Catching Fire
Posted on November 26, 2013 by Ching under Movies, Zumba.
Saturday was busier than usual. Started out with my last Saturday Zumba class of the year at Evergreen Recreation Center. After that it was off to Chipotle for a quick lunch before our dental appointment.
We arrived at the dental office early hoping that they could get us in earlier than our scheduled appointment. No such luck. Instead we ended up going to Pier 1 to pass the time. But it worked out because I got to pick up some new Christmas decorations.
Lucky for us the dentist was running on schedule so we were both able to get out of there shortly after two o’clock, which meant I was able to make it to the Zumbathon at Bishop Carroll High School on time. That was a lot of fun.
After that Brian and I had to shower and get ready quickly so we could head to Cheddar’s and put our group on the waiting list. They don’t take reservations or call ahead. They are strictly first come, first served. The hostess I spoke with on the phone on Friday night was pretty adamant about that. LOL.
We had to wait at the bar for our table because of the 40-minute wait. And, Cheddar’s isn’t able to accommodate large groups so we were actually seated in three different booths. Thankfully, the booths were pretty close to one another so at least we weren’t in opposite sides of the restaurant.
I took some pictures while we were waiting because that’s what I do.
I had two of these yummy concoctions that night.
Booth number one…
Booth number two…
Cheddar’s does pretty well for a restaurant that just serves okay food. I think the one thing they’ve got going for them is their proximity to the movie theater. I bet they do extremely well whenever there’s a big movie out.
Their croissants are pretty good too. Brian and I always order some when we’re there. So there is that. The food prices are pretty reasonable also so you can’t really go wrong there. It’s an easy choice for a pre-movie dinner. I just wouldn’t recommend them for large groups like ours. We had a total of 17 people that night at the restaurant, with 16 going to the movie.
The movie was great. I definitely felt my two Maui margaritas during a couple of parts, but I managed to stay awake.
I think everyone enjoyed the movie and had a great time. Thanks to Andrea and Carla for hatching the plan to go to the movies together.
We’ll definitely need to do this again soon!
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The Bigger, Blacker Box
Posted on November 19, 2013 by Ching under Games.
My box expansion for Cards Against Humanity arrived yesterday. Complete with foam blocks and other surprises.
There’s a bonus card hidden inside the lid.
I think that is the best part really. It only came with 20 new cards and they’re not as good as the cards from the original game and the first three expansions. I mean, they’re about boxes. Blech. However, the web site advertises that I can use the big box as a bludgeon. So that’s something. Though I haven’t tried it — yet.
Speaking of games, Brian and I learned a new game yesterday. It’s called Nertz. It’s the party game of choice at Brian’s work Christmas party, which we’ve missed for the last couple of years because it always falls on the same night as my work Christmas party and we always end up going to mine. This year we are fortunate that the two Christmas parties are on separate weekends so we can finally attend. Anyway, we just learned about the game yesterday so we’ve been practicing. We’re not very competitive. Can you tell?
Oh, Brian wanted me to point out that he won every single round we played tonight. I think it’s his Brian pills. He has an unfair advantage. Lucky for me, we’re playing on the same team come the night of the Christmas party. We’re taking this baby down!
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Date Night
Posted on November 17, 2013 by Ching under Date Ideas, Events, Food and Drink.
Brian and I started our date night at Taste and See 2 in Old Town.
The restaurant has been open for several weeks now, but this is our first trip there since we both have been very busy.
Chef Jason Febres and Steven Bacci have really stepped it up. The place looks fantastic and the server uniforms look really spiffy.
We started dinner with one of our favorite tapas: queso fondue.
Brian had his usual, the real Cubano with truffle fries.
I wanted to be adventurous and try something that I’d never had before, the saltinbocca. How can you go wrong with chicken and prosciutto?
It was delicious. I even liked the mushroom and the cracker thing.
We left the restaurant very full and happy. The beers helped. 😉
After dinner we went on to Abode to watch Blockhead perform. Reby and Aaron were there also. Come to find out, Aaron is a huge Blockhead fan.
We actually got a real treat last night. I had no idea that Aaron is Cutter J, the Absurdist. He’s amazing!
He makes music, plays with spoons, and even tap dances.
Oh, and Blockhead was really good too.
Brian really enjoyed date night. He thanked me several times for taking him to see Blockhead. Yup. That’s what I do. I plan great dates. LOL.
