Las Abuelas
Posted on September 20, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
We recently discovered a new lunch spot super close to work. It’s called Las Abuelas and is located on Central. It’s kind of a hole in the wall and, unless you’re specifically looking for it, you probably wouldn’t even know it’s there. It’s my new favorite spot for #tacotuesday. Here are some pics!
We’ve yet to go on a different day because we really like their tacos. The best part is the tacos are only $1 each on Tuesday so it’s a way better deal than our previous #tacotuesday spot (Rain Cafe) which had tacos for $1.50 on Tuesday which is also a really good deal. We’ve talked about going on a different day so we are not tempted to get tacos because we really want to try their other dishes too. It’s just hard to pass up a good deal. LOL.
They usually have a bunch of delicious pastries in the pastry case too but, as I am creature of habit, I always end up getting flan. It one of my favorite desserts of all time and they make it really good there.
We really need to expand our horizons because they have so much good food on display and on their menu. Maybe this next week is the week that we actually order something different. Stay tuned!
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Mini Tournaments at the Pickle Club
Posted on September 17, 2024 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
It’s been a while since I’ve written about my pickleball exploits so I figured it was time. I’m giving you a break from all the restaurant and food posts for a bit. To be fair, there’s not really much to report on the pickleball front as I am currently on my tournament sabbatical year. Unlike in the past when I was sharing my pickleball adventures from the nearly weekly pickleball tournaments I was playing in, I’m barely even playing recreationally these days. However, since we are putting together another mixed doubles mini tournament at the Pickle Club in a few weeks, I thought I should share the results of the series of mini tournaments that we held over the summer.
Here are the some pictures of the winners from all three events…
July 6 – Men’s Doubles
- 1st – Matt Dutton and Derek Pruett
- 2nd – Dan Chocron and Steve Alvarez
- 3rd – Kyle Manny and Joshua Schott
July 27 – Mixed Doubles
- 1st – Susie Ternes and Ryan Kellenbarger
- 2nd – Julie Pauly and Zach Nguyen
- 3rd – Lena Quach and Fin Tatum
August 24 – Women’s Doubles
- 1st – Lacy Waugh and Lori Belew
- 2nd – Anna Le and Lena Quach
- 3rd – Jen Tiano and Monica McGehee
For all three of these events, we limited sign ups to six teams max because there are only two courts at the Pickle Club. There would be way too much waiting around otherwise. The format was round robin pool play plus single elimination bracket with a bonus third place game for the losers of the semi-final round.
Round robin games were one game to 11, win by 1 (to limit the wait). Each team played all the other teams so each team got five pool play matches. The single elimination bracket play format was best 2 of 3 games to 11, win by 2. Everyone got lots of play. All results were sent to DUPR after the event so the events are great for building up your match history and DUPR rating reliability.
These tournaments are a great value and specially since you get to pick your own partner (unlike the InPickle Nation mini tournaments that we have weekly). It a slightly different flavor. Anyway, highly recommend grabbing a partner and joining us for this one. Registration will open this weekend on the Pickle Club website.
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Mitch’s Farewell Dinner
Posted on September 16, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
This is a super late post because this dinner happened clear back in July. A few months ago, our friend Mitch Spencer took a job in Kansas City. He had several “farewell parties” but Brian and I couldn’t make any of them. I was so glad we were actually able to make this dinner. He had technically already moved and had been working at his new job a whole week already but he was back for the weekend to clean his apartment and turn in his keys. We all gathered at Sabor for one last dinner in his honor.
As is typical, I have no pictures of people. I only have pictures of food.
Brian actually got there before I did because I came from a pickleball tournament I was running at the Pickle Club. So when I got there, some people were already eating dinner. Thus, some of the pics look like this.
I did manage to get some food pictures BEFORE people started eating because some people also came from the same tournament that I was running, so I wasn’t the only one who arrived late. But I did send Brian ahead of me as my proxy and to save me seat. We generally don’t like to drive separately but this was one situation that it could not be avoided.
