I am a city girl in my heart. If Bear hadn’t come along I’m sure I would have wound up spending time in New York. This weekend we stumbled upon an area that helped satiate that yearning in me at least for a little while.
On our way back from visiting the grandparents we needed to grab some dinner, so we had the same conversation we have at least five times a week. What do you want to do for food?
You’d think that this would not be an issue for us since I really do love to cook and I’m good at it, but dinner is ALWAYS an issue for us because we have a number of obstacles to get past.
1) I absolutely hate grocery shopping. I don’t even know why. I just do.
2) We live in a big suburban area where fast food is abundant and fairly cheap. Depending on which tier of fast food we choose, it can be cheaper to eat out.
3) There’s just the two of us eating every night, so it’s really easy to talk yourself out of going to the trouble.
4) A shameful secret I haven’t yet disclosed on the blog is that one of the ways I’m able to accomplish so much is that I outsource dinner responsibilities on such a regular basis. It’s really helpful in my time management. That and never sweeping the floors.
Anyway, since we eat out so frequently, we get SO VERY SICK of all the usual places. Driving back from Orange County we decided to have a little adventure. We told our Garmin that we wanted some Barbecue, and we let it pick our restaurant for us.
Southern California doesn’t really have what would be known as “downtowns” in other areas. Everything is developed from North of LA straight down to Mexico and so in even the heart of LA or San Diego you’ll be driving on one street with skyscrapers and fancy restaurants, then two streets over you’ll be in a residential area with roses in the front yards. In Orange County you’ll be driving through fancy neighborhoods and strip malls and then all of a sudden you’ll feel like you’re in the middle of some major urban center. On one block you’re surrounded by Mexican bakeries, and then just down the road there will be Vietnamese Pho shops as far as the eye can see. It’s one big jumbled up diverse area.
The Garmin directed us to an area in Orange County that I’d spent a lot of time in, inbetween where we used to live and I used to work, and I never knew this spot was here. Just 5 square blocks or so of downtown plopped in the middle of suburban sprawl. I drank it in.
We ate dinner at this fancy modern barbecue place, I got to eat fabulous buttery scallops in a cajun corn broth, we soaked in all the hip modern decor, and then we climbed back in our car and headed home. Just a great little oasis of city life amid our typical suburban activity.
I really need to hit your blog more than once a week because I miss a lot of stuff and don't want to post a post-comment.I'm glad your little man is spitting his doctors in their eyes. What a champ he truly is!And… If you ever make it out my way, I'll show you some good ol' Southern BBQ.
I HATE grocery shopping too! I think it's the corny music they play in there- it's always totally depressing. Is this to cause me to feel bad and buy more food? Evil Grocery Store Auditory Manipulators!I don't live in a place that has something cool, like Trader Joe's, or even delivery. It would be great to email in a shopping list and make someone else do it, yes? Sighs. So glad I'm not the only one to outsource dinner!