FueledByLOLZ

Four Seasons Diner (Toms River)

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Four Seasons Diner in Toms River. This isn’t to be confused with the All Seasons Diner.

The owner of the website, New Jersey Isn’t Boring, and I met for lunch. Incase you’re interested we’ve been to several diners together including:
Park Nine
Daphne’s
Sherbans
Fountainbleau
Jersey Diner
Freeway Diner (Now closed)
Broad Sreet Diner (Her 100th review)!

Holy moly, we’ve definitely been to a lot of diners together. One of her goals and jobs is to review all of the diners in the state, so it’s always great to get her perspective as well as learn about fun New Jersey activities going on! You can see her review here.

Atmosphere: B
The Four Seasons Diner actually used to be an old Wawa. If you look carefully, you can tell but if you just walked by you would never guess. Inside the Four Seasons Diner looks like a typical restaurant, not a diner. It’s not bad, but it’s not an old metallic building. It’s a clean restaurant, but it doesn’t scream diner.

Service: C
The diner wasn’t crowded, but we waited for a while to be sat. If it were busy, it wouldn’t have a big deal, but we just waited. We went long periods without seeing out waitress. She was nice. However, she left our table for long periods of time.

Coffee: B
The coffee was good. There was nothing unique or special about it, but there was nothing bad either.

Food: B
The Four Seasons Diner had every time of diner food you can imagine. Toms River is right along the shore, and they have plenty of seafood options! I’ve heard their red pancakes were good, so that is what I chose to order. The pancakes were extremely thick and came with a cream cheese frosting. Of any red velvet pancakes I’ve had, these were definitely the best.

My date ordered the pizza special which was interesting. It was more of a flatbread than pizza which was disappointing considering they have a brick oven.

Cost: $$
For my pancakes and coffee the cost was $12. Not bad!

Overall Thoughts/Would I come back?
Even though the service wasn’t the best, I enjoyed the Four Seasons Diner and there were a lot of specials I was interested in trying. I would love to come back next time I’m in town!

Overall:
Atmosphere: C
Service: B
Coffee: B
Food: B
Cost: $8-12
Overall: B

Nearby diners I’ve tried: New Crystal Diner (I need to get to more shore diners)

Questions for you:
What’s your favorite type of pancake?
Have you ever had Wawa?

Springfield Diner

Springfield Diner

A few weeks ago after coming back from a race, I decided to go to the Springfield Diner. I could have chosen a New Jersey diner. However, I heard the Springfield Diner was good, and so I decided to go. Since I live within 15 minutes of PA, there are several PA diners closeby too. I don’t want to get too predictable and switched states up.

Of course on a Saturday for brunch, everywhere is busy. There were only a few spots left in the huge parking lot, and I worried it would be a long wait. Luckily it was only 15 minutes.

Atmosphere: A

The Springfield diner was a busy place. It was a loud and bustling restaurant.

The outside decor is a huge shiny and metallic building. It’s a very stereotypical diner. The inside consists of mostly booths and a bar. It looked like there were a few tables in the back too.

Coffee: A

The coffee was hot and refilled several times. There was plenty of whipped cream. I have no complaints.

Service: A

The waitress was extremely attentive and friendly. She refilled our coffee, brought refills and made sure we’re doing okay. Although every table in the restaurant was filled, our food was brought out in 10 minutes. 10 minutes! It was impressive. So we waited 15 minutes to get seated, 10 for our food and left within 50 minutes. All of this when the diner was jam packed. Efficiency is an understatement there!

Food: B

The Springfield Diner had all of the classic diner options and more. They had a lot of seafood options that made me want to come back for dinner.

I decided to order the red velvet pancakes. It came with strawberries and bananas topped with cream cheese, whipped cream and chocolate chips. The pancakes themselves were just plain. Don’t get me wrong; they were good pancakes, but they definitely weren’t red velvet. It was just plain pancakes with chocolate chips on top. Most people know red velvet is my favorite dessert, so I was disappointed. The pancakes were good, just not what I was expecting. To be honest, I thought they had accidently messed up my order but that that their take on red velvet.

