Blue Frog Dessert House and Bakery - restaurant review

I had arranged to meet a friend today in Old Towne Orange to do some shopping at another friend's store, so afterward, we walked two businesses over to have lunch at Blue Frog Dessert House and Bakery.

I've been to Blue Frog on a couple of prior occasions. They have quite a number of baked goods, but they also have several items available for breakfast and lunch. I've never been there early enough for breakfast though.

Two of the specials of the day were chicken pot pie and macaroni & cheese. As much as I love mac and cheese, and as much as the description of the dish from the girl at the counter sounded soooooo good, I decided that it would be better for me to have at least some protein that day, so I opted for the chicken pot pie. I added the side salad to the order. My friend ended up getting the chicken pot pie as well.

One of the things that I really like about Blue Frog is that they have an upstairs loft section. The main floor has tables as well (they also have some tables out front), but the upstairs has tables as well as two sofas, and it's much cozier and quieter upstairs. There's also a restroom upstairs, which is pretty convenient. The only time the upstairs is unavailable is if there's a party and the room is rented out. And I think it would be a great place to have a private party. Good food, nice ambience, a bit more secluded from the rest of the restaurant, and a restroom handy nearby. The only thing would be that other patrons would have to walk through your party space to get to the restroom, but that just means they'd be jealous that they weren't invited to your fun and fabulous party.

Luckily, the room wasn't reserved this afternoon, though I was disappointed that the sofa area was already occupied, so we opted for a small table overlooking the restaurant.

You put your order in at the counter, and then all of your food is brought to you. The side salad ended up being much larger than I had expected, so my friend and I decided to share it. It was a nicely done, very simple salad. Then they brought our chicken pot pies, and those looked really good. There was one piece of puff pastry on the dish and then the chicken pot pie filling was poured on top, with another piece of puff pastry sitting on top. The filling was nicely flavored and a good consistency, and you got the puff pastry with the pot pie filling covering it, but you could also just have the puff pastry by itself because of the extra piece on top. It was quite delicious.

Someone came up to check on us a couple of times as well as to clear our finished dishes away. We had a good time enjoying our lunch and good conversation.

It's really hard to go to Blue Frog and not have some kind of baked goodie. For various reasons, I've been on a red velvet cupcake kick over the past couple of months, so when I saw that they had red velvet cupcakes, I couldn't resist. They had a lemon bar as well, which I usually find tempting, but I'll have to save that for another time. I got one of the red velvet cupcakes to go. It had a lot of frosting on top then crumbled cupcake bits sprinkled on top.

I ate the cupcake at home later, and it was quite tasty. I'm not generally a fan of frosting, and while it looked cute, there was entirely too much frosting for my taste. I think I had just a bit to taste and then left the rest of it. I think I tasted a little bit of cherry filling (with cherry bits) right at the top of the cupcake. Overall, it was pretty yummy.

I've enjoyed each of the meals I've had at Blue Frog, as well as their varied desserts. I've brought a couple friends to the place, and they've seemed to enjoy it as well. The service has always been pleasant, though this time, both people we dealt with were particularly friendly, so that was really nice.

Timed parking is available either on the street or in nearby city lots.


The only time I get to go to Blue Frog is certain occasions when I'm visiting the friend's shop, but I always look forward to each visit.


Here's a link to the menu for Blue Frog.




hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 7am to 5pm
Sunday 8:30am to 3pm
Monday closed

Blue Frog
Dessert House and Bakery
136 South Glassell Street
Old Towne Orange, CA 92866
(714) 538-3764

"Clash of the Titans"

It's been recently announced that the 1981 film "Clash of the Titans" will be remade, with Liam Neeson cast as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades. Hmmm, never seen the original film, but nice bit of casting here.

Would you hire a Lego person?

As everyone knows, there are all kinds of Lego people, doing all kinds of different jobs. But how did they get those jobs? Didn't they have to apply for them? Ever wonder what the potential employer might think about hiring a Lego person? Well, wonder no more.

A Lego Man calls a construction business for a job. (Yeah, it's a prank call, which can be kind of mean because it takes up the other person's time, but I mostly like the visuals attached to the phone conversation.)

Lego Man Prank Call @ Yahoo! Video

"The Simpsons" - mail call

On May 7, 2009, the United States Postal Service is releasing five new postage stamps (one for each of the main family members) themed to the long-running animated television show "The Simpsons". The cost of a first-class stamp increases to $0.44 in May.





According to this article, the Postal Service wants people to vote on their favorite Simpsons stamp. Here's the link to the Simpsons page on the Postal Service website, where you can cast your vote. Here's a link to the Postal Service store which shows what other Simpsons items are available.

