jen "the kid" d.'s Profile

Terrible, bland food from salad to wrap to baklava. Nothing tasted fresh, limp brown edged lettuce. I rarely leave a place thinking 'that was gross' but this qualified. Had my allergic reaction to (what my buest guess is) veg preservatives after. Wish we went to McDonald s instead. Huge disappointment.

Terrific location (for us), and great selection of stuff. Most is pre-packaged, but ingredient lists and lack of preservatives are acceptable for many of these items. Check out the "Eat Well" line - great fresh items perfect for lunches, and really cheap frozen line for quick lunches at work. Only $1.99! Watch out for other (non Eat Well) prepackaged foodstuff - can be very high in fat and so forth.  Must watch the expiration dates.

Tips: Excellent reduced fat cesar salad - the dressing is what makes it great, very lemony. Not as good as the equivalent at Costco, but much closer to home. Their sea salt and malt vinegar chips are the best salt-n-vinegar chips I've ever tasted (been a fan since a wee child), so that's sayin' something. Pork and mashed sweet potato in eat well line makes a great lunch.

Typical grocery items are well priced (yogurts, other dairy, and so forth). Will have to get used to self checkout, which is the only option, however they seem to have a bunch of staff around to help for now.

Can't wait until Specialty's opens up across the lot, although reckon parking will be hell once this happens. And will have to train myself to ignore their fantastic cookies...

We just adopted our second dog from this shelter. We drove out from the SF Bay Area to do so, and the staff were extremely helpful both with finding the location of the dogs we wanted to  see, and with a meet-and-greet and cat testing for the dogs we wanted to meet.

Why Merced County?
I volunteer in shelters, involved in animal welfare (blogging, social media), trained as a dog trainer and taken behaviorist courses... very dog-centric (or crazy). I've been talking with a couple local rescue organizations... and while they do amazing work, got frustrated. No problem with the application or anything (they can be choosy, but I passed) - it's the communication!  We've been back and forth trying to organize with one very well known group for three WEEKS (after spending an hour meeting the dog and meeting them for training classes with the dog - over 6 hrs of driving total), and they can't manage to set up a home check. Another organization just dropped the ball (called us, said they'd call at a certain time, never did - so we persued the other dogs we were checking out). Gave us grief about not having a yard despite the dog we were inquiring about was a houdini who jumped 6 ft fences and escaped). A bit crazy.

Thinking this might go nowhere, we decided to go to the source of where many rescues pull from, central valley. Not to mention it's sort of a "one-stop-shop" when you want to check your dog against a good number of dogs at the same time to see how they'll mesh.

Want to stress: rescues do amazing, life-saving work, and there are hundreds of great ones locally.

The dogs.
Tons available. Variety - all sizes, shapes, breed types (herding, terrier, sight, etc) And many MANY who will make great family pets. I went down entire rows where the dogs simply sat there, gazed out at me, and wagged their tail. There are many dogs who are not stressed out, calm, well behaved. Most dogs are young. Most look like they're in generally good or perfect health. By the time I finished the last row of kennels, I was choked up a little by how *good* the dogs here are - and yes, I volunteer regularly in shelters.

The shelter.
Recently built (2009) facility is nice. The kennels are not too bad (for a high-occupancy shelter), and kept up decently compared to others I've seen and volunteered in. It won't compare to some of the glossy bay-area ones, but not bad for what they're up against. The staff were very helpful and friendly, and the process is extremely simple. It's also not busy (if you look at their stats, they adopt out ~250 dogs/year but do ~1250 transfers -- so you won't be elbowing anyone out of the way for a dog).

What we did:
I recommend if you go out there (from any distance) the following - either have a good list of dogs you are interested in beforehand or call to check on the status the same day you drive out. They are a high-kill shelter, and do many rescue pulls. Two of the dogs we wanted to meet out of a list of around 8 were gone (one was adopted-  yay!)  But there are a *ton* of dogs there, around 200, so you have a good chance of finding others who fit what you're looking for.

Start with Petfinder, http://www.petfinder.c.... It's not completely up to date, but has nice photos, video, and descriptions.

Then find the dog on Petharbor (click the top link on this page: http://www.co.merced.c...), which is also more up to date. Write down the "A" number. If you want to find out the dogs location, or have a hard time finding him/her, the A number is the easiest way to find the dog. If the dog is not in Petharbor, chance it's not at the shelter. Check out the other dogs - many more available here.

Note the intake day - dogs are held 3 days, so this affects who is technically adoptable on the day you visit the shelter. You can still at least see the dog though - they don't hide the stray holds in locked rooms or anything.

Make a list, *calmly* walk down all kennel rows and check them out, shortlist the ones you want to visit, and the staff will help you out.

OR - just go there and look. So many dogs you're bound to find a great one available.

Dog intros (w/ours): they started doing a behind-the-fence introduction, and then we did several more in a room indoors. We introduced several dogs to our girl to see who she would be most compatible with. They also walked the dog around a bunch of cat cages and cats behind a window (moving around etc) to watch for his reaction.

If you find a dog, he/she will need to be altered before they leave the kennel. Most dogs are not yet altered. This is a next-day appointment for us, so it's not a long wait (it seems as though they no longer do the alteration deposit). We return tomorrow to pick him up. Total cost is $110.

Highly recommended, and you're really helping a dog in need. Central valley has somewhat poor "live release" stats, but absolutely fantastic dogs needing homes there - check them out and save a life!

