October 24, 2008

Orange, California

We arrived in Santa Ana airport at 8 A.M. on Monday morning.
I took Wayne to work, checked in the hotel and went shopping for Pilates DVDs all morning.
After I picked up Wayne from work, we ate Mexican food at Frescas near the hotel http://www.frescas.com/.
Later that night we drove to the Huntington Beach. It was a very cold evening and windy. The sand felt very cold on our feet. Wayne got his socks wet:Surprisingly enough there
were still surfers there till dusk.





























We watched the sunset and went onto the pier. Huntington beach pier shortly at the sunset.







The rest of the night we spent in the small shops around the area looking for a German restaurant. Unsuccessfully.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Asian seafood buffet restaurant, where for $25 you can get a variety of Asian food and sushi http://www.todai.com/todaiConcept.html. The food was very good and abundant. You could get anything from spicy octopus and baked salmon rolls to eclairs and green tea cheesecake.
Tuesday night we drove to the downtown Disney, walked through the Disney store, the Californian hotel where the live piano music was playing and ate at LaBrea Bakery. It got boring after a while and we then decided to drive to Laguna Beach in the dark. The place is full of art galleries and small boutiques. However everything was already closed by the time we got there.
Wednesday night we drove to the Newport Beach, full of marinas and high end dealerships. We decided on Italian and ate at the Rothschild's Restaurant http://www.rothschildsrestaurant.com/ . We ordered seafood cakes for the appetizer. It was a tasty combination of crab with salmon and shrimp served in a roasted bell pepper cream sauce. I ordered Lobster Ravioli in a same tasty cream sauce with roasted bell peppers and diced green onions and Pollo Fassero, chicken topped with prosciutto ham, melted Gruyere cheese, Marsala wine and fresh mushrooms.
Thursday night we had dinner at King's fish house.
http://www.kingsfishhouse.com/locations_orange.html
Friday we went to see the Crystal Cathedral. The largest glass building in the world was built by the Rev. Robert Schuller. It rises some 12 stories above the ground with an angular, mirror like exterior. The church sits 3000 people, but giant sliding side doors on the side of the church allow even more worshippers to watch the service from their cars in the parking lot.
In the gardens around the church, you will find the statues of Moses,...
We then drove to Laguna beach, parked and walked down towards the water. The waves were beautiful, and it was very warm. We stayed at the beach till the sunset and then had dinner at Brussels Bistro http://www.brusselsbistro.com/.
We had tomato saffron soup and cream of asparagus soup. We also ordered Stuffed crepes duo (ham & cheese, chicken & mushrooms) - crepes stuffed with cheese and ham; and sea bass on the mashed potatoes. Early Saturday morning we headed out to the beach. It was freezing and we decided to find a place to have breakfast before going down to the water. We had coffee and hot tea with the apple strudel at the Heidelberg Bakery Cafe http://www.heidelbergbakery.net/
We went shopping to the Bloc in Orange and ate a very tasty crepe stuffed with fresh strawberries and melted chocolate at the Eurostation http://www.eurostationusa.com/
http://www.eurostationusa.com/