I'm wondering how many people still even buy stamps to mail things. I do on occasion, but not very often.

"Fast and Furious" - spoiler movie review

I hadn't seen any of the other films in the franchise, but the trailer for "Fast and Furious" looked really good - action movie with lots of good stunts - yeah, ok, I'm there.

I'd really like to know what happened in the first film, but even though I didn't know the entire history, I enjoyed the film. They explained a few of the prior relationships, and as you'd expect, the action sequences were fantastic.

The opening sequence of the film is the one they showed in the trailer, when the gang highjacks a truck pulling tankers of gas. Yeah, ok, so it stretches the imagination - it's still a fabulous scene.

Oh, and the chase sequences through the city were crazy. And all those cars that they banged up! That was even painful for me to watch.

I did manage to figure out who Braga was before the film revealed it, but I didn't figure it out much before that. That dude in the suit just seemed so uncomfortable. And I don't get why O'Conner got blamed for that whole situation going south. It was the asshole co-worker's fault for jumping the gun, before the picture ID came through and before O'Conner signaled.

Paul Walker was good, and I really liked Michelle Rodriguez - she had a much better character than that awful one she had on "Lost". And Vin Diesel is really good as an action hero. Yeah, so he'll never win an Oscar. But he certainly kicks butt.

Obama picked it

Well, the North Carolina Tar Heels won the men's NCAA basketball championship tonight, just as President Obama picked.

And no, I have no idea what a tar heel is, and I'm even too unmotivated to Google it.

NCAA men's basketball championship game

So the last two teams in the NCAA men's basketball tournament are set, and it's Michigan State and North Carolina who will be competing for the championship.

Michigan State beat Connecticut in the first game on Saturday, and North Carolina beat Villanova in the later game on Saturday.

#1 ranked North Carolina will take on #2 ranked Michigan State in the championship game on Monday night starting at 6:21pm Pacific.

Obama still has a chance to have picked the winning team - his choice for the championship was North Carolina.

Dockside Grill - say goodbye to what was a wonderful restaurant

I have previously written about how wonderful I think Dockside Grill is. Terrific food, nice location, decent prices, good service, great menu. What more could you want? Well, more of the same would have been what I wanted, but that seems to no longer be possible.

The husband and I have been going to Dockside for quite a number of years, and we were last there about a week ago. I noticed the sign outside proclaiming new menu items, but the last time they did that a few years ago, they were mostly minor changes, so I didn't think anything of it.

When we checked in, the husband asked for our favorite server, who happened to be working that night. We were seated in a different section than he normally handles, so I thought maybe they'd just moved him for the night. Then they handed us our menus - and it was completely different than what we'd seen for the years that we'd been going. First of all, the menu itself was a sort of dark aqua color with black print, making the menu fairly difficult to read in the first place. Second, the menu was still printed on the front and back, but I think the entire menu could have easily fit on just one side since everything was written so it was very spaced out.

Our server came by, and we asked him what was going on. He said the new owners had changed the menu, but this was still an interim menu, that they were still finalizing everything. New owners? He then told us that the restaurant had been sold several weeks prior. The restaurant had previously been owned by the company that operates Monterey Bay Canners, and the new owners are the same people who own Damon's Steakhouse.

They have just about decimated the old menu. And in decimating the menu, they have also severely lowered the formerly upscale nature of the restaurant. Previously, Dockside was a decently upscale seafood restaurant with a very nice selection of fish dishes, quite a number of different seafood dishes and a couple of steak options for the non-seafood inclined. With the new menu, it's just a regular boring restaurant with several distinct features that mark the restaurant as being decidedly casual and middle-of-the-road.

The new appetizer menu includes chicken fingers. I'm sorry, but chicken fingers are not something I would ever expect to find on the menu of a nice seafood restaurant. In addition, many of the entrees formerly came with a choice of two sides, from a list of some really good choices. Now, many of the entrees come with french fries and coleslaw. Really.

Gone are the nice combinations of different seafood options. Gone are the plentiful varieties of fresh fish choices. And gone are the nice, interesting desserts, to be replaced by boring, run-of-the-mill, I-can-get-these-anywhere desserts.

Here are the choices on the new appetizer menu - oysters, fried calamari, crab cakes, coconut shrimp, garlic bread, fried zucchini, shrimp skewers, sweet and spicy wings, bbq shrimp quesadilla, steamed clams, chicken fingers and shrimp martini. We had the steamed clams on this visit, and they were still as good as ever. They used to have a sashimi that was quite nice, but that's gone now. I did notice that Damon's Steakhouse also has chicken fingers as well as sweet and spicy wings on their appetizer list. So I guess they decided to bring them over. But chicken fingers on the appetizer menu of a steakhouse? Ummm, ok.

