El Patio
Posted on October 18, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Went to El Patio for lunch a couple of weeks ago. We were looking for a Mexican restaurant close to work and I remembered this one from many years ago. I’m pretty sure the last time I ate here was over ten years ago. This place has been around forever. It doesn’t look like much from the outside but the food is actually pretty good. It’s gotta be otherwise it wouldn’t have survived the very competitive restaurant industry in Wichita all these years.
The interior is quite small so you’ll want to go early if you go. You’ll end up having to wait a while for a table if you go in the middle of lunch rush so either go early or go late. On the plus side, service is pretty quick so they tend to get people in and out but, of course, you can never control the diners who choose to linger. This is not a lingering kind of place, though.
Here are the pics of our food. The street tacos were mine.
It’s easy to forget about this place because it’s kind of a hole in the wall but I quite like their food. I wouldn’t object to going back at all. Until next time, GNG.
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Athens Gyros Express
Posted on October 16, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Chris Townley and I discovered a great new lunch spot close to work a couple of weeks ago. It’s only a two-minute drive. The food is cheap and it’s pretty good. I’m thinking it will be on the permanent lunch rotation from now on.
We actually came upon it because we need a super quick lunch and this place checked all the boxes. It wasn’t busy because we went I think after 1 pm but the interior seating area is quite small so I can see how they would be super packed over the lunch rush. Ordering your food to-go might be the best option on busy days. We were there after the lunch rush on the day we went so we stayed and ate at the restaurant, which was not busy at the time.
Here’s a picture of the menu in case you would like to peruse it before going to the restaurant to try the food yourself.
Chris and I ordered the exact same thing — classic gyro with a side of fries. It was surprisingly very good. But, also, I love gyros — both the sword-wielding, damsel-in-distress-saving, knight-in-shining-armor kind and the kind you eat. LOL. Jokes aside, this place is worth checking out. Until next time, GNG.
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Backyard Pickleball Invitational 2023
Posted on October 12, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I have so many ideas and not all of them actually come to fruition so I was really happy when we pulled off Backyard Pickleball Invitational 2023 last month. I think the first time I thought of this was on a rainy day a few months ago. I was at Chicken N Pickle playing with Jenny Corley, MariAnn Heeren, and Fong Witte when it dawned on me that all three of these ladies have their own private pickleball courts at home. Each of them typically have a “go to” group of players that they play with and they just play at their own courts. However, with a single court, you can’t really have too many players. Usually, you just grab three other friends for a scrimmage. So then I thought to myself, “How do we bring all these private groups together?”
Zach Nguyen is another friend I have who has a pickleball court in his backyard. He actually doesn’t live too far from me so, after playing at his house one of the times, I pitched the idea. What if we could have a pickleball tournament where we host the pool play at various private courts in the morning and then we all met up somewhere in the afternoon for bracket play? We brought Fong and Jenny into a group text and started talking about it. Then we were like, okay, what weekend would work well for this (because everyone is so busy with tournaments and travel and stuff). We originally thought about playing the bracket at a park like Seneca or Edgemoor but then another friend suggested we play the bracket at Jeff Bally’s because he has two private indoor courts at his property. He just recently completed this project so what a perfect opportunity to break it in.
Anyway, I’m busy with tournaments and stuff because there was the PPA Kansas City Open and Tulsa Pickleball Classic and Shangri-la Open and then maybe some other things in between there so like a couple of weeks before the date that we kind of tossed around they were like, “Hey, are we still doing this thing?” I’m glad they stayed on me because it is very easy for me to get distracted and just let things fall through the cracks if people don’t really seem interested. Anyway, I’m like, “Yeah, yeah. For sure we are still doing it. I’ll the registration form link.” I totally added an entire page of liability waiver in there and made people agree to it as a CYA move so none of our court hosts and organizers get sued.
During the planning stages, we were thinking we would have 12 mixed doubles teams but actually ended up with 16 because so many players wanted to play. Instead of just having pool play at Zach’s, Fong’s, and the Corleys, we also had pool play at Jeff’s (our afternoon bracket play venue).
This is the group that played at Zach’s house.
We had another great group of players at Fong’s.
This was our group at the Corleys’.
I don’t think they took a group photo in the morning at Jeff’s but we did take a bunch of pics in the afternoon during bracket play.
Here’s a highlight video I made of the day.
I’m so happy that we pulled this off and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. I hope we get to do it all again soon. Until next time, GNG.
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Our Dinner at Rancho Viejo
Posted on October 9, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
We didn’t know what time we would finish at the tournament on Saturday so we had a challenging time coordinating dinner with some other folks. However, we managed to end up at the same restaurant as Kyle, Colby, and Ronnie after all. Apparently, Rancho Viejo is the best Mexican restaurant in the area.
This is skill right here.
Obligatory food pictures…
Thank you to the Krishnan’s for a lovely dinner. Until next time, GNG.
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The Anchor at Shangri-la
Posted on October 6, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
My women’s doubles partner for the Shangri-la tournament, Colby Fugit, took complete charge of picking out our uniforms for that tournament. She chose our dress and our shoes. We were matchy-matchy from head to toe so naturally we had to take a bunch of photos. Thank you to Kyle Rinck, Colby’s mixed doubles partner, for being our photographer for these photos.
Brian took this one after our podium pic. I don’t normally do the bite the medal thing, but Colby wanted to do it and I let her call the shots on our outfits I was just rolling with it. It was a nice, relaxed, fun day overall.
After we were done playing, Colby, Brian, and I had lunch at the Anchor, the onsite restaurant. We actually like the food there and Brian is a huge fan of their giant pretzels. Here are some pics of our lunch that day.
I actually really like that there’s a restaurant right there so you don’t have to leave the tournament to eat. And you can even eat lunch while watching your friends play because you can bring your food out to the court area or eat on the patio.
We ate at the Anchor again after mixed doubles on Sunday before hitting the road and starting our drive back to Wichita.
Brian really likes their flatbread pizza, as you can tell. He gets them every time.
I really like their fries.
Anyway, if you’re ever in the area, gotta eat there at least once. It’s specially convenient if you don’t want to have to hop in your car and go somewhere. Until next time, GNG.
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