good for groups Archives

I had the chance to eat dinner at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar in Pleasanton with some friends, and it was so fun, I had to blog about it!

By the way, this is located near the Livermore Outlets by the way, if you’re in the area for some shopping, and still have money leftover. 😛

Eating at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar was an interactive experience, almost a game, and I loved it. Here are the basic instructions of how it works. Once you sit at the table, you can order items from a menu on a tablet at the end of table.

Then things start magically coming down the conveyer belt! You pick them up and enjoy your tasty food. They have so many menu items from sushi and hand rolls, to ramen!

The food comes in these little containers that pop open and you grab your plate.

Here are some snapshots of the food! I got a California roll of course. I know I’m so American.

So many choices on the menu!

I think the most thrilling part was ordering things from the tablet and eagerly anticipating them to come down the conveyer belt. Sometimes it’s a little too easy to order and you get carried away with too many orders in the queue!

Also because they’re geniuses, the restaurant also gamified the ordering/eating process. I believe the game part was called Bikkura-Pon. Every time you finish a plate, you discard it into a plate drop at the end of the table. The tablet keeps a count of how many plates you’ve put in there (so it can tally up the price of your meal – a set price multiplied by # of plates). BUT you also get rewarded the more plates you put in there.

After like 10 plates or so, there’s a fun little cartoon animation that plays on the tablet screen. And after 15 plates or so, there’s a little prize thing that drops from above. That was exciting! It was like automated, so it seemed like magic! And of course, it made us want to EAT MORE – in increments of 15 plates to be exact!

I captured a little video of it here: Bikkura-Pon Game Kura Sushi Bar

The prize that came out!

The anticipation…

A food keychain of a creamy tart..meh it’s alright. I don’t know who ended up keeping it. But the process was more fun than the end result. Ha!

Anyhow, we had a great time eating here! I would love to come back. Note that the line is really long, but I think they have an app where you can “get in line.”

And after you’re so bursting full, you can head several doors down to 85C Bakery for some dessert!!

APPLE HILL

Visiting apple farms is a fun fall activity with friends or family!

Over Labor Day weekend, I visited Apple Hill for the first time and I highly recommend the experience. Apple Hill represents over 50 local farms – many of them are apple farms, but they also grow other fruits and veggies, Christmas trees, and flowers. Some are wineries as well. It’s also really crowded before Halloween because people are picking up pumpkins.

Visiting Apple Hill is a half-day to full-day activity. While you don’t pick your own apples, the main attraction is to see the farms and try all the delicious apple-themed food!

Apple Hill is located in Placerville, CA – about an hour away from Sacramento.

MAP OF FARMS

It’s nearly impossible to visit all the farms, so pick the top ones that you want to go to. Here’s the map. Some farms may not be on the map though. Depending on the crowds, there may be a lot of traffic or it may be hard to find parking. When we went on Monday morning (Labor Day), there wasn’t many crowds at all, so we luckily got to visit a bunch of farms.

FARMS WE VISITED

Here are the places we stopped at. I went with family who were familiar with the farms and the specialties at each farm.

High Hill Ranch – has a lake thing, lots of seating areas, food, and lot of independent vendors
Abel’s Apple Acres – Caramel apples and pastries and pies
Boa Vista Orchards – Ciders, pastries, pies, and a bomb apple fritter!
Larsen Apple Barn – Bought fresh apples here. They have a bake shop with food too.
Mill View Ranch – Cider donuts and hot apple cider
Delfino Farms – Apple pie is amazing

High Hill Ranch

Mill View Ranch

Sample ciders at Boa Vista

APPLE TREATS

I had no idea there were so many types of baked goods and things you could make with apples. There was apple cider and apple sauce of course. But there was also: apple butter, apple brownies, apple chips, carmellows, empanadas, fritters, cider donuts, apple donut ice cream sandwich, caramel apples, apple wine, cream cheese apple pie, and many other types of apple pies.

Caramel Apples at Abel’s Apple Acres

Bakery at High Hill Ranch

Apple Butter at High Hill Ranch (Available at other farms too)

Carmellows at High Hill Ranch (caramel wrapped around marshmallow)

Some farms also had a frozen food section where they had frozen pies or frozen apple turnovers or pastries that you could take home and bake. Ahh I wish I could have bought those, but I didn’t have a cooler to store them in. 🙁

Frozen treats at Abel’s Apple Acres

WHAT WE TRIED

The good thing about going in a group is that you can split some of these pastries. I definitely had too much sugar by the end of the morning. LoL

Cider donut at High Hill Ranch

Apple empanada at Abel’s Apple Acres

Apple fritter at Boa Vista

Apple Dream Salad at Larsen’s Bake Shop

Cider donuts and hot apple cider at Mill View Ranch

Apple pie at Delfino Farms – it’s a monster!

FRESH APPLES

You can also get fresh apples at these farms of course. Apples are great to bring home and share with people, whereas the pastries are hard to take home. We got the apples from the Larsen Apple Barn, where they have a cool conveyer belt and someone checking the apples. On the side of the barn, they also have bags of different types of apples you can buy. Crispy, crunchy, fresh apples at Larsen Apple Barn – YUM!

WHEN TO GO

You’ll have to check out the website to figure out when the farms are open, but it’s not open year-round. I think it’s mostly open from Labor Day weekend to Christmas Eve each year. Depending on the month you go in, different apple varieties will be in harvest as well. You can check the Harvest Calendar for your favorite type of apple.

Have fun exploring the apple farms!!

You may also want to check out:
Magical Bridge Playground
Interactive Sushi Experience
Meatball Mondays at Bucca di Beppo
What a Toddler Taught Me About Business

good for groups

Interactive Sushi Experience at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar

Apple Hill Farms: Fresh Apples, Donuts, Cider, Pies, Caramel Apples, and More