Had to update my review after a very disappointing experience here. We have been quite a few times, and generally enjoyed it, especially for lunch. Sure the prix-fixe Valentines dinner we had there a couple years ago was very sub-par for the price (everything prepared way in advance - you could see it in their back rooms through a window! Luke warm, obviously sitting-around for awhile), but some great lunches (and perhaps the best burger of anywhere- the lamburger) and a dog table made up for it.

Yesterday, big disappointment (enough for me to come back from a Yelp-vacation to share). First of all, we were that semi-abandoned table in the corner with very slow and spotty service surrounded by well-attended large tables getting much better service. You know, the get your ice tea, ask for Splenda, wait 10 minutes for the Splenda kind of thing. Oh well, I'll give them a break on that.

What was very disappointing was they brought me the wrong lunch and made no effort to make it right. I brought it up right away, as it was quite obvious - politely noted " I ordered the peach coppa pizza... I think this might be the pear pizza"  "It's just about the same as what you ordered"  "yes... but I ordered the other one" The server mumbled something and wandered away.

We were then left on our own for at least 10 minutes. I tried one slice, definitely the wrong thing. It wasn't even warm. I wasn't sure if they were going to return with what I actually ordered. I ate my husbands fries in the mean time.

We tried flagging someone down repeatedly - and finally after that 10 minutes, we managed to. It was the original guy who took the order, I pointed it out "I'm not sure if someone is returning with the new pizza, but this isn't what I ordered"  "It's almost the same" "Well... I'd really like what I ordered...."  "I'll check with the kitchen". Um... OK.  He came back and said it would be 4 minutes to cook what I ordered in the first place. No apology. Nothing!

I finally received the correct lunch (which has completely different toppings I might add) after my husband had finished his. We shared mine, and it was good. Bill came, no comped anything, no apology - no one made it right. It was a shame, because our food was good (other than my luke-warm original incorrect pizza). But we both left with a sour taste in our mouth. I couldn't get over the fact that no one apologized even for the completely horrible experience - I was made to feel by not one but two servers that I was putting them out that I actually wanted to receive what I originally ordered.  

As such, we won't be back - even though the food is decent and they allow you to have a dog at the outside table. It's two strikes, and I don't think I'm willing to offer a third given so many excellent alternatives in the area. Sorry, Pasta Moon.

Best brownie I have ever had in my life, hands down. No comparison. Absolutely incredible, huge, rich, moist, chocolaty, delicious.

PB Bar was great too.

Absoutely fabulous dinner at Buffalo Bistro on a beautiful, warm summer night. We sat outside on the deck (where I think everyone else was), which has a beautiful view over fields in a valley. The deck is dog-friendly as long as your dog is OK with other dogs coming up to say "hi", as the owners pooch is wandering around.

Dinner was great (there's a menu on their website) - I had a buffalo steak and my husband had the rib combo plate. It comes with veggies and potatoes. Everything was perfectly prepared, fresh, delicious. Plus our dog received a dish of water.

Service was excellent, people were friendly, and I had a delicious micro-brew with dinner (First Amendment) which was perfect on the warm summer evening. It's about a 45 min drive from Kanab where we were staying, and it isn't cheap (about $30 for each of our plates), but it was definitely worth the trip/cost.

Ridiculous delicious. A coworker was sharing some he received, and I had one cookie and kept the little packet it came in it was so delicious. Looked the place up, told husband, and he surprised me with some ordered from their online store. Oh man. The frosted cookies and brownies are amazing - they remind me of cupcakes. They are fabulous for not-homemade (they taste so fresh and quality that they may as well be). Husband loves them just as much. Going to be heading to a bunch of extra spin classes because of these things... geez. Glad to hear that they keep fresh for a long time, becuase I'm going to have to try and ration these things!

I had the green papaya salad and VT coffee here, which was OK. Peanut amount was insane, but it was OK and a large portion, and not bad for a food court area. Then we went back and I tried the Pho ga (chicken), my typical pho choice as I don't regularly eat beef. HORRIBLE. It smelled... chemical-like. You could see the powder mix floating on the top of the broth. I can't really describe it, but it was so many shades of terrible - avoid. My man and I both had stomach aches afterwards. The roti (to make up for it) was tasty, but I'm not how anyone could mess up fried+sweetened condensed milk.  (all other rotis I've had are much better, but even at it's worst this dish is tasty!)

Also, very awkward to get your own basil and sprouts and lime - you have to sort of pluck and rip the vegetables at that side area or put it all on a napkin to carry back to your table. And they were blaring both transformers and background music at the same time. Transformers would die down for whatever scene and then you'd notice blaring music from some other source. All very manic and confusing.

I went back for Pho, but I wouldn't go back again. I'm guessing this is why there were lines at the japanese place and panda but not here.

My new favorite frozen yogurt of all the other many places I've tried. Why?  It's blended. That makes it not the same as most other yogurt spots (it's no Pinkberry clone). And they give you TONS of toppings. Absolutely fabulous, sweet, creamy frogurt.  The decor (and chairs) are a little odd.

Their little candy-mint-things at the till are also very good (try blueberry).

Makes me proud to be Canadian, to boot.

Holy hell was that slice of red velvet cake a-freaking-mazing. Dot can cook. Dot can make icing. Dot uses the absolute correct amount of icing (like... the cake is a vehicle for icing.. important, and you cannot go overboard, but that cake is mostly a vehicle for icing). Most places canNOT make icing that tastes like this, and if you're not in east bay it's worth the trip. And the extra 5 days at the gym. The best icing I've had not made by my mom. Cake is good too.