Yummy Banana…. check!

Posted on May 7, 2012 by hobokenorbust

We escaped some moving responsibilities today and made it over to Balboa Island. If you are ever in Orange County, definitely take a day trip over there. Balboa Island is part of Newport Beach and is a cute little beachy town. We are still a few weeks away from tourist season so it was pleasant. We walked around the town and I got to eat my frozen banana… hooray! They were all out of heath crunch (boo), but I did get to order my 2nd fav… rainbow sprinkles with oreo pieces… yum!

Our favorite Balboa bar / Frozen Banana shop is the Sugar & Spice. A balboa bar is a square chunk of vanilla icecream on a stick… when you order they dunk it in chocolate and then put your toppings on it… super yum! When you order the banana you first have to pick what size. I find that extremely funny. They then unwrap your frozen banana and dunk that into the chocolate and roll in your toppings… yummy!

They have this one and another shop called Dad’s on the same block… each one claiming to be the ‘original’ frozen banana. We are partial to S&S. Everyone here has their loyalties… you are either a Sugar & Spice fan or a Dad’s fan.

We might need to make another trip back before we leave… I consider these yummy treats fruit so its ok. 😉

Mine mine mine mine

Posted on May 5, 2012 by hobokenorbust

More sorting today. Sounds boring… but you try sorting papers while tending to a curious 6 1/2 month old and his curious Welsh terrier.

More planning underway. I’ve got the first 3 or so cities done. My workflow for picking out where to eat is check food network map, compare to route. Cross check reviews with yelp. Then do a yelp check to see if food network missed something.

What I’ve learned so far.

1- Guy goes to a city and eats in lots of places, but makes different episodes out of it.

2- about 75% of the places only got around 3-4 stars on Yelp.

3- People on Yelp either love the place, giving it 5 stars, or hated it and also hate guy for sending them there, giving it 1 star.

So pretty much if a place has 4 1/2 – 5 stars and has over 100 reviewers, I’m betting its pretty good. Any other ratio and its a gamble.

Weekends here in southern cali are dwindling. Of course May grey is back… cause its May and all. May Grey June Gloom. I had never heard of that phrase prior to moving out here. It’s no joke. Please don’t waste your $ going to ‘sunny’ southern california in May or June. Unless you are going to Palm Springs… It’s always sunny there it seems.

Things we still need to do in Cali-

1- Go to Huntington Library Gardens

2- Santa Barbara. We would love to go there again, but realistically that won’t happen, but I’m keeping it on my list just because.

3- Eat another frozen banana (I like mine 1/2 rainbow sprinkles and 1/2 Heath crunch fyi – yum!)

4- Go to the Ritz in Laguna Niguel – its pretty

That’s all I can think of at 1:05 am… wow I really do pretty much post at the same time. Probably because DS decides 12:30am is the ideal baby bed time…

Luckily we aren’t staying in some hotels more than 2 nights… they are going to hate us, haha. We are going to be one of ‘those’. If you see people with a baby and a dog checking into a hotel, be afraid. Heck, I’m afraid for myself 🙂