Hot Dog Buffet, I mean Thai Fresh Spring Rolls & Smoothies

A few weeks ago while cleaning out the laundry room cabinets, I came upon an old tiny giftbag with tissue paper still in it. Before throwing it away, I opened it up an found two $25 gift cards to Regal Theaters! Turns out this was an old birthday gift I'd received from my SIL a few years ago and I somehow forgot about it, OBVIOUSLY.

I probably thought I'd remember where I put it, then promptly forgot about it. That actually happens to me... A LOT. Durrrr!!!

Nevertheless, it was nice to "rediscover" these and use them as an excuse to stay out of the heat...

Anyhoo, there's a Regal near us so TC and I caught a matinee of "Paranorman" which was actually pretty good  overall - the story line, the stop motion animation, and the surprise reference to one of the main character's, uh "orientation" at the end (I found it quite cool, more on that later)...

For lunch TC wanted to go to the Hot Dog Buffet next to Rubio's. It used to be a Cafe Tazza, then it was another fruit smoothie/coffee place. A few months ago it was Hot Dog Buffet (sorry but that name cracks me up) but TC noticed the new signage - "Thai Fresh Spring Rolls (&) Smoothies". We thought we would check it out. Honestly, I didn't think the Hot Dog Buffet concept would last. I mean, seriously.

It's very very tiny inside. Like standing room only. It's also not a restaurant but more of a take out place. Good luck trying to find seating outside too. There are only two or three tables out there. Most of the people we saw were waiting for their orders.

There is a counter when you walk in. The menu is posted outside, inside, and at the cash register. There are also informational sheets posted up about the health benefits of galangal, red rice, and green tea, along with travel photos of Thailand.

Did I mention how cramped it was in here? There were only two ladies working. Well, one was cooking and the other was taking orders and making smoothies. They've only been open for three weeks now. They're not even listed online yet.

Their menu is pretty limited considering how small their kitchen is. No noodle dishes here but they do have spring rolls, largs, salad, and a few curry dishes along with the drinks.

Instead of a full on lunch, we ordered the Shrimp Spring Rolls which took awhile for the lady to make. She was apologetic because she knew we'd been waiting for awhile (15 minutes, maybe longer). The rolls were quite thick and filled with mostly "filler" (rice noodles, lettuce, cucumber, and finely sliced red and green cabbage). For the size of these rolls, I thought the two sauce cups were inadequate. One was a sweet chili dip and the other was peanut sauce. After a few dips in those cups, the sauces were already gone and we'd only had two or three bites. Without the sauce, these rolls were pretty dry and boring.

These rolls really weren't that great. It was loosely wrapped for one. The  three very small shrimp  were unevenly dispersed in the roll, like they migrated towards one end.

 Maybe this would be acceptable for people who aren't familiar with spring rolls and have nothing to compare it to, but for us, we'd had better at other places. In fact, I could make a much better version of this myself. But hey, we had to try. Maybe one of these days we will try their curry and red rice or larb dishes. I'm willing to give it another go.

We ended up getting our lunch at the nearby Costco - $1.50 hot dogs and soda dudes!

P.S.
Here's Mitch, the gay character from "Paranorman", the "dumb" muscle bound jock, voiced by Casey Affleck:

(from Breitbard article, "Paranorman slips in first openly gay animated character")

So what does he say that has conservative parents' panties in a bunch?

The main character's sister Courtney has a crush on this guy and asks him at the very end of the movie to go out on a date to the movies. His reply? Something to the effect of "Oh you'd love my boyfriend. He's into chick flicks...".

When I heard it, I was, "What?   OMG, that's genius that they put that in there!". Imagine those parents that have to suddenly explain to little Johnny why the guy said he had a "boyfriend".  You can just picture the collective pursing of lips, tight clenching of ass cheeks, and nails digging into palms.

Mitch's "casual outing" was really not a big deal.  It wasn't even dwelled upon after he said it. The movie didn't establish him to be gay at the very beginning but then, did they need to? I honestly don't think it was necessary. I liked that he wasn't the stereotypical "limp wristed, lispy and insert-other-offensive-characteristics" here vision of what a gay guy should be like. Not what one would expect, but then again, it just goes to show you that you cannot judge a book by its cover and that folks of all sexual orientations are not easily categorized. Gay people are just like anyone else and I liked how the movie portrayed that.

As for the movie itself, as mentioned earlier, the I liked the movie. The storyline is about a boy, Norman, who has the ability to see "dead people" (like that kid in "Sixth Sense", but more humorous) and how he is shunned and ostracized by kids at school and even his family.  The animation was excellent. It was stop motion (think "Coraline" and "Nightmare before Christmas") but more realistic looking. The movie has an 'off-kilter' feel that is evident in the exaggerated facial/bodily features of the characters, to the highly angular lines and sometimes bulbous curves of the world they live in. The humor is a little too dark for little kids but TC (who is 12) really liked it, especially the physical humor. The anti-bullying message was a bit heavy handed but it was still a good message to put out there. Remember, bullies and mean people suck!  If you've watched zombie movies, then you'd appreciate the visual references along with the ominous throbbing music that seems to play whenever zombies appear.


That being said, the next movie we are planning to watch with the Regal giftcard is Tim Burton's recycled live action version of "Frankenweenie"!

Yeah, I'm all over the place with this post, from hot dogs to Tim Burton!