Late Lunch/Early Supper at Carrabba’s
Posted on April 17, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Here are some pictures from our late lunch/early supper at Carrabba’s not too long ago. We haven’t been there as much since our friend Joe Parten retired as GM. It’s not quite the same without him.
My friend Karen Fox had the house salad.
Brian and I split a Caesar’s salad.
Karen got a chicken parmigiana with fettuccini Alfredo for her entree.
Brian and I split the chicken Bryan with angel hair in pomodoro sauce (something that we always used to get consistently when dining at Carrabba’s) covered in lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
This is Karen’s pomegranate martini, which was yummy but not as photogenic as my drink. (See the next pic below.)
It was a new special drink they had.
Karen and I shared this delicious butter cake topped with vanilla ice cream topped with delicious fruit for dessert. I might have been the best butter cake I have ever had. It was a delicious as it was pretty!
Not sure if this is still on the menu — it was a special item at the time — because this visit was a few weeks ago (I am so behind on posting blogs) but if it still is then you must try it! Until next time, GNG.
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Women’s Doubles Round Robin at WSU
Posted on April 14, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.
Below are some fun pictures from a women’s doubles round robin that I organized at Wichita State University a couple of weeks ago. Karen wanted to get some practice with Vickie and Erica and I wanted to practice as well. We opened the session up to other female players to get variety. It was windy but we had a great time. Here’s a short clip.
- The teams that participated were:
- Ching and Erica Lopez
- Karen Fox and Vickie Hancock
- Kimberly Howe and MariAnn Heeren
- Patti Mackey and Sveta Yakubovich
- Amy Poynter and Ann Rai
- Angela Farris and Tina Heinrich
- Becky Middleton and Huyen Nguyen
There’s not many days that are not windy here in Kansas so you just have to do the best you can. We had a great time anyway. Can’t wait to do it again.
Until next time, GNG.
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Old Mill Tasty Shop
Posted on April 13, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Old Mill Tasty Shop, a restaurant that has been around for decades, is one of my favorite lunch spots within walking distance from the office. They make my favorite chicken salad sandwich in Wichita. I think I like it best because it’s actually a chicken salad club — and everyone knows everything tastes better with bacon.
This other sandwich is just a regular club sandwich and it is what my friend Chris Townley got that day.
If I’m ever craving a club, Old Mill is the first place that comes to mind.
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My Friend Chris Wilson
Posted on April 12, 2022 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I attended a safety meeting at one of our service locations last week and ran into my friend Chris Wilson. I met Chris through pickleball and played with him for months (yes, MONTHS) before I realized that we both worked for the same company. Of course, we were working at different locations so we never ran into one another.
It wasn’t until another pickleball friend (Paul Haas), who worked for the same company, retired that I found out Chris worked at Evergy also. I was looking for someone to play pickleball with me for the Wichita Corporate Challenge and I asked Paul to play because I knew of his Evergy connection, having recently celebrated his retirement. However, Paul was like, “Why don’t you ask Chris? He still works for Evergy.” That’s how I found out. I totally had no idea we were employed by the same company until then. But then, I guess that’s what happens when your company employs over 5,000 people. You don’t really know anyone.
Anyway, Chris has been my “go to” guy for anything pickleball-related that the company sponsors. Evergy chose not to participate in the Wichita Corporate Challenge last year but, had we participated, I would have asked Chris to play with me. With the increasing popularity of the sport, more and more people are work are getting into pickleball so I guess we might have to do tryouts next time. But, back when I first discovered pickleball, I only knew of Chris and Paul and me.
When I first discovered pickleball, Paul and Chris had already been playing a long while. I was a beginner playing at West YMCA when I found Paul’s church on the West side of town — a super secret place to play pickleball that’s not even listed on Playtime Scheduler. It was my first time there and everyone knew I was not any good but they were nice enough and let me play anyway. On my very first game, they paired me with “the best guy there” — because that’s what you do with the worst player, in order to make the games more fair — and that was literally my introduction to Chris. For a long time, he was the best player I knew.
Shortly after (I’m still very much a beginner) he asked me to play in a tournament with him. It happened to be the Senior Games. At the time, I couldn’t decide if I should be flattered that he felt I was good enough to play with him or if I should be offended that he thought I was old enough to play in “senior” events.