They also have Boston and Manhattan clam chowder, lobster bisque, house salad, caesar salad and several dinner salads. There are also four pasta dishes which include a side salad and bread.

And the formerly nice upscale seafood restaurant now has a variety of burgers and sandwiches that come with french fries and coleslaw. They also have a variety of fried foods - beer battered halibut, coconut shrimp, seafood catch (shrimp, scallops and halibut), scallops - all of which come with french fries and coleslaw. Regular entrees include seafood cioppino, calamari steak, shrimp scampi and crab cakes. They all come with soup or salad, vegetables and one additional side.

They also offer several cuts of steak, various surf and turf items that you can order separately or in combination, and there is a limited fish market.

They do still have the signature Slamfest, though for some reason, they chose to leave it off the menu and just make the servers present it as a "special", but instead of having three different tiers/price levels, depending on what items you wanted, there is only the middle level available now.

I opted for the mahi mahi this time, which was good, but I'll miss the absolutely delicious bluenose seabass and the plethora of fresh fish to choose from on a daily basis.

One thing they have done better is with the vegetables. They used to be sort of sauteed but were always a bit oily. The new version is mostly blanched/boiled.

And for dessert, they used to have the upside down cake and profiteroles and the wonderful tempura banana fritters with the absolutely amazing macadamia nut ice cream. Now, the dessert choices are all run-of-the-mill - chocolate cake, carrot cake, apple pie, mudd pie. Bor.ing.

Dockside Grill has been an absolute treasure and one of our favorite restaurants. Everyone that we've introduced to the restaurant has also really loved it. But now, we're sad that the new owners have completely ruined the place. They already own a steakhouse, but instead of simply opening another branch of it, they've decided to come in and destroy a wonderful seafood restaurant. We will definitely not be returning nearly as often as we used to. I may decide to go back if I know I want the Slamfest, and I may decide to venture there on a Friday night just because I want to listen to the band The Subs play in the bar area. But otherwise, when it comes to seafood, I'll be going to Red Lobster more often now. Sadly, Dockside is now no longer a restaurant I can recommend.

Twitter - in plain English

So, yeah, I'm on Twitter, as are a number of my friends, and I've even gotten to know a couple of strangers a bit through Twitter. I'll admit that I didn't get it at first, but as time has gone by, and more people that I know have joined, I've found Twitter to be a lot of fun and a great way to keep in touch with people. But not everyone gets it. And no matter what, some people won't get it. But I found this little video explaining about Twitter. Some people still won't get it or at least won't be interested, but I thought it was a pretty good explanation.

this would have been perfect to take onto Star Tours

So, yeah, yesterday was April Fool's Day. Someone I follow on Twitter posted a link to a product on thinkgeek (which I love, btw - they have a ton of cool stuff) - tauntaun sleeping bag with intestinal inside lining.





Here's what the sleeping bag itself looks like.




I love that it even comes with a mini lightsabre, you know, to have cut the tauntaun in half so you can crawl inside it.


Here's the full ad for the sleeping bag.




Really cool, huh? Yeah, not real. Totally made up for April Fool's Day. If you clicked on the "BUY NOW" button, here's the page it took you to.




I did like that they also messed with the little tagline right underneath the thinkgeek logo on the top left of the main page. Guess that should have been a clue!

But, APPARENTLY, a ton of people wanted it for real. Later in the day, a friend tweeted that thinkgeek had put up some more information about the "product".




On the Star Tours ride at Disneyland, they always tell you to stow your carry-on in the compartment below your seat. The husband and I, being language geeks, have instead decided that they're actually telling people to stoy their CARRION in the compartment below. Well, in the Star Wars world, the carrion would be your dead tauntaun. So how perfect would it be to bring this sleeping bag on the ride and stow it under your seat?

Yeah, I can see you looking at me that way.


I hope Lucasfilm actually either licenses it or makes it themselves.


Oh, and the Squeez Bacon was pretty funny too! :)




And, speaking of thinkgeek, here are some more spiffy products from them:


I do really need to buy this shirt.



This one is funny, if a bit obvious, and it might not be allowed in some places.



I *love* the concept and execution of this one. Perfect!



Yes, I'm definitely in the club of those wearing this shirt. I'd actually prefer it on a bumper sticker.



This one's just a fun mix of two worlds.



I saw this shirt a little while ago, which would be very relevant.



But now, there's this even more relevant shirt!





This is just a completely brilliant representation, though I will admit that it took me a minute to get it. And it would be highly inappropriate for me to have this in my office at work.



These are cool, but INCREDIBLY expensive.