Archive by Author
Bella Vita Bistro
Posted on September 13, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
We always make fun of Wichitans because Wichita West-siders don’t ever go to the East side of town and Wichita East-siders don’t ever go to the West side. Ironically, with the exception of driving all over town pickleball (and Zumba classes back in my totally addicted to Zumba life stage), I am actually one of “these” people we poke fun at. Guilty as charged. In my defense, it’s human nature to want to stick to our comfort zones.
To that end, whenever we crave Italian food, we always end up at Carrabba’s or another Italian resto on the East side of town (the side where we live). I’ve heard many, many great things about Bella Vita Bistro over the years but we had never been. Why? Because it’s on West Street and we would actually have to drive to the “other” side of town to eat there.
We finally had a reason to go a couple of months ago when we were meeting some friends (Grant and Susie Ternes) who live on the West side. West Street, though closer to them than us, is actually somewhat centrally located all things considered. Plus, I had never been there and was curious to try it. And, although I’d be coming from home because I work remotely on Fridays, Brian would be coming from his office on the West side of town so the restaurant was actually super close to him.
I think for a long time Bella Vita was only open for dinner (5 PM to 9 PM Monday through Saturday) but they recently started this Friday lunch buffet thing so we decided to go there for lunch and check it out.
The restaurant doesn’t really look like much on the outside. So, unless you heard of how great the food is from someone else or a friend invites you to go, it’s not really a place where you’d drive by and instantly be like, “We gotta go check that place out!” Most definitely not something Brian gravitates to, restaurant-wise.
Naturally, I took pictures of everything. Or I tried to, anyway. The lunch buffet is quite extensive.
They had some smoked salmon as part of the antipasti and some beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp dishes. They literally had something for everyone.
These garlic bread knots were also great. They kind of remind me of the delicious bread you get at Genova in Newton but smaller.
Okay, now that I’m looking back, the Genova bread is way better but these garlic bread knots were pretty darn good too.
They also had a couple of salad options, some pasta salad, some soup, and a crap ton of desserts. Truly, they had something on the buffet for everyone.
These are the things that actually ended up on our plates.
Brian, who is kind of picky, didn’t think the dishes were hot enough. I mean, I get it. It’s a buffet after all, and the food is sitting out in the chaffing trays. But, at $20 per person, I thought the food was delicious and an excellent value.
I tried a little bit of everything, which you really can’t do unless you go to dinner with 12 friends who are nice enough to let you taste all their food. Or you would have to go to the restaurant 12 different times to order the various entrees on the menu. This way, I got to sample just about everything and, honestly, I thought all of it was quite good. I would totally do this buffet again. It is far less work than finding 12 friends to go to dinner and convincing every single person to order something different and asking them for a taste. Yeah, that’s probably not happening.
My friends are nice and they humor me by letting me take pictures of their food BEFORE they eat it but letting me influence what they order AND letting me taste their food is probably a stretch. I mean, I can think of a handful of people who maybe would let me but the rest would just laugh at my face.
Verdict? This is probably one of the best lunch buffets in Wichita. The food is good and the price is right. If you’ve never been to Bella Vita, I highly recommend hitting the lunch buffet first. For about $20, you can sample a great selection of the entrees that you’re going to see on their dinner menu and then, when you find the dish you love most, go back for dinner and order it so you can have it hot and fresh and made just for you. Bon appetit!
No Comments
Ching’s First Jury Duty Experience
Posted on September 9, 2024 by Ching under Life.
Where to begin on this one? A few months ago, I got my first Jury Duty summons. When I first received it, I was kind of excited because I had never been on Jury Duty before so it was going to be an all-new adventure for me. As you know, I am all about new experiences. But then, Brian started telling me how awful it would be. He said they would take my phone away and I wouldn’t be able to play pickleball or do Zumba. So then I began to dread it.
Not knowing what to expect, a friend of mine recommended that I watch the Jury Duty docu-series on Amazon Prime. Of course, I made Brian watch it with me. Without ruining the show for you, so many crazy things happened. It was completely wild. Having been through Jury Duty before, Brian told me it wasn’t anything like that. He said much of it was consistent but they only showed the interesting parts in the documentary and most of it is completely tear-your-eyes-out boring. Like 95% of the time you are going to be bored out of your mind. To be fair, the documentary isn’t really a “real” documentary. The show is more like a comedy documentary (if there is such a thing) but that’s all I can say without ruining it. I guess you’ll just have to watch.
So how was my experience? I actually didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would based on Brian’s recollection. I found the experience quite educational, actually. More on that in a minute.