Cost:$$

For the coffee and pancakes, the cost was $13. Not bad and I left filled me on a sugar high.

Overall thoughts/Would I come back?

I enjoyed the Springfield Diner and would definitely go back. The food was good, just not what I was expecting. I would love to go back and try dinner. It was one of the most efficient diners I’ve ever been too. I can’t imagine what they are like at a slower hour!

Summary:
Atmosphere: A
Service: A
Coffee: A
Food: B
Cost: $10-20

Overall: B

Despite the food being good, it was not exactly red velvet so I feel as though I have to give it a B. I’ll definitely be back and I would be interested to try their dinner and dessert options.

Questions for you:

What is your favorite dessert? Do you like red velvet?

Do you like pancakes?

Red Velvet Pancakes

I’ve always loved Red Velvet. It’s my favorite cake, ice cream…everything about it I love. It would be a dirty lie if I were to tell you I only have Red Velvet pancakes during Valentine’s day time so I won’t. That being said, I think they are extra special to have around this time so I saved reposting for the tenth time this recipe until around now. I’ve actually done a bit of reworking with it to make it easier (there were far too many ingredients that I wasn’t trying to buy).

Ingredients:
½ cup flour
¼ dark cocoa powder (I am looking at you gharidelli cocoa powder heaven)
½ cup sweetener
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon red food coloring
½-1 cup milk or water depending on your preference and pancake consistancy liking.

For the topping:
I’ve also topped with vanilla yogurt which is pretty good (not cream cheese good but pretty good).
What I’ve found to the most delicious for your taste buds in the following “glaze” type ordeal.
½ cup cream cheese
½ cup sweetener…I used stevia for this…
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons syrup

The pancakes are easy. Mix the dry to the wet ingredients adding as much (or little) liquid as you like. I tend to like thicker pancakes so I add less liquid.

The glaze is also easy…mix it all together. I’ve found melting the cream cheese (in the microwave) can get it mix easier but it’s your choice.

I’ve made many friends with this recipe and I hope you do too. Or boyfriends/girlfriends since that is what Valentine’s Day is all about…making your lover pancakes.

Question for you: Do you do anything special for Valentine’s day?

Follow me…Follow me

Oh my god. I was going to do a “What I Ate Wednesday” blog but it just fell through the cracks last night. I love doing work ha (but it paid off because I got a 100 on my first theory test). So I’ll do a tag-a-long Thursday (um I just made that up off the top of my head) and it will be like we are living the same life.

Oh and PS: I’m typing this In the morning and will type the rest at night. I can’t guarantee you any of this is healthy or not or I get my 5 a day. I just see the food I like and get it. If I decided to eat healthy and blog that would take too much work. Some days I strive for 5 fruits/vegetables a day. Some days I strive to eat lots of carbs.

But first. Most of you guys said you were leaders. I like it. A few said it depends on the situation and those are my thoughts exactly. I guess I’ll follow that group of people and say it really depends on the situation for me too.

—————

Anywho-My What I Eats are more of a get in my shoes and live my life. I wish I could have a camera in my eyeballs for you to get the full effect. Although it would be a tad creeps with a blinking red light coming out of my cornea.

This morning I woke up to the neighbors getting ready for school. They are adorable. But loud. I do live in a college town, but I live kind of on the outskirts (about 1.5 miles from campus…). And yes that is the outskirts. So the middle schoolers (I believe) were riding the bus to school. Apparently they were very excited..

Which prompted me to get up, I made my signature waffle of the week. Red Velvet Waffle. I used to make this a ton when me and the boyfriend were together. Mostly because I would piss him off and red pancakes are pure love. At least that’s what I’m convinced of.

redvelvetpancakes1 — Topped with yogurt obviously. (it's on my recipe page...make it...now)

8:30 is my time limit for reading blogs, eating and whatever else I randomly decide to do. I have to start getting for class at 9:30 then.

