  It worked and soon they were eating bites of chicken next to each other.  

Echo doing her best to coax Francis down off
the couch to play with her favorite stuffed toy.
She was way too zooomy for my phone to capture but you get the idea

Soon it was time to try the cake we purchased the day before.  It was really great and you should go to My Mom's Bakeshop and buy one right now.

Yum yum!

After dessert we took Francis out back just incase he had to use the facilities.  Both he and Echo took their turn and then proceeded to chase each other!  Echo finally broke through Francis' barrier.  They zoomed around the backyard for about 10 minutes.  Francis isn't used to not being the fastest dog so this was new to him.  

Francis looks a bit stunned here but he is just tired

Echo almost all zoomed out

We said our goodbyes and started driving to our next meetup but when Donna typed in the instructions it turned out we had about a half an hour to spare.  That gives us half an hour to try to hit up the Tiki Bar that is in the area and was on my planning list.  Maybe there will be parking.

Tiki Time!

The Bamboo Club in Long Beach

Donna enjoying the garnish on her 3 Dots and a Dash

My Virgin Lava Flow and Donna's 3 Dots and a Dash

This is Francis' 2nd Tiki Bar

Their dog friendly outdoor patio

Tiki Murals

My Tiki Mug

The Bar

They have their own rug!

There is an arm holding the light!

On to Orange County

Our next reunion was taking place in Costa Mesa at Green Cheek Brewing. Green Cheek is a large space that allows dogs so it is the perfect place to meet a group of people.  We arrived on time and a car was just pulling out of the parking lot so we filled the space.  This, apparently, was very lucky.  Everyone else we were meeting had trouble finding parking.  I grabbed us 2 beers while Donna grabbed a table and set Francis' bed up.  

Their mascot is a parrot and it is very cute

The bar

My FINDING THE THIRD ROOM Hazy IPA

We ordered a snack too

Their mascot on a glass I would have bought
if we weren't living out of a van

Cute art

More Art

A cactus that needs less attention than most cacti

A really crappy blurry photo of our group.  When I got home
I started researching new phones with better cameras

It was a great evening of catching up.  This is the core group of people that got me through my days working at Disneyland.  There were many others but this is the group I had Surf Trips with, went snowboarding with, went rock climbing with, and went to Vegas with. They are all the type of friend you could go 20 years without seeing or talking to and then get together and 5 minutes in, it's like you were together all along.  It's a great group of people and we were so happy they all took time out of their busy schedules to meet us in Costa Mesa.

On the way out I bought 2 cans of their Barleywine.  We are looking forward to trying them on one of our up and coming rest days.  The drive home wasn't too bad and we ended up going straight to bed because we were almost as tired as Francis.

Here is one more gif of Echo playing with a fuzzy lure. 
I need a new camera with a better phone.

Check out what we did yesterday here.

Errands in Orange County

Irvine, CA

The "Giant" Wheel at Irvine Spectrum Center

To Orange County!

Today we head to Orange County to run a few errands.  Our first errand is lunch at The Irvine Spectrum Center (I don't think anyone actually says the Center part).  We both have friends that live in or near Irvine so The Spectrum is a convenient place to meet for a number of reasons I will go into right now.  There is plenty of parking, it is freeway close, there are many places to eat and shop, and there is ample outdoor seating which is great for keeping out of enclosed spaces and for bringing a dog if you want (Francis stayed home).  We decided to meet Linda (Donna's Friend) at 11:30 in front of the Giant Wheel (pictured above in all of its not giantness).  It's centrally located and there is seating around the faux grass.  The Giant Wheel isn't really that giant.  We have seen the wheels in Las Vegas, London, Seattle, and California Adventure and this Giant Wheel feels not giant compared to them.  It's not much taller than the palm trees that surround it.  I looked it up online to find out how tall it actually is and they leave the height part out, instead they list that there are "52,000 energy-efficient LED lights, the Giant Wheel is capable of projecting a dazzling 16 million color schemes."  Maybe they should have called it The Bright Wheel.

Linda was there waiting for us so we said our hellos and then Donna and Linda were off.  Steve, my lunch date, had a work meeting and couldn't meet until around 12:15.  This gave me 45 minutes to walk around and take photos and it gave Donna plenty of time to have lunch, catch up, and maybe do some shopping.

The word Center is prominent

The Hello Kitty Café seemed new. 
There were a lot of men with kids taking photos. 
I didn't have a kid with me so I felt weird taking photos
so I quickly snapped a shot and moved on.

This place sold baseball hats that had nothing to do with baseball

The Spectrum wins for number of rides even if they are small

The smallest Levi's store I have seen

I have been seeing a lot of Thrasher Magazine stuff around. 
I guess I always thought it was old stock but it
appears it is still a brand and thriving.  

Either time has stood still for 30 years or things have come full circle. 
I see so many pairs of Vans on kids the same age as when I was wearing them.

I took this photo because the building looks to merging into the sky
and it reminded me of this scene from The Simpson 
and then I noticed the Blackberry logo.  

Steve arrived right on time and we ate lunch and caught up.  We talked about his recent travel, our travel plans, and former coworkers and what they are up to now.  Donna was able to do some shopping but didn't find anything she wanted enough to lug around in the van for the next year.

Running Errands

Since we were out and about with the car we figured we would check off a few things we needed to do.  One was a checklist item, Visit The House!  

We drove up I5 and cut over on CA55 to Orange.  We wanted to visit our house we rent out.  We had some painting and landscaping done and wanted to see it in person.  We drove up the block and parked and then went for a walk around the block.  We were relieved that it looked great.  We moved out in 2007 and even though we have paid for improvements over the years and pay for yard service, we still get a false feeling that we abandoned it and it has been decaying over the past 15 years.  Thankfully this isn't the case and it fits in with the rest of the block.

Creeping on our house in Orange

After being pleasantly surprised by the house we headed to Jiffy Lube (I know I spoiled this yesterday and you all are super excited to hear about our oil change) for our oil exchange.  It is in the parking lot of our former local Home Depot so we left the car and went to pick up a gift at home depot.  

A SoCal Home Depot in its natural habitat

Either we found the Star Trek plants section
or they are painting succulents now.

We found the perfect gift and went back to claim our car at Jiffy Lube.  It turns out we have developed a small oil pan leak.  We were about a half a quart low so we need to keep an eye on it. I was hoping for some Jiffy Lube drama so I could keep the blog interesting and got it!

Just incase you don't know what a Jiffy Lube looks like

The drive back to LA was pretty normal.  Traffic on I5 to LA goes like this, 70 mph, 10 mph, 60 mph, 15 mph, 75 mph, 25 mph and so on.  It keeps you on your toes.  Also, it felt weird going to Orange County and then returning to LA when we did the exact opposite our whole lives.   

We put the car back into its tiny parking spot and then made dinner and watched, "Pretend It's a City" on Netflix.  It's a great documentary series on Fran Lebowitz.  Check it out maybe.

Yesterday we rode the World's Shortest Railway.  See it here.