This was my dinner…
I always get the adobo pork. It’s my favorite thing to get there. I also always get the tres leches. So yummy!
Here are a few more dessert pics…
Best of luck to Mitch on his new job in Kansas City. Don’t be a stranger!
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Bella Vita Bistro
Posted on September 13, 2024 by Ching under Food and Drink.
We always make fun of Wichitans because Wichita West-siders don’t ever go to the East side of town and Wichita East-siders don’t ever go to the West side. Ironically, with the exception of driving all over town pickleball (and Zumba classes back in my totally addicted to Zumba life stage), I am actually one of “these” people we poke fun at. Guilty as charged. In my defense, it’s human nature to want to stick to our comfort zones.
To that end, whenever we crave Italian food, we always end up at Carrabba’s or another Italian resto on the East side of town (the side where we live). I’ve heard many, many great things about Bella Vita Bistro over the years but we had never been. Why? Because it’s on West Street and we would actually have to drive to the “other” side of town to eat there.
We finally had a reason to go a couple of months ago when we were meeting some friends (Grant and Susie Ternes) who live on the West side. West Street, though closer to them than us, is actually somewhat centrally located all things considered. Plus, I had never been there and was curious to try it. And, although I’d be coming from home because I work remotely on Fridays, Brian would be coming from his office on the West side of town so the restaurant was actually super close to him.
I think for a long time Bella Vita was only open for dinner (5 PM to 9 PM Monday through Saturday) but they recently started this Friday lunch buffet thing so we decided to go there for lunch and check it out.
The restaurant doesn’t really look like much on the outside. So, unless you heard of how great the food is from someone else or a friend invites you to go, it’s not really a place where you’d drive by and instantly be like, “We gotta go check that place out!” Most definitely not something Brian gravitates to, restaurant-wise.
Naturally, I took pictures of everything. Or I tried to, anyway. The lunch buffet is quite extensive.
They had some smoked salmon as part of the antipasti and some beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp dishes. They literally had something for everyone.
These garlic bread knots were also great. They kind of remind me of the delicious bread you get at Genova in Newton but smaller.
Okay, now that I’m looking back, the Genova bread is way better but these garlic bread knots were pretty darn good too.
They also had a couple of salad options, some pasta salad, some soup, and a crap ton of desserts. Truly, they had something on the buffet for everyone.
These are the things that actually ended up on our plates.
Brian, who is kind of picky, didn’t think the dishes were hot enough. I mean, I get it. It’s a buffet after all, and the food is sitting out in the chaffing trays. But, at $20 per person, I thought the food was delicious and an excellent value.
I tried a little bit of everything, which you really can’t do unless you go to dinner with 12 friends who are nice enough to let you taste all their food. Or you would have to go to the restaurant 12 different times to order the various entrees on the menu. This way, I got to sample just about everything and, honestly, I thought all of it was quite good. I would totally do this buffet again. It is far less work than finding 12 friends to go to dinner and convincing every single person to order something different and asking them for a taste. Yeah, that’s probably not happening.
My friends are nice and they humor me by letting me take pictures of their food BEFORE they eat it but letting me influence what they order AND letting me taste their food is probably a stretch. I mean, I can think of a handful of people who maybe would let me but the rest would just laugh at my face.
Verdict? This is probably one of the best lunch buffets in Wichita. The food is good and the price is right. If you’ve never been to Bella Vita, I highly recommend hitting the lunch buffet first. For about $20, you can sample a great selection of the entrees that you’re going to see on their dinner menu and then, when you find the dish you love most, go back for dinner and order it so you can have it hot and fresh and made just for you. Bon appetit!
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Ching’s First Jury Duty Experience
Posted on September 9, 2024 by Ching under Life.
Where to begin on this one? A few months ago, I got my first Jury Duty summons. When I first received it, I was kind of excited because I had never been on Jury Duty before so it was going to be an all-new adventure for me. As you know, I am all about new experiences. But then, Brian started telling me how awful it would be. He said they would take my phone away and I wouldn’t be able to play pickleball or do Zumba. So then I began to dread it.
