Quips & Anecdotes - Sibling "Study" Day Out

I decided that I would go to a bookstore or cafe today so that I could work on the massive amount of blog posts I need to put together for the month I would be gone in July; I made the suggestion to my little brother to join me on a quest for productivity and he agreed. Therefore, we find ourselves now at a Coffee Bean store in Orange working on our various things (he's studying for final tests) and realizing that the atmosphere outside of the home is certainly more conducive to progress than staying at home. We also got some lunch and coffee drinks around the area. I would write up a review for the places except they are chains so I decided to just combine that into this one post.

After studying for quite a while in Barnes & Noble, I discovered that there weren't any outlets in their cafe area so I had to go pick up a GRE book to browse through until we both got hungry enough to eat. We headed over to Corner Bakery Cafe and got some sandwiches. He got the Chicken Pomodori panini and I got the Chicken Pesto signature sandwich combo of half a sandwich and a cup of soup (Italian Wedding Soup). We were both a bit disappointed in what we got considering how small the portions were and how starving we were. My 1/2 sandwich was extremely small but manageable. I thought it to be quite simple and easy to recreate - not worth my near $8 for the combo. The Italian Wedding Soup had strange ingredients in it but at least it was hot to fool my stomach into feeling full. Edison's panini was basic as well. We weren't impressed and were still hungry afterward.


We took our business over to the Coffee Bean store nearby and snagged some ice blended coffee drinks. They had types that I hadn't seen in other stores. We ended up grabbing regular 16 oz. sizes of the Mocha Mint and the Black Forest. The Mocha Mint was pretty standard but it wasn't a bad thing since mocha mint is always delicious. The Black Forest was fantastic. When we both tried it out, we figured it was now our new favorite - dark chocolate with cherry flavoring and tons of shredded chocolate-covered espresso beans. Good stuff. I can't wait until I become a regular somewhere; maybe I'll stalk out a Coffee Bean to adopt once I start working somewhere.