OC visit: Brodard, GoGoSonic, Meeples Family, PhoHolic

Orange County

Brodard + GoGoSonic + Meeples Family

Brodard Restaurant in Fountain Valley.

Duck spring rolls were forgettable.

The traditional grilled pork patty (nem nuong cuon) were superb as always.

The spread.

Special house noodle soup, with pork hock and seafood balls.

Veggies.

Fully garnished.

GoGoSonic, aka Asian snack heaven. Inside.

Inside.

Inside, take two.

Extensive selection of Lay's potato chips.

Cucumber? Iberico ham?

Italian red meat flavor.

Nori seaweed flavor.

Hot chili squid, and some sort of shrimp?

Kristina bought a lot.

Sunscreen dispenser at Anaheim Gardenwalk.

Space Explorers board game.

Thinking.

Not a bad game, but not sure it was the best game either.

Winning hand.

Box art.

Did I miss out on free charging?

Someone's Jeep Wrangler 4xe PHEV drinking electrons.

Old school Chevy station wagon.

Pho tai sach at PhoHolic.

Garnished.

Looks good but both rare steak and the noodles were too soft.

Actually looks good mixed up.

Nomnomnom even if it was not the best I've had. Inside.

Inside.

Outside.

Menu.

Decidedly less impressive charging speed on this rented Polestar 2.

Pre-hurricane sunset.

Starting off the day with brunch at Brodard, with their always superb nem nuong cuon (grilled pork patty spring rolls) leading the way. House special noodle soup was also very tasty, however the duck spring rolls were pretty forgettable, at least compared to the grilled pork ones. The line for take-out was busy as usual, but at 10:45am the dine-in was actually not that bad, not even when we left around 11:30am.

GoGoSonic is a random warehouse open to the public that stocks all kinds of exotic not-usually-imported Asian snacks, especially Lay's potato chips in plethora of flavors. It was smaller inside than I expected and much more focused on Lay's chips thant I had imagined, but still fun to stop by once in a while.

Next stop was Meeples Family at Anaheim GardenWalk for board games. The rate to rent a table/indoor tent is very affordable (although parking at GardenWalk adds up...) and they have a pretty good selection, although we ended up playing some games that Ophelia had brought instead. Space Explorers by Yuri Zhuralev is pretty solid, although reading the abilities of all the scientist/engineer/builder/etc. cards and keeping track was a bit distracting. Fun game where you finish early spaceflight era projects, might get better on subsequent play-throughs, but not super convinced it's worth being a regular for us as the mechanics to build said projects were a bit sterile.

Wrapped up the day with dinner at the very popular PhoHolic. Was not impressed by the overly soft cuts of beef, nor the also overly soft noodles they use; perhaps I can ask them if they have a more traditional rare flank steak next time for their pho tai sach? Some rave about the rich broth, I found it good but not up to the hype. The kitchen is stupid fast though, and definitely go early to beat the crowd-- 4:30pm was just barely able to get a parking spot and easily got a table, twenty-five minutes later when I left they had a line out the door. o_0

Finaly picture of the day was a pre-hurricane photo (technically Tropical Storm Hilary by the time we got hit that night/next morning) at sunset when returning the rental car.