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depression-oatmeal · 2 years

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The Dog Pawrk, Rock and Brews, TIME Nightclub, and Poached Neighborhood Kitchen

The addresses:

Dog Pawrk Brewing: 27122 Paseo Espada #904, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675

Rock and Brews: 1222 Irvine Blvd, Tustin, CA 92780

TIME: 1875 Newport Blvd B245, Costa Mesa, CA 92627

Poached Neighborhood Kitchen: 9510 Lakewood Blvd, Downey, CA 90240

The websites:

Dog Pawrk Brewing: https://thedogpawrk.beer/

Rock and Brews: https://www.rockandbrews.com/tustin

TIME: https://timenightclub.com/

Poached Neighborhood Kitchen: https://www.poachedkitchen.com/locations/downey

The ratings:

Dog Pawrk Brewing : 25/30 on the Depression Oatmeal Scale

Rock and Brews: 25/30 on the Depression Oatmeal Scale

TIME: 28/30 on the Depression Oatmeal Scale

Poached Neighborhood Kitchen: 26/30 on the Depression Oatmeal Scale

Alright… so February was quite the month full of experiences, both good and bad. I have to be honest here – I spent so much time healing and trying to center myself that I got lost in these entries. When I say lost, I mean that there was something to be had from each one in the form of a lesson and sometimes it wasn’t just over in a single day. There will be an overall theme to the entries from this month and I have done my very best to group them accordingly. Ideally, some will just be one location – but others will necessarily have to be grouped, and I’m hoping that it makes sense to the audience at the end. I’m not even sure it makes sense to me; but I’m going to do my best to get through it all in a week or so. I really want to be able to start documenting the March occurrences and I don’t want to forget these spots, either.

Right off the bat – the first note of interest is Dog Pawrk Brewing, located in Mission Viejo, California. I had gone on a particularly grueling hike in the morning, and it was my first day back into the condo on my own. I was tired, and my plans for the previous evening had fallen through. Not wanting to get lost in the empty space and ghosts of my now empty condo, I grabbed my dog and forced myself to get out for a little bit. Orange County is a bit difficult when it comes to pets and finding dog friendly spaces is often times taxing. I found this one on yelp pretty quickly and headed on over. I recognized the area pretty quickly – some years ago, I had been to a holiday party at this barbecue spot in the same neighborhood. However, finding the actual location of this place proved to be quite challenging. So much so, that I was a little underwhelmed by the space when I got there – I think just because it was so damn hard to find.

While there, I had two IPAs – The Stray’r dog (a wonderful berry IPA) and The Stray Dog (the prototype for my previous beer). They were both excellent; actually it was some of the best beer I had enjoyed in awhile, mostly because I’ve been deficiting. This was a Saturday in early February, and I didn’t find the atmosphere inviting enough. However, armed with a little buzz – I reached out to the old flame I was supposed to have plans with the previous night and invited her over to my condo to enjoy dinner and some drinks. Quite frankly, I was glad that I did, because she accepted and because Dog Pawrk does not offer food. They only serve food when the occasion calls for it on their calendar, so if you’re looking for a tasty bite I’m afraid you’ll have to go somewhere else. It seems like this little spot is very early in it’s beer lifecycle, so I expected more to come from it in the future. With beer this good, I can’t see how they wouldn’t expand or perhaps seek out a better location soon. Perhaps this is where word of mouth comes in, and it’s really up to us to make sure places like this succeed. So – while I’m only giving this place a 25/30 on the Depression Oatmeal scale, it’s because of the atmosphere, difficult to find location, and lack of food – nothing else. They’re scoring 25/30 because their beer is so damn good.

What came next was a very big step for me, and I’m afraid I’m not selling that point home enough – I had never had another woman inside my condo before and I was equal parts terrified and excited for the prospect. We ended up having a wonderful night catching up, overall, although there were some tears shed on both sides for various reasons. When she finally did leave in the wee hours after midnight, I was finally feeling something in my chest besides the overwhelming feeling of failure and sadness the past 6 months had brought me – hope. So, naturally, we planned a follow-up dinner and drinks night with a fellow coworker from our previous place of employment.