One of the biggest differences between my experience and Brian’s is that, when Brian did it, they only gave them 30 minutes for lunch. On top of that, when they went down to the building cafeteria, it was closed and so all they had was vending machine food/snacks. Not only was he bored out of his mind, he also nearly starved to death. But, when I did it a couple of months ago, not only did we get a full hour for lunch, nearly every single time we returned from lunch or break, it took a good 20-30 minutes before we resumed so we really got hour and a half lunches.
On the first day, I thought I would be there all day and wouldn’t get longer than 30 minutes for lunch so I packed some fruit and an adult lunchable, and also had Brian drive me (so I wouldn’t have to mess with the parking garage). We ended up getting an hour so I had Brian meet me for lunch. That’s the day I discovered Tacos y Mariscos, this amazing taco truck that served all sorts of street tacos. You could get beef, chicken, pork, and even shrimp. I told myself, if they’re back the next day, I’m eating their food again.
As far as Jury Duty itself, I ended up being assigned to a criminal case presided by Judge Dahl. I found out that there are two types of cases you could be summoned for — criminal and civil. Criminal cases usually finish within a week, whereas civil cases can last for multiple weeks. Therefore, if you do not want to be on Jury Duty for an extended period, pray that you get on a criminal case.
The case I was on was a sexual assault that took place clear back in December 2020. Because of the backlog (partially due to everything getting shut down due to COVID and other factors), the trial wasn’t happening until almost 4 years later. They start with an overview and introductions — the Judge is in the room along with the prosecuting attorney, the defense attorney, and the defendant — and then go through a series of questions to discover if there might be underlying biases or other reasons (health, personal, etc.) why each prospective juror should be excused. I gathered that at least half (there were about 40 of us in the room that they were trying whittle down to 12 plus 2 alternates) of the people there did not want to be there and were actively trying to get out of Jury Duty. They’re looking for 14 people to hear the case objectively. Only 12 will have votes that count but they don’t tell you who the 2 alternates are because they want every single juror to pay attention. The fear is that if you think you’re an alternate, then you tune out most of the time and then something happens to one of the jurors and you actually step in, but you know nothing because you haven’t been paying attention. So they were going to choose 14 of us to say but the 2 alternates will not know that they’re actually alternates. So that’s the plan.
Ideally, you want to get all the way through jury selection on the first day so you can begin the trial the next day. Sometimes, you get lucky, and jury selection is completed super efficiently and you can actually begin the trial on the first day. My coworker Shane Batchelder who happened to be Jury Duty the same week (ran into him outside on our lunch break) was on a case and they actually got to begin the trial on Monday afternoon.
Anyway, when we were released on Monday afternoon, we were nowhere near getting the jury selected. Realizing that the trial couldn’t start on Tuesday morning because jury selection wasn’t complete, I was actually beginning to doubt whether this whole trial could finish by Friday. However, Judge Dahl seemed confident that we wouldn’t have to be there all week and he’s been through hundreds of these and this is only my first one, so what do I know? I did know that we were going to get at least an hour for lunch so I decided to drive myself the next day. Which, I’m glad I decided to drive because everyone ended up being released early. I remember going to break before lunch, maybe around 10:30 AM, and they told us to come back a certain time. We all came back on time like obedient little children and then 10-15 minutes passed and we still didn’t resume. Another 30 minutes passed and still nothing. We waited and waited, until it was like lunch time and still nothing. I remember thinking, “Well, now it’s time to break for lunch.” We were all just sitting there, captive, awaiting further instruction. I guess the one nice thing is that they don’t take your phone away anymore (they just make you put it on silent and promise to pay attention and not be on your phone during the sessions) so I was able to check emails and catch up on things in the meantime.
When the Judge and the clerk returned, they ended up releasing us to return to the jury assembly room for further instruction. Down there, we all ended up getting released, which is what I thought would happen because by Tuesday afternoon, all of the trials that needed jurors would have started already.
Come to find out, during the break (and all of that time we were waiting), they were making deals behind the scenes. The defendant ended up accepting a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to fewer counts but, I suppose, it was a win-win for everyone because the case wouldn’t go to trial. We get to skip everything and fast forward to sentencing, which just happens to be this week (if I remember correctly). I looked it up after we got released. You’re not allowed to look up anything, do any kind of research, or talk to anyone about the case/trial and I’m a good girl who follows instructions so I really didn’t look into it until after.
I was tempted to go to the sentencing hearing. Alas, I cannot because it’s during the work day. However, I am really curious what the sentence is. Granted, he plead guilty to fewer counts than what he was originally charged but this is the second such conviction for this defendant so who knows what the sentence will be? I guess I will just have to look it up later. Check back in a week and I’ll try to provide an update (if I can remember).
