In addition to my two day stay-cay in LA, I still had eight nights to fill while the home exchange family was in my home. Luckily I have my sister’s place, or my friend Val’s place to crash, both on Balboa Island. Lucky Me!!
It would have been enough to just sit on the beach and relax, which I did plenty, but I had a few more fun experiences thrown in too.
In the week I was there I went on three Duffy outings…one being Pizza Monday from Pizza Nova…(you can dock your Duffy here) while watching my son-in-law learn to sail; did another cooking class down in San Juan Capistrano at Tspoons…this one all about bacon; and tried out a new island restaurant, Free Range Cafe . A few pics to share….
Pizza Monday… Duffy style
Tried out the new Balboa Island restaurant, Free Range Cafe, while I was down on BI. It replaced Park Avenue Cafe on the West side of the island near the ferry. The food was good and the ambience nice, but my sister made a good point, that there’s not much healthy fare on the menu. To be fair, it started as a fried chicken food truck up in LA, so we should have known it wasn’t low-cal. There’s no seafood or veggies to be had on the menu. I was on vacation, so I had the fried chicken sandwich and we shared some avocado toast and twice cooked crispy potatoes. They were all delish! Our waitress was really nice and the service was good. They have a 16% service charge added to every bill, so there’s no tipping. I think most people would give more than 16% if the service was good…and it would be nice to leave less if the service was really bad….just sayin’! I’ll definitely go back, but not if I’m watching my calories.
Because I’m on a rowing team and on the water three days a week, sometimes I take for granted and forget how lucky I am to live here in SoCal, close to some of the world’s destination beaches and beach communities. Glad I had the chance to appreciate and be grateful for where I live. So, there you go, some ideas for fun things to do here in Orange County this weekend! …and there’s always Laguna too!