This is where Rock and Brews comes in. This other coworker is obsessed with this place; she has been since as long as I’ve known her (about 7 years or so). Although, I must say she’s also a huge 80s girl so the old-school rock vibe of the place is probably what draws her to it, because it’s pretty generic. I mean, it’s fun and all, but the one in Tustin sort of just gives me generic chain vibes. In a different life, I was interviewing for a job at a pharmaceutical company called Kite (located in El Segundo) and they paid for me to get a hotel and dinner/drinks for the two nights I was there. THAT Rock and Brews is much cooler (the one in El Segundo) because they have a beautiful outdoors area that felt like a very german Biergarden. Anyway, the Tustin spot is close to where myself and the other girl are on Thursdays and it’s only a short drive for our old coworker, so it was the perfect spot to meet up.

I was the first one there and I was ravenous, so I had to order food right off the bat. I was trying to keep it on the skinnier side because I was really struggling to break past the 200 pound plateau, so I ordered the buffalo cauliflower. It was surprisingly good, and not battered but just fried. It was also flakey – kind of similar to cauliflower rice, I think. Even more surprising (and frustrating given the tiny pieces) was that the buffalo sauce came on the side. I was also drinking my beers rather quickly because I was nervous about seeing yet again another old coworker in the wake of all of the shit that had happened. See – I had learned during wine night (post Dog Pawrk) that my name had been completely torched at my previous job by someone I love very much (more importantly a dear friend) shortly before disowning me. While I won’t say it wasn’t justified, I was bothered by it for several reasons because not only had they lied to me about this, I wasn’t ever afforded an opportunity by anyone to give answers; I wasn’t even asked. It just all happened in the background and I was supposed to understand what was going on, which I never possibly could have given my mental state and the mixed signals I had been receiving.

The drinks were good, the company was better, and our bartender was an absolute doll! I can’t remember his name for the life of me but he was such a nice guy. There were a couple of instances through-out the evening where either the drinks took too long or were missing very minor touches – so, we ended up with a boatload of free beverages and loaded potato skins. The loaded potato skins were ok – I generally love the twice baked potato vibe, but I was kind of disappointed by the fact that they advertised “candied bacon” as one of the toppings, because what I got were clearly those dried ass Hormel bacon bits that you put on a salad. I digress – it’s not important. Moral of the story is that everything I was worried about was what it’s always been – ghosts, and I had a fantastic evening. It was like we had never stopped talking, and a year and some months hadn’t passed. All of that being said, the food was very “meh”. I am giving Rock and Brews a 25/30 on the Depression Oatmeal scale because of our fantastic server and the mediocre quality of the food. It’s a scratch that you can order their food on door dash and that they have a full-service online take-out menu, because I didn’t utilize any of these things. However – they did seem very pandemic friendly.

On the topic of keeping the good vibes going, we had such a good time that we decided to do a brunch the following Saturday. Where I ultimately fucked up here is that I ended up at said brunch quite possibly still drunk or so hungover that I couldn’t tell the difference. However – how I got there is really the most important part, and that’s why TIME in Costa Mesa, CA gets an honorable mention here. Like Dog Pawrk, this is not an establishment for food – it’s not even a brewery, it’s a nightclub. I will touch on spontaneity in later entries, but the entire reason I’m ranking them here on the Depression Oatmeal scale as a 26/30 is because of the amazing quality of musical acts they continue to book. When you combine that with a Vegas style atmosphere and drinks that are half the price ($10 each, roughly) you have a winning combination my friend. I decided to go see an artist I barely knew from my Spotify listening experience that same day, and I went way far out on a limb and invited someone I knew could ultimately be a disastrous letdown. I’m not going to go into details – you only need to know that they came, they were super happy to see me, and this: “This is the best tea I’ve heard about one of my friends in awhile – especially coming from you. You know what though? Guess what – since you’ve been gone, I haven’t seen any of those people, and even if I had, I would have told them that you’re a better person than they are. You’re a grown ass man, you make your own decisions, and as my friend I’m happy that you continue to try to engage me and invite me into your life. That’s more than I can say about any of them.” There’s a significant amount of self-positivity and love behind this statement that I wish I could explain; me and this person have had a rough history but it ultimately made us both better people and more importantly, FRIENDS. Hope was reaching fever pitch; perhaps there was forgiveness I could afford myself in the future after all. Also – Moksi? Absolute fire and an amazing DJ/produce duo.

