Archive for "Food and Drink"
The Blue Moose
Posted on March 20, 2014 by Ching under Food and Drink.
I had the opportunity to check out Blue Moose while I was in Topeka last week.
Here are some pictures of our food.
This is what I had. It was good but very salty. I like salty foods so I didn’t mind it. The dish would have been way too salty for Brian, though.
Overall the restaurant had a pretty good menu selection. Everyone seemed to be happy with their dinner. As far as Topeka restaurants go, I still like the Blind Tiger best but I wouldn’t mind returning to Blue Moose again.
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Firebirds
Posted on March 9, 2014 by Ching under Date Ideas, Food and Drink.
I had to take Brian on a proper date after making him sit through The Chalk Garden last weekend. Plays are not really his cup of tea. He was a good sport about it, though.
We started out date night with dinner at Firebirds. Brian had never been there. His parents tried it for the first time on their last trip to Wichita and really liked it so I figured he probably would too.
Here’s a photo of their signature drink.
Here are some pictures of our food.
We started out with crab cakes. Their crab cakes have great flavor but what I really like most about them is how chunky they are. There’s huge hunks of crab meat and not much filler. Just the way a crab cake should be.
Their bread reminds me of an extra large pandesal.
Brian had the smokehouse chicken sandwich.
I really wanted the crab cake salad because Darcy really liked it the last time we were there. However, I had to pick something else since we had crab cakes for our appetizer. Ended up getting the Colorado chicken salad which is really good too. It’s not as good as my favorite chicken salad at Red Rock Canyon Grill but I thought it was delicious and I’d order it again.
I ate light because I was saving room for dessert. I’ve been having sweet cravings lately.
The big daddy chocolate cake really hit the spot. The cake is so huge that Brian and I couldn’t finish it. I had to take the rest of it home.
I wasn’t overly impressed with Firebirds when my coworkers and I ate there for lunch a while ago, but I was really pleased with our experience the other day. Our server was attentive and friendly and the food was good. Brian really liked it. Our dinner at Firebirds was a great start to our date night.
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Cravings Gluten Free Bakery
Posted on February 22, 2014 by Ching under Food and Drink, Things to Do.
When I joined Adventurous Babes Society last year, I had no idea it would actually lead to adventures and meeting cool women. Mostly I joined because I wanted to get one of the cool purple t-shirts (they are very high quality, by the way) and that’s the only way to get one. Actually, my friend Ethel told me about it and I’m impressionable and impulsive and will join anything that sounds like a good idea so I did.
It’s a lot like what happened with Zumba. I became a ZIN member to get discounts on Zumba gear. LOL.
Anyway, I’d been sitting on my membership for months now and hadn’t actually participated on an adventure until recently. Normally, I’m not able to attend events because I’m either at work or working out or teaching Zumba. The other day I happened to see that one of the other ABS members couldn’t make one of the adventures so she was giving up her ticket. It worked out perfect because I was on a brief break from working out because I fell ill (quite suddenly) on Wednesday. And as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Literally, I had 100 degree fever one day and was back to 97.6 temp within 24 hours. I didn’t want to miss any work though, so I suspect that I just willed myself well. Mind over matter, so to speak.
I wasn’t taking any chances, though. My plan was to lay off working out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so I could be well enough to teach my Zumba classes on Saturday. The doctor, who just happened to be checking my ankle on Thursday afternoon, agreed it was a good plan.
I spent a lot of time waiting around in the examination room so that’s when I found out that there was a seat available at the Death by Chocolate preview adventure. Death by Chocolate is an annual fundraising event at the Exploration Place. As with most adventures, I wanted to do this one but I didn’t sign up because I would normally be at Zumba on Thursday night. As luck would have it, the stars aligned. I was off workouts and a seat happened to become available. I found myself at my very first ABS adventure, just like that. This was a great one to start off with too because it didn’t require any physical activity. LOL.
All we had to do was sample these delicious gluten free confections by Cravings Gluten Free Bakery and provide feedback in preparation for their participation in Death by Chocolate. Such hard work, I know!
Everything you see in the photo above was gluten free. That’s not the amazing part. The amazing part is that everything was delicious! I usually don’t have high expectations for gluten free foods, but you couldn’t tell these creations were gluten free at all. In fact, it was hard for me to pick a favorite because everything tasted great. When we went around to tell the group what we liked best, I picked one of the cake balls with pop rocks because all of the items equally tasted good to me and I’d never had pop rocks before. I was so amused by the sounds they made as I was eating them. Oh, and I picked the white cake balls instead of the dark ones because they made louder popping sounds as I was eating them. I didn’t want to tell everyone that I’d never had pop rocks before, though. I didn’t want them to think I was silly. Everyone has tried pop rocks before. Well, everyone except me it seemed. Until last night, of course.
