California 2023: Eats and Vistas
Living in the woods comes with a few annoyances, and one of them is a plethora of mediocre Mexican food. After finishing up at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum, we looked up a Mexican place on GoogleMaps and ended up having the best Mexican food we’ve had in a while at El Farolito Mexican Restaurant in Placentia, CA. We both had burritos. I ordered the chicken wet burrito special which came stuffed with beans, rice, and chicken, then topped with red sauce, cheese, and sour cream; Christopher ordered the chili relleno burrito, which is filled with a chile relleno and beans, topped with sour cream, plus a side of rice. They were huge, fresh, and so damn delicious. The chips and salsa were also super fresh, but the salsa was a little bit spicy for me so I just dipped my chip corners in a little bit to keep my mouth from catching fire.
The end of a busy day required a little treat. We popped into Milk & Cookies and ordered a warm peanut butter cookie - SO GOOD, and a warm oatmeal raisin cookie with salted caramel ice cream - not that good.
We had lunch at Little France Bakery, we each had a croissant sandwich, Black Angus for Christopher and Ham & Cheese for me. The croissants were tall and flaky and the fillings tasted great, the side of fruit was fresh, and their pastries looked incredible. We ran out of time to order treats because Christopher had to get back to work, but if we are ever in Laguna Niguel again, we will definitely go back to Little France Bakery.
The Views on the west coast are breathtaking. I could sit and watch cliffs, fog, the ocean, and sunsets forever.
West coast sunsets are one of my very favorite ways to end a day. We watched the sunset from Aliso Beach a couple of times, and people were all up in that freezing cold Pacific Ocean water. I do not understand how that water is so cold at the end of July! Does anywhere in the Pacific get warm? I have a lot of ocean related questions now.
Another food related annoyance of life in the woods, the pizza isn’t great either. We had a really good Chicago cracker thin crust pizza at TJ’s Woodfire Pizza in San Clemente, CA. We got the IL Padrino pizza, with red bell peppers, mushrooms, black olives, pepperoni, mozzarella, and tomato sauce. We ate the whole 15” pizza and it was delicious to the very last bite.
The coffee in South Orange County was disappointing. I tried a couple of places that I disliked so much I didn’t finish my coffees. We finally found Golden Lantern Coffee Roasters on the last day in town, but it was the ONLY local coffee I finished. I really liked my iced latte, but Christopher said his drip coffee was just ok, so espresso is the way to go here.
After Christopher’s work portion of the trip was over, it was time for FUN!!! We spent our last two days in California at Disneyland and California Adventure, but that will get its own post.
We love California. It’s a beautiful state, it has great food, the people are generally great, and I will never be sick of a west coast sunset on a cliffy beach.
Do you have any California favorites? If so, let us know in the comments so I can save them for next time!