Classes are always joyous. Today I had Community Health and Theory of Community Health. I even got a 100 on my quiz. I think I said that though.

In between classes I was very productive as I got my Arctrainer on and I got my quiche on. I love sundried tomato quiche and couscous. Which is why I have had it for the last three days. True life.

Well I’m off to cross country practice. It’s my first day back but they are doing an easy jog (because of back to back races) as to why I chose today to come back.

PS: In honor of the new America’s Next Top Model airing next week, I’m bringing Fashion Friday’s. So please send me pictures of you rocking a side braid (lolzthatswim@gmail.com).

Bonus points if you look like you came off USS Cray Cray.

———————

Questions for you:

Favorite fall fashion?

What have you been obsessed with lately?

Visiting the Cake Boss and Religous Protesters

For all of you guys that pinned how close Matt and I are you are right. We are seriously besties (minus you-aDuBs). I cried all the way through that process of him leaving. I’m a big emotional sappy sap and I’m okay with it. In most situations that is.

Oh and because I never actually explained what he was doing up there..The Merchant Marine Academy is not the US Service Academy where they go into the marines. You can go into one of the branches of the military (most go Navy or Air Force) or you can go into the Merchant Marines which work a lot on ships and such.

—————

So after we were kicked off the campus (The campus closed at 1pm to all families) we headed down to New Jersey to see the TLC Cake Boss, Buddy at his bake shop. Well not really because he obviously wouldn’t be there-but we wanted to check out the famous Carlos Bake Shop!

We waited about two hours in line (which apparently isn’t that bad).

While we were in line, a religious group came and started preaching at us and the other 500 people. Apparently, it is quite common because we cannot leave (we are in line). I’m all for freedom of speech, but they were yelling at us for a solid hour. I don’t want to get into a religious debate on my blog, but I’m all for choice and believing in what you want but they were at the point where they were trying to shove their beliefs down people who were uninterested and not amused throats.

I’m so glad my younger brother Steven was able to come on the trip. He wasn’t sure if he would be able too but it made the ride back more fun. During this religious preaching, no one had gone up to get these mans fliers. They had about 1 million and everyone had ignored them. Since my family is full of smart asses, Steven (with my convincing) went and got a flier and tried to have a convo with them! They even stopped talking for about 2 minutes and everyone started cheering.

carlos3 — say facebooook (don't pretend people say "say cheese" anymore)...

But then about five minutes later, everyone started cheering again for another reason.

carlos7 — Why are police attracted to my life?

Anywho-that gave us amusement because it isn’t something to get your panties in a bunch about and that made the line go by really quickly. Some people were going a little psycho but I found it hysterical. Then after our two hour wait we got to go into Buddy’s Bakery. He wasn’t there of course, but it was still so crowded ha.

Just so you know-I didn’t take a photo of anything I didn’t sample. All of these were the bomb.com and fueled me for some pretty decent runs. That may or may not have been my dinner last night and tonight too. I think we spent close to 100 dollars there. BAHAHA #lamesaucefatties

carlos14 — You can never go wrong with red velvet. EVER.

carlos16 — But these cupcakes are adorbs and were also my dinner last night.

carlos21 — If we had come earlier and were around the area. My 21st birthday cake would have come from here.

carlos20 — My favorite were the glazed fruit tart cakes with cake batter icing underneath the fruit.

So in short. I’m not too sure why I have complained about my last few runs because this is all I have been eating. I was going to post a food blog about my NYC eats…but uh here ya go. 😉
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Questions for you:

1. Have you ever seen TLC’s Cake Boss?
2. Have you ever had an experience with protests and the police getting involved? (That is a pretty bizarre question I guess).

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