Anyway, I had a wonderful time tasting some delicious gluten free goodies and meeting some truly amazing women. I can’t believe I waited so long to join an adventure. I’m thinking now that I really need to make time and squeeze more adventures into my busy schedule. My next one is the Let’s Dance adventure on March 9. I am so looking forward to attending!
In the meantime, Death by Chocolate is on March 8. Best of luck to the Cravings team. I hope you guys win!
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For more information about the Adventurous Babes Society and to join, simply visit their web site. Use Ching Brubaker as a referral and I get a free baseball cap after three new members! You don’t know what you’re missing out on!
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My Fancy Dinner with Jane at Fleming’s
Posted on February 15, 2014 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
This dinner was 20+ years in the making so it was only fitting that we went to a fancy schmancy restaurant. Oh, yes. Only the finest for my dear Jane. 😉
Here are some pictures of our food.
The spreads are tasty, but the bread got cold too quickly.
This is a picture of Jane’s filet.
Jane’s baked potato.
My chicken, which was surprisingly very good. But for the price, it better have been. LOL. I think I could feed 4 people at Applebee’s for the price of that piece of chicken.
This is the most delicious sautéed spinach I have ever tasted. I don’t know what Jane thought of her dinner, but I was very, very happy with the food that I ordered. My food was so good that the price didn’t even bother me and you all know how much of a cheapskate I am. LOL.
The dessert was great too. In the middle of our meal, our server asked if we wanted dessert because they had one particular dessert that takes 20 minutes to make. When she gave us our options, that was the exact one that we wanted. I told her the 20 minutes didn’t bother us because we’ve waited 20+ years to see each other. Twenty measly minutes is nothing.
The last time I saw Jane was March 1993. That’s when my family moved from Las Piñas (a city located in the island of Luzon in the Philippines) to Colorado. Jane moved to the US in 2000 but we never had the opportunity to see each other until now. It’s funny because our mutual friend Sheryll only lived in the US for three years or so and yet I saw her four times. Jane has been in the US for 14 years and this is the first time we’d gotten together.
I initially planned to take her to dinner at Yard House because their food is familiar to me. There’s one at Legends that I’ve dined at a few times and I really like it. The prices are pretty reasonable. I planned to buy dinner so that was a factor.
My friends who attended the Zumba Conference with me wanted to go to dinner before the theme party on Saturday night. We initially thought we would go to Fleming’s but then nixed the idea after seeing the prices. Everything is a la carte so the cost of dinner would add up really quickly. After considering our other options, we ended up at Yard House where I had originally planned to take my friend Jane. Anyway, it worked out for the best because, out of all our restaurant options at LA Live and Nokia Plaza, Yard House seemed to have the best vegetarian selections. One of the women I traveled to the conference with is a vegetarian.
That meant no Yard House on Sunday night. Jane wanted steak so that really only left one place: Fleming’s. Oh, irony! LOL. I was trying to be cheap on Saturday night and managed to avoid Fleming’s only to end up there the next night when I was actually footing the bill. The universe is funny that way.
Of course, the food was really good and I hadn’t seen Jane in over 20 years so it was totally worth it. Don’t ask how much it was, though. It actually cost more per person than our dinner at Duck City. At least there we got appetizers and soups (the best soup ever) and I think Lance even had a glass of wine. I don’t think Brian and I have even come close. Well, maybe once. LOL.
I hope Jane knows how truly special she is to me. She managed to get her cheapskate friend to buy a really expensive dinner and spring for an extra night at the JW Marriott at LA (also not cheap) just to make dinner happen. And, what a delightful dinner it was. I had a great time catching up. Hopefully, it won’t take another 20 years for us to get together again.
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Yard House at LA Live
Posted on February 10, 2014 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
Here are some pictures from our dinner at Yard House.
I love Yard House because the food is reasonably priced and reasonably good and they have great reasonably priced drinks. Reasonable for LA anyway. LOL.
I think it’s going to be tough for you guys to figure out which plate is mine because I didn’t order my usual mac and cheese. Even though I deviated from my usual, I wasn’t disappointed. I enjoyed my dinner so much that I actually want to drive out to Legends in Kansas City and take Brian to dinner at the Yard House there.
Have you figured out what I had for dinner yet?
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