I think this was the first time I had ever tried French cuisine, at La Provence Restaurant & Terrace in Roseville on 4/15/2010 (for all you Americans like me…the dreaded TAX DAY!!!…ugh). Anyway, I’m off track (surprise surprise eh?…nope, not Canadian, still American). I had a kobe beef burger (yeah, I know that’s kinda weak for a French restaurant, but I got overwhelmed and couldn’t decide)…the rest of my group ordered swordfish, filet flambeed with cognac, and an open-faced lamb sandwich (tartine for those in the know). The hamburger was still pretty darn good…I don’t think it was imported kobe beef, because it wasn’t hundreds of dollars. But really, who cares…the food was excellent, the service on top of making sure we had bread, water, drinks, etc. We also had their lemon-drop martini (btw, I am single and looking for cute women that are into potty humor and bathroom reviews…ping me if you wanna join us on one of these excursions!). No wine with this meal, mostly because I’m really the only one who enjoys it, and well…I’m not so single I need an entire bottle of wine to myself!

The restaurant itself is pretty cool, with high vaulted ceilings and a warm cozy feel. If you’d never been in a French restaurant before, and your whole idea of the French is based on stereotypes (sorry people, stereotypes are still alive and well), you wouldn’t expect the restaurant to be at all like it is. Should you go, don’t feel that you have to dress to the nines, there were people in there dressed in football jerseys and flip flops (mostly us—but in all seriousness, it’s laid-back enough that no one stresses it much…and  the staff is welcoming either way).

Onto the bathroom…it’s dark and very relaxing. It’s nicely appointed, with dark tiles, dark wood around the mirrors, and a very cool wave sink. I think between Mercedes-Benz of Rocklin and La Provence, I’m gonna have to redo the sinks in my house. When I get the cajonés to do it, I’ll take pictures and put em up. Aw come on, who am I kidding…I couldn’t put in sinks to save my life! So I have to give this one four out of five rolls…it would get three-and-a-half for being an above-average bathroom and being clean, but I have to give half a roll for just that sink.

Rating:

Mmmmm…Claim Jumper. In my series of “wow-I-can’t-believe-I-waited-this-long-to-post-a-review” reviews, I visited Claim Jumper October 17, 2009. Yes folks, you read that right…I’m still…ahem…behind…

I honestly can’t remember what I had that night, but I can say without a doubt my bread choice was a sourdough roll. Sourdough bread has to be on my all-time list of favorite breads, very near (if not at) the top—and Claim Jumper does a great job on their sourdough. I even tried to become a fan on Facebook, or join a group, or something…but there weren’t any good ones (well, there was one, but it was for bakers intersted in naturally leavened breads, pretty outside my scope of “sourdough bread tastes good, I like to eat it…”). If you’re interested, you can see it here.

Okay, enough food talk…let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this review!

Their bathroom utilize dark woods and dark-colored tiles (dark green and a purple-red), and offsets that with bright lighting and a white floor (although there are dark green tiles in the floor). The result is a warm inviting—almost cheery—bathroom that’s not overly intimate or too cozy. Claim Jumper keeps their bathrooms clean, which is pretty amazing since it’s hard to even get a seat in the bar area (where we ended up sitting) on a Saturday night. Add to that generous portions and a stacked bar and if you weren’t on top of things…well, I’ll leave that to your imagination—Enjoy!

Claim Jumper gets four rolls for cleanliness and design…and I still don’t really get why bathrooms need to have AC adapters…hmm…maybe I shouldn’t ask…

Rating:

I was here on 10/01/09, apparently that was an all-Mexican meal day (I skipped lunch…not purposely, but ya know how things can go). Don Quixote’s layout shares some similarity with Chipotle (so if you’re familiar with how you order at Chipotle, you understand how you order here). I really wish Mexican restaurants would stock some hotter hot sauces though (if there are any proprietors of Mexican restaurants out there reading this right now, please click that link and order some insane sauces!!!).

This is a really crazy bathroom. I was all ready to give it four rolls from the get-go, but doing all these bathroom reviews has really lead me to be far more detailed in my reviews. I get way behind pretty consistently, as you can see if you read through the reviews…every five or six days I drop a content nuke and put that last 6 days’ worth of content in one or two days. I’m really working on improving my timing…but it hasn’t seemed to have an effect yet. Way to get off-topic…

Like I mentioned, this bathroom is pretty cool (I think I said “crazy”…but when you’re me, there’s no difference—how would you know that though? you’re not me…I’m pretty sure anyway…) The walls are covered in a brown textured wallpaper that looks like leather grain. They put clear yellowish stones in designs, and even put a clock in (really helpful when you forget your cell and have people waiting for you). Seriously, more bathrooms should have clocks in them. Some of the stones broke off (came unglued?) and haven’t been repaired yet (I’m not sure how long, maybe someone stole some of the stones?). Overall, the intelligent and cool design and overall cleanliness give this bathroom four rolls. However, I have to deduct half a roll for the unrepaired missing stones (it just looks bad).

Rating:

Whew! I’m all caught up and just doing yesterday’s (9/9/09) postings…that took a lot outta me! Hmm…maybe a poor word choice for this site…

This bathroom is done in warm earth-tones and the light is on the dim side (but not terrible). I suspect they’re conserving energy because I’ve seen more and more restrooms “going dark.”

So I’m not sure what the deal was but I ended up using both the stall and the urinal yesterday. I tried to get a picture of the one stall I didn’t use since it was pretty bad…but the stall was too dark for me to get a picture without using a flash, and I would have had to censor it (in all reality, it’s probably a good thing it was a dimly lit bathroom).

However, while I was in the stall, they sent somebody in to do what I assumed was a routine cleaning, and they flushed the one toilet (it took two or three flushes) and replaced the paper products in the other stall as well as the paper towel holder. As luck would have it, my stall ran out of toilet paper at just that moment (don’t worry, I had grabbed the last piece to open the door with). I was gonna give this a 3.5 because they got in there and took care of what they had to take care of (you’d think this would be standard practice everywhere but in my experience it isn’t), but then I realized that both of the toilet paper rolls were out in the stall I was using. Getting knocked down a half roll for that…

If ya gotta go…

Rating: