The MTV Reality Show Food Marathon

I don't take enough vacations. So with the chance to go down to Corona del Mar for the day I pretended it was a vacation- and made it into a food marathon (obviously). I usually make fun of Newport/Laguna (for reasons MTV realized make for brilliantly nauseating television), but on a warm, relaxing day there wasn't much to complain about.
Lunch at the Yacht Club (please note the irony) started with a cup of delicious, simple chili (pictures to come). My last chili post about Carney's proclaimed its chilian greatness. But Carney's chili is grease and goo, while this was chunky and fresh- ground beef, beans and cheese melded together perfectly under crisp oyster crackers. Follow that with a huge bacon and mayo filled club sandwich, some wine spritzers and take the yacht out for a spin around Newport Harbor... Not really, but that's the type of meal it was.
We lazily made our way to Balboa Island where we found Balboa Candy. The store has every single candy you could imagine, from fresh taffy to Everlasting Gobstoppers, blinged-out candy grillz, Nerds ropes, fudge, Jelly Beans, licorice,
to gummy everything to a fridge full of limited distribution sodas. Down the street at Dad's Donuts I got a Balboa Bar. It's a block of vanilla ice cream on a stick, dipped in chocolate and covered in sprinkles, nuts and crushed Oreos. Not as good as Milk's but still very good.
After that we drove up to the Crystal Cove Shake Shack, which is now under the reign of Ruby's. Although it's not as bad as TGIF's or some other corporate chain it's still not the mom-and-pop shop that it once was. That said, Ruby's makes a good milk shake and that's what we were there for. I was torn between the birthday cake shake (which supposedly tastes like Duncan Hines white cake) and the special pumpkin milk shake. Although October in Newport looks like mid summer elsewhere, I opted for the fall flavor.
It was very thick. After Mozza's pumpkin gelato pie it had its work cut out for it. I enjoyed it but it wasn't the best shake I've ever had.I'll definitely be back for the rest of the flavors.
We ended at Muldoon's. It's an Irish pub in a shopping mall in Newport. Despite all those things working against it, the food was very good, the space is beautiful, with a large tree in the middle of the indoor/outdoor courtyard.
I forgot to take pictures, so this shot of the shepherds pie is towards the end of the meal. As are the bowls of sweet potato and French fries.It tasted better than it looked and looked better before I ate most of it...
Needless to say it was another great day of eating. And to top it off, Sunday night was Comme Ça... cheese, sweetbreads, bone marrow, braised oxtail, bouillabaisse, steak, mussels, fries, frites and more fries.