Fall Pickleball Round Up
Posted on November 19, 2024 by Ching under Pickleball.
A couple of months ago, I had the privilege of participating in a super fun Chicken N Pickle ambassador event in Overland Park, Kansas. We had 20 CNP ambassadors from Wichita compete against 20 CNP ambassadors from the Kansas City area in a team challenge. It was wonderful meeting fellow ambassadors and competing alongside my Wichita comrades. I think everyone had a great time.
The Wichita team ended up winning so that made it even better!
About a month later, we celebrated Janelle’s birthday at the Pickle Club. Pickleball birthdays are the best!
And then I took a short respite from my pickleball sabbatical to sneak in the Shangri-la tournament. Funny story about this. I made the exception for Shangri-la because I agreed to play in it with Colby right after the tournament last year — before I decided to go on sabbatical. Anyway, Colby and I were originally registered for 4.5 women’s doubles but there weren’t any teams so we decided to withdraw. The same day that we withdrew, I texted Kumar Krishnan to personally let him know that we had withdrawn so he didn’t just see it on the computer. Brian and I normally stay at Kumar’s lake house for this tournament so Kumar asked if we would still be coming down if I wasn’t playing. I told him, probably not — which is kind of a bummer because I really do like the location and the tournament itself.
Kumar was like, “Karen Taylor is waitlisted for women’s 4.0 if you still want to come down and play.” I told Kumar I would text Karen and if she’s willing to play with me then I would contact him to figure out how to “unwithdraw” myself from the tournament. LOL.
Fast forward to the tournament, I had a blast playing with Karen and we earned bronze in women’s 4.0 for our efforts. I just love the Shangri-la tournament. Actually, all of Kumar’s tournaments are fabulous and that has been the main thing that I’ve missed this year during my sabbatical.
Here are a few pics from that weekend…
After Shangri-la, we were hot and heavy into planning the Wichita Moneyball event with these fine folks.
But before Moneyball, I hosted a Super DUPR Mixed Doubles mini tournament at the Pickle Club. The competition was intense!
And our monthly CNP ambassador play was absolute fire in October.
Then we had the second annual Dink Minor Leagues team tournament at Crestview Country Club presented by InPickle Nation and Just Paddles.
And then finally, Moneyball. Honestly, all of these events deserve their own individual write up but I am so far behind in this blog. You’ll just have to settle for this crash recap. Follow this link to see all the pictures and videos from the Moneyball event and to learn about upcoming events. Till the next update!
Comment on This
Stearman Field
Posted on November 18, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Stearman Field is one of our new favorite brunch spots. Brian still likes Homegrown the best but we both definitely like Stearman for the unique setting. On a good day, you can get a little fly in action from people flying in to have breakfast or lunch and then flying back out.
Here are some pics from when we were there back in August.
They also have made to order pancakes.
Anyway, this place has become our “go to” spot to take out of town visitors so when Tom Grace came to visit a couple of weeks ago (at the beginning of November) we decided we would go to brunch there. Well, the weather was yucky that weekend and so there were no planes. What a bummer.
At least we got to enjoy some good food.
And also take a selfie.
Until next time!
Comment on This
FioRito Restaurante
Posted on November 4, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
I don’t think I’ve posted about FioRito yet but it’s quickly becoming one of our faves. It’s on the corner of Douglas and Hillside, which really isn’t the best location and, thus, a lot of restaurants have come and gone in that spot. FioRito is sticking around though, and I think it’s because their food is actually good. If you have good food and great service, people are going to come and they will return and continue to support your establishment.
They have a lovely patio which would be perfect if it weren’t for the traffic noise. Unfortunately, Douglas and Hillside is a pretty busy corner.
These are some pictures of the food we enjoyed when Brian and I had dinner there a couple of months ago.
One of the best things about FioRito is they have happy hour twice. There’s an early happy hour from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM Tuesday through Thursday and a late night happy hour everyday from 8:00 PM to close. You can’t beat cheap food and drinks!
We liked it so much that we recently returned with some friends a few weeks ago. However, I forgot that there’s no early happy hour on Fridays so we missed out on the deals. The food prices are pretty reasonable but the drinks are quite expensive so I may not be drinking there going forward if it’s not happy hour.
We did all of the dipping sauces for the bread this time.
Here are some more pictures of food.
If you’ve never been to FioRito, we highly recommend checking it out.
Comment on This
First Time at Pho KC
Posted on November 1, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Tried a new Vietnamese restaurant a couple of months ago. The blog is super behind so I’m only now posting about it.
I’ve seen some negative reviews (mostly about cleanliness, not as much the quality of the food and the service) on Facebook but, when my coworker Chris and I went (the two times we’d been recently), we really didn’t have any issues. I think we need to be more observant, I guess. I had pho and it was really good.
I would go there more frequently but it’s just not in a part of town that is convenient for me and Brian. We don’t venture out to the South side of Wichita much, as we really have no reason to. And, when I’m craving pho, we have Kim’s Noodles which is super close to our house. In fact, we took mom and dad there the other day for dinner. They’d never been before and I think they liked it.
Here are some pics of our Kim’s Noodle dinner for comparison:
It’s kind of hard to top a place that’s less than five minutes from your house. LOL.
Comment on This
Poplar Pizza
Posted on October 25, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Brian and I finally got around to checking out Poplar Pizza a couple of months ago and, in all the years that we’ve been living on this side of town, I can’t believe it was our first time. How have we not tried this place before? It was so good!
I think part of the reason that’s kept us from venturing out and trying more new places is that we’ve been on this Hello Fresh cooking at home kick. We usually get three or four meals a week, and you have to make them pretty much right away after you receive them so that usually prevents us from going out to eat. That’s not a bad thing but it does keep us from checking out all of the new or already existing restaurants in town that we’ve never been to yet.
Here’s a picture of the “specials” board on the day we went to Poplar.
They had lots of options on their cocktail menu and the drink prices are actually quite reasonable. It’s almost like happy hour prices everyday, all day. LOL.
I’m a sucker for puns so I obviously ordered the friend chicken. I am happy to report that I was not disappointed.
I think Brian got the country fried steak that day.
We shared a slice of the French silk pie for dessert.
It was really quite good. I have to say, Poplar is one of the gems of Andover. No wonder they have been around forever. We are going to have to make a return trip very, very soon!
Comment on This
