We went to Celadon last night. This is the newest restaurant in the space that recently housed Tahiti, then Yi. So now it’s Celadon. It’s an expensively furnished, fairly large restaurant. The location, being near the Grove, is pretty good, but it seems to be in a bit of an awkward stretch, which may account for the problems with restaurants in that location.

The menu claims to feature “Authentic Global Tapas.” I don’t really know what that means. Wouldn’t authentic tapas necessarily not be global, but just Spanish? Do they mean something like “authentic plates from around the world?” That’s probably closer to reality, although I wouldn’t claim any of these to be authentic. They are from around the world, but they have much more of a fusion quality than an authenticity about them.

A large portion of the menu, probably half, are Asian-based dishes, like noodles, rice, and dim sum. Frankly, the Asian dishes were definitely inferior to the European style dishes. Of all the Asian dishes, I think only the shrimp toast was any good. The samosas were really not good at all. The rice and noodle dishes basically had no flavor. 

They have a section of crudo, and those dishes were pretty good. They’re a bit more like innovative sashimi than they are like Italian crudo, but they were tasty, and well presented.

There were actually two standout dishes to me: the sliders and the hummus. Sliders are so often overdone hard discs of meat. These were juicy and served medium, with good bread and sauce. I was pretty surprised - I would definitely get these again if I go back. The hummus had artichoke hearts, fava beans, and fennel seeds on it. Great combination - and the bread served with it was grilled and spiced.

I’m not too sure that I’d go back. So many dishes weren’t great - I think we did about 50/50 which, with the great restaurants around here, isn’t good at all. The place was pretty empty, the music was some hip fusion nothing, the place really had no style. And it was large - it didn’t have either the comfortable small feeling, or the glamorous large feeling. Service was fine (20% gratuity added to parties of six or larger, rather than the 18% I usually see).

EDIT: Forgot about the scallops. Avoid the scallops. At least, the night we went, our two scallop dishes were NOT good. If they can’t get good scallops that day, they should 86 them from the menu . . .

We just got a letter from Freedom Financial Partners. I thought it was a routine “Do we have a new loan for you!” letter, and I tossed it. But my wife had seen it first and was worried that it said our house was in jeopardy due to a loan default.

So I fished it out of the recycling, and sure enough, she was right - the letter did say that.

OK - first, some background info on the wonderful Freedom Financial. Their website seems to be here. Note the link to the BBB. I’m really not a big fan of the BBB. As a business owner myself, I feel like they extort a yearly fee in exchange for a good review of your business. But click the Freedom Financial BBB link. Nada. No reviews. But they link there. Pathetic.

Next, the ways to contact them. On their website, they have a comcast.net email address. On the letter, it’s a gmail address. For a company with a domain name and a website, this seems a bit strange. Is it operated on public computers where they need webmail?

As for physical location, their area code (724) puts them in Pennsylvania. But their BBB info puts them in Utah. Their whois info is hidden. You guys really know how to gain the trust of your customers.

Here’s the key line from the letter: If none of this is true, I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you by sending this letter. Wow. So if you’ve scared perfectly mortgage-paying homeowners into wasting their time, and possibly calling you, you’re sorry. Even in Stockton, California (with its 10% foreclosure rate - reportedly the highest in the country) you’d only be right up to 10% of the time, so you’d be wrong 90% of the time. In the rest of the country, you’d be wrong 90%+ of the time. Truly pathetic.

Freedom Financial Partners: Please! Have some personal integrity! Do the right thing here! Does scaring people into contacting you ever work?

I just got back from Astro Camp in Idyllwild, California. I went as a chaperone on a class trip with my kids.

Everything you’ve heard about the food is true. Many had warned me, so I came prepared. I won’t harp on it too much except to say that you should get to the salad bar fast. Since the main courses are essentially inedible, you need to get to the very busy salad bar before you end up with lettuce in a soup of cold water and the dregs of the vegetables. Also, at breakfast, the fruit is at the salad bar station, and being largely untouched by the ‘cooks,’ it’s very popular and goes fast.

OK, now that that’s past I’ll move on to the great features of Astro Camp, namely, the classes.

As far as I understand the process, the school selects the classes or segments that the students will participate in during their stay. So I’m really not sure what else is out there, but I’ll give a rundown of what we did. As usual, our school’s amazing teachers really picked interesting, engaging activities for the students.

Soda Bottle Rocket Launch - Using a two liter bottle as the main body, we learned how to build on a nose cone out of clay, and cardboard fins. This activity was in part just a lot of fun, but was also a lesson in several aspects of physics and motion including how heavier objects move slower with the same amount of force and gravity (with calculations to determine the height of the rockets). In addition, this activity gave the more artistic kids a chance to build based on more unique ideas.

Zip Line - Really, all fun. 700 feet of zip line here. I was expecting some physics lesson, but it was just for sheer fun. Maybe there was a little bit of overcoming acrophobia on the platform, but otherwise, it was a blast.

Catwalk - Like the zip line in that it wasn’t about a science lesson, but this one took more nerve than the zip line. It also delivered a bigger sense of accomplishment to the kids. It’s amazing how a completely safe, controlled environment like this can still frighten. I didn’t get a chance to walk it (we ran out of time) but I was definitely a bit scared just looking up there. Some kids scrambled up and practically ran across. Others needed a little convincing and some couldn’t bring themselves to do it. But for those who needed convincing, they were ecstatic and full of pride when it was over.

Gases Class - A great lesson in physics from college, with all the good experiments in one class. We ate frozen potato chips from a liquid nitrogen bath, exploded hydrogen, imploded cans, and used vacuums to do crazy things to marshmallows and shaving cream. Oh - and the frozen balloon was completely surprising. This was a quick overview of the properties of gases in a way that challenge your imagination. Most of the kids will clearly need some more explanation of these events, although our excellent teacher Dave did have a way of describing the salient points with concision.

Beyond those classes, there was an underwater class demonstrating cooperation and non-verbal communication. There was a rock wall climb that relied on trivia facts for access. And there was a night hike complete with time at telescopes trained on amazing views. I’ll never forget the way I saw Saturn that night!