Here’s a link to Taste & See 2 on Urbanspoon.
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It’s the Little Things
Posted on November 16, 2013 by Ching under Confessions.
A year ago I was invited to attend a super secret meeting with Don, Jim, and some hotel chain execs who were vetting Wichita as a possible location for their newest call center. I put on my best suit for the meeting but something was noticeably missing.
Don and Jim both had fancy name tags. “Don’t you have one of these?” Jim asked. I didn’t have one then, but guess what. I have one now — thanks to the Operations team. We were all given these fancy metal name tags at the Operations leadership conference that I attended this week.
I joked to coworker/friend Sally that they had to switch to the fancy metal nameplates in place of the sticker ones so that she wouldn’t feel people up under the guise of helping them keep their name tag sticker on. So she actually gets credit for getting us all fancy metal name tags. LOL.
Jokes aside, it’s the little things that make my day. Believe it or not, I was really excited to finally get my very own fancy name tag. I have arrived!
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Post Halloween Party Aftermath
Posted on November 9, 2013 by Ching under Food and Drink, Home Ownership.
We picked up a little before we went to bed after the party last weekend, but this is the mess that we woke up to the next day.
Rather than deal with the mess straight off, Brian and I decided that this was the perfect excuse to go have brunch at a new place, Birds on the Roof Bakery & Cafe. We’d heard many good things.
The place is actually quite nice. I really like the colorful decor.
The place is kind of quirky. I like the cloth napkins, novel napkin rings, and even mismatched silverware.
The fancy water glasses are nice too, but they don’t hold much water. It wouldn’t be so bad if they refilled the water glass more frequently. I kept running out of water and it would take forever between refills.
The runny eggs were strike two. Brian specifically asked for them to be fried hard.
The bacon was good but the damage was done. Brian did not want to touch his eggs but he didn’t want to ask for them to get redone either so I ended up eating them.
There’s not many places in town you can get crepes, so that is what I ordered. Here are a couple of pictures of my chicken and spinach crepe.
I was not particularly impressed. The crepe itself was too thick and more pancake-like than I prefer. They put a lot of filling in it also which is both good and bad. It’s great that you get more chicken for your money, but all of the filling overpowered the crepe and made it even less crepe-like. Sad to say this but the chicken florentine crepe that I had at a kiosk inside the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando when we were there for the Zumba instructor convention was far superior (even if I did have to eat it out of a water cone, LOL).
Here’s the dessert display case. For a bakery, it wasn’t very impressive. It looked kind of sad and empty actually. If you’re going to tack “bakery” at the end of your name, I’m going to expect more than this sad display case. When I think of a restaurant and bakery, the display cases I’m envisioning are the likes of Bagatelle (fantastic cakes, by the way, and they always give you free dessert which is a bonus) and Copper Oven. Their bakery here seemed like an afterthought.
They served an English muffin with Brian’s breakfast and I asked for toast, neither of these tasted like they were baked on site. They gave us this hard French roll while we were waiting for our food and that didn’t taste freshly baked either. I would have much rather had Tita Tessie’s pan de sal over it.
As far as the price goes, their prices are pretty reasonable. No complaints there. Service was slow, but it wasn’t terrible, and the runny eggs were not the servers fault so we gave her $4 bucks, which is a decent tip relative the cost of our meal. We looked at the ticket and she wrote it down correctly, Brian and I concluded that the cook either wasn’t paying attention or didn’t know how to make a hard egg.
I really wanted to like this place because other people I know have loved it, but everything I liked about the place had nothing to do with the food. I like the clever name. The location is great. The restaurant has a wonderful ambiance. I like having cloth napkins and real silverware. The decor is nice and cheerful. All of that stuff is fabulous so if I’m just going there to hang out, I would totally love the place. As far as the food goes, I’ve had better breakfast meals elsewhere, so if I’m looking for somewhere to eat Birds on the Roof wouldn’t be my first pick.
On the bright side, when we came home from breakfast we were ready to tackle the aftermath of the previous night’s party. We still need to do some deep cleaning (vacuuming and mopping, etc.) but we picked up the mess and wiped all of the surfaces. Look at what we accomplished.
Our house was back to normal in no time. Of course, we were still pooped from having stayed up all night so we ended up taking a nap after this and didn’t wake up again until five in the afternoon. That was pretty much our Sunday.
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