Once I had a bit more experience, we did end up playing in some tournaments together — both sanctioned and unsanctioned — besides just the Wichita Corporate Challenge and charity tournaments. We even teamed up for Middle States Regionals. Although, it wasn’t longer after that when I got benched. Chris decided he needed a more “age appropriate” partner. By age appropriate, I mean someone who could play in 50+ events with him.
The bigger tournaments have both age and skill divisions such as 19+, 35+, 50+ and so forth. I guess he was tired of playing 35+ with me, specially when he could do so much better in 50+ events. To be fair to all competitors, players can play down in age but they can’t play up so I could not play 50+ with him. If we played together, he would have to play down to 35+ with me. It really didn’t make any sense when there were several 50+ players he could team up with.
The dissolution of our partnership was an amicable one and it actually proved beneficial to me because it gave me the opportunity to play with some higher level mixed doubles partners. It’s great to have a “young buck” with young legs to play with in younger age groups. Anyway, despite having divorced each other, Chris and I still team up from time to time for events like the Picklepalooza. And maybe the Wichita Corporate Challenge again this year (if there aren’t any other employees who want to represent our company).
Even though we have both moved on and are playing with different partners competitively (we actually had to face off against each other not too long ago in the Oak Tree tournament in Edmond), Chris is still one of may favorite pickleball players to play with and against. He’s good people and I am grateful that he has been part of my pickleball journey.
Until next time, GNG.
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Social Tap Revisited
Posted on April 11, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink.
My first time at Social Tap was a happy hour with my Leadership Wichita pals and I didn’t get to try any food. I made sure to rectify this on my second visit, which occurred months later. My first visit was last year around September. The weather was nice and we got to sit out on their patio. I can’t wait for fabulous weather like that again. This time around we dined inside.
This second visit was prompted by working up an appetite playing pickleball. I was starving and I talked Bo Tolbert, Kendra Wicks, and Ryan Kellenbarger into going with me to Social Tap for post-pickleball lunch. It was a particularly windy day so their garage doors were down and I think pretty much all the guests dined inside that day. We arrived at a good time before all the basketball fanatics showed up.
One of the things I like most about Social Tap is that they encourage you to be completely self-sufficient. You don’t have to go up to the counter or wait for a server to order. You do everything directly from your phone.
They have QR codes on each table that you scan, not just to look at the menu, but you order directly through your phone. They know where to deliver the food and drinks ordered based not the QR code that’s been scanned because, while the menus are the same, the QR codes are unique to each table.
Here are some pictures of food that we enjoyed that day.
I got the pepperoni and pineapple pizza. It had a fancy name on the menu which I do not recall. I’d never had food there before so I was a bit worried that I would be disappointed but their pizza is actually quite good. I was very happy with this choice. Below is a picture of Ryan’s pizza. I don’t remember what he got either.
I thought it worth mentioning that Social Tap has $5 mimosas and bloody Mary’s on the weekend. I’m not a bloody Mary person. The one you see in the pic is Ryan’s.
Kendra got a hotdog (pictured above) and Bo got a burger (below).
The food actually comes from the restaurants at Braeburn Square (named after the old campus golf course that used to be there many, many years ago) — Sungrano Pizza and Wheatly’s Burgers. I’m not sure if they reciprocate by letting you order drinks from Social Tap if you’re at their locations so I just automatically go to Social Tap instead to be on the safe side.
On the visit with Bo, Kendra, and Ryan, I somehow missed the $5 mimosa memo so I order a more expensive blue drink (I can’t remember what it’s called also) which was good but I would have much preferred to spend less.
Therefore, when I returned with Brian and Karen a few weeks later, I made sure to order a mimosa instead. They have various flavors to choose from. I got the pomegranate and Karen had the pineapple.
Karen got the pepperoni and pineapple pizza this time.
Brian and I shared the Kansas bird pizza on tavern crust, which kind of reminds me of lavosh. Brian and I decide that “tavern crust” is just a fancy way of saying “thin crust” pizza. Anyway, though it doesn’t photograph well, this pizza was actually not bad. Although, I still like the pepperoni and pineapple pizza better. I like that crust and that pizza overall. However, Brian has an aversion for pineapple on pizza so we had to get something that we could both agree on and that happened to be the chicken and bacon one.
I am really happy that there’s stuff on the WSU campus now, specially since the best pickleball courts in the city are located on campus and I see myself spending a lot of time there in the future. LOL.
I’ll have to try some other things on the menu so I can get new food pictures. I’ll also have to try the rest of the mimosa flavors. Stay tuned. GNG.
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