No Comments
The Flight Bar at Chicken N Pickle
Posted on September 6, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
If you haven’t checked out the Flight Bar at Chicken N Pickle, I highly recommend it. The flights are an excellent deal. You get to sample several drinks for a very reasonable price. And the pours are quite generous. Check out these pics.
Besides the delicious drinks, they also have a collection of fun games so you can go hang out and play games with your friends while enjoying the flights.
Here’s the menu for when you go:
You can get four different flights — margarita flight, mimosa flight, and wine flights (red or white) — and there’s also light fare that you can share like various dips, wings, and other things. But for the best deals, I recommend going during happy hour. Let me know what you think when you visit!
No Comments
The End of an Era
Posted on August 30, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
For many years, Espresso To Go Go has been open everyday except for Tuesday. Then, a couple of months ago, they updated their hours to be open 7 days a week. Super awesome, right? Except then, shortly after that, they decided to close for good. It is the end of an era, and a super sad time for all coffee lovers. 🙁
On their final week of business, even the universe was sad. Mother Nature delivered tears of rain. I feel like it rained every morning that week. My coffee buddy Chris Townley and I braved the rain for one last fix.
Goodbye, Icy Queen Ann. Until we meet again.
No Comments
Parking Changes Coming to Wichita
Posted on August 26, 2024 by Ching under Community.
I’m taking a break from catching up this super behind blog to talk about the parking changes that are coming to downtown Wichita in 2025. A few weeks ago someone posted about the parking changes because the changes that were being implemented on January 1 were extending beyond just downtown. It was also impacting Delano district. Delano is where the Senior Services of Wichita and Seneca Park (across the street) is located. They were concerned about how the parking changes would impact parking in the area and how this would create a hardship for seniors, not just financially but also because we all know that many seniors are technologically-changed.
When I saw that there were a couple of meetings at Senior Services and one of them was at 5 PM on a Thursday, I decided to attend that one. I had to reschedule a waxing appointment to do so but I had to know what was going on. I stole the photos below from the Senior Services Facebook page and they are from the Monday morning meeting. They’re better than my photo from Thursday so I decided to use theirs instead.
Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson came to address the group, which mostly consisted of people who are very upset about the parking changes. As you would expect, the people in the community in favor of the changes or those who are indifferent, didn’t really feel a need to attend. I fall under the indifferent category and mostly attended out of curiosity.
In all other cities that Brian and I have visited, we’ve had to pay for parking in the downtown areas, so I am neither surprised nor against the idea of paying for parking. It seemed to me that the parking rates/fees would be reasonable and that the monies collected would go toward maintenance and upkeep of parking and would benefit the immediate area overall so I don’t mind having to pay. As a consumer my main concern was whether it would be convenient, e.g. will there be an app and multiple options to pay for parking because if it’s a pain in the neck then, no matter how cheap it is, people will be discouraged from going to the area just because they won’t want to mess with parking.
As a pickleball player, another concern I had is of the impact to parking around Seneca Park. It’s currently free to park all around the park and also along the street in front of Senior Services. None of the information I had seen showed that this area would be affected by the parking changes but I wanted to know for sure.
Anyway, let’s share some background information first. Here’s a parking report presented by Health ICT back in 2018.
Troy also mentioned this video about the high cost of free parking which supports the notion of moving towards charging for parking in certain areas of the city. Having traveled to other places where paid parking is now the norm, I completely understand why the city wants to move in this direction; however, it’s been really nice having free parking available in our city.
At the meeting at Senior Services on Thursday, we got to see a sample parking payment kiosk and we got to see the maps of impacted areas.
The map above depicts the area that they’re looking to implement paid parking starting on January 1. The picture below is a closer look at Delano. It looks like paid parking will be mostly along Douglas and there might be some paid parking along Walnut, Handley, Osage, Oak, and Sycamore also (but I’m not quite sure what all the color-coding actually means).
It looks like the area around Seneca Park will be largely unaffected; however, I am worried that people who don’t want to pay for parking along Douglas and Walnut will end up parking on the street along Seneca Park and walk to wherever they’re going thus, making parking more limited for pickleball players who frequent the park. It’s possible but we don’t really know for sure what will happen and how people will behave until they implement the changes. I do know there are quite a few people who are vehemently against the idea and they were quite vocal at the meeting I attended last week.
There is another meeting happening tonight at Nortons Brewing Co. If you are at all interested in the changes that are coming, I highly recommend attending.
No Comments