So I woke up drunk, hungover, and happy – and went to brunch. Against all of my better (worst?) judgement, I ended up in LA county on a Saturday morning at Poached Neighborhood Kitchen in Downey, CA. There are many shitty aspects of doing an anonymous blog – reaching your target audience, a lack of network, and sharing of intimate details that could otherwise help you to reach a broader audience. In all of my entries, I think this is the one I remember as being the one where I wanted to say fuck it all and just open it up publicly. However, this ain’t Instagram, I have too much respect for the people in my life to do that, and finally this is truly an artistic expression of self-reflection and mental health. You know – with a generous amount of restaurant reviews mixed in while living in a pandemic.

I’ve been to a number of brunches in my life in various stages of inebriation. Breakfast is this weird thing to me – I never eat it, yet I fucking love brunch. There’s nothing better than just rolling in to a place with good breakfast food and a full bar at 10am with a raging headache. Well – maybe going sober, and then getting good food and drinks. I had been looking forward to one of those big, ultra-fat bloody marys that comes with a slider and some caramelized bacon – until I learned this place was beer and wine only. My mood only slightly diminished, myself and my friends decided to go with a mimosa flight, a classic bottle of champagne and OJ, and I may have dived off the deep end to get a dry cider. This place is weird, because you have to go up and order your food and drinks at a counter, only to go sit down after and wait. This is slightly off-putting for my idea of brunch because I genuinely love interacting with my servers and enjoying a good amount of libations prior to eating. We did get our drinks before our food, for which I was thankful. I also was not too impressed with the menu overall – so I went with the special, which was a chili verde omelet. I’m kind of thankful that it was a special item and not a regular menu offering because it doesn’t matter if I forgot the name or not for this entry – you can’t see it, but I’m genuinely laughing at this as I write it. Dude – I’m not one to enjoy americanized Mexican food, because I’ve enjoyed and been spoiled by authentic Mexican food for the better part of 32 years. However – this omelet was seriously something special. The pork was carnitas style, and there was a minimal amount of sauce (all contained within the omelet itself, thank god) so it wasn’t wet and gross when taking a bite. The carnitas was perfectly seasoned and everything you want when you eat it – oil, texture, and salt. The sauce provided enough acidity to cut through the richness of the pork without overpowering it. I ate the whole damn thing – the omelet, my toast, my hashbrowns, and my fruit. I was actually sad enough when I devoured my meal that I ordered a side of bacon (it was just alright) and ate that, too. While this wasn’t my ideal spot for brunch – I’d still come here again for the quality of the food.

Closing notes on Poached: I took the most beautiful and amazing candid photo of one of my friends and I wish that I could share it here, but this where the regrets of an anonymous blog come into play. I had an amazing time. The vibe ended up being pretty good, even if an alternative style that I’m not used to. For this reason, I give them a 26/30 on the Depression Oatmeal Scale.

#DepressionOatmeal #foodblog #OCfoodie #OCfoodies #foodies #mentalhealth #Rockandbrews #tustin #TIMEnightclub #CostaMesa #Poachedneighborhoodkitchen #downey #California #blog #relationships

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