Not knowing what to expect, a friend of mine recommended that I watch the Jury Duty docu-series on Amazon Prime. Of course, I made Brian watch it with me. Without ruining the show for you, so many crazy things happened. It was completely wild. Having been through Jury Duty before, Brian told me it wasn’t anything like that. He said much of it was consistent but they only showed the interesting parts in the documentary and most of it is completely tear-your-eyes-out boring. Like 95% of the time you are going to be bored out of your mind. To be fair, the documentary isn’t really a “real” documentary. The show is more like a comedy documentary (if there is such a thing) but that’s all I can say without ruining it. I guess you’ll just have to watch.
So how was my experience? I actually didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would based on Brian’s recollection. I found the experience quite educational, actually. More on that in a minute.
One of the biggest differences between my experience and Brian’s is that, when Brian did it, they only gave them 30 minutes for lunch. On top of that, when they went down to the building cafeteria, it was closed and so all they had was vending machine food/snacks. Not only was he bored out of his mind, he also nearly starved to death. But, when I did it a couple of months ago, not only did we get a full hour for lunch, nearly every single time we returned from lunch or break, it took a good 20-30 minutes before we resumed so we really got hour and a half lunches.
On the first day, I thought I would be there all day and wouldn’t get longer than 30 minutes for lunch so I packed some fruit and an adult lunchable, and also had Brian drive me (so I wouldn’t have to mess with the parking garage). We ended up getting an hour so I had Brian meet me for lunch. That’s the day I discovered Tacos y Mariscos, this amazing taco truck that served all sorts of street tacos. You could get beef, chicken, pork, and even shrimp. I told myself, if they’re back the next day, I’m eating their food again.
As far as Jury Duty itself, I ended up being assigned to a criminal case presided by Judge Dahl. I found out that there are two types of cases you could be summoned for — criminal and civil. Criminal cases usually finish within a week, whereas civil cases can last for multiple weeks. Therefore, if you do not want to be on Jury Duty for an extended period, pray that you get on a criminal case.
The case I was on was a sexual assault that took place clear back in December 2020. Because of the backlog (partially due to everything getting shut down due to COVID and other factors), the trial wasn’t happening until almost 4 years later. They start with an overview and introductions — the Judge is in the room along with the prosecuting attorney, the defense attorney, and the defendant — and then go through a series of questions to discover if there might be underlying biases or other reasons (health, personal, etc.) why each prospective juror should be excused. I gathered that at least half (there were about 40 of us in the room that they were trying whittle down to 12 plus 2 alternates) of the people there did not want to be there and were actively trying to get out of Jury Duty. They’re looking for 14 people to hear the case objectively. Only 12 will have votes that count but they don’t tell you who the 2 alternates are because they want every single juror to pay attention. The fear is that if you think you’re an alternate, then you tune out most of the time and then something happens to one of the jurors and you actually step in, but you know nothing because you haven’t been paying attention. So they were going to choose 14 of us to say but the 2 alternates will not know that they’re actually alternates. So that’s the plan.
Ideally, you want to get all the way through jury selection on the first day so you can begin the trial the next day. Sometimes, you get lucky, and jury selection is completed super efficiently and you can actually begin the trial on the first day. My coworker Shane Batchelder who happened to be Jury Duty the same week (ran into him outside on our lunch break) was on a case and they actually got to begin the trial on Monday afternoon.
Anyway, when we were released on Monday afternoon, we were nowhere near getting the jury selected. Realizing that the trial couldn’t start on Tuesday morning because jury selection wasn’t complete, I was actually beginning to doubt whether this whole trial could finish by Friday. However, Judge Dahl seemed confident that we wouldn’t have to be there all week and he’s been through hundreds of these and this is only my first one, so what do I know? I did know that we were going to get at least an hour for lunch so I decided to drive myself the next day. Which, I’m glad I decided to drive because everyone ended up being released early. I remember going to break before lunch, maybe around 10:30 AM, and they told us to come back a certain time. We all came back on time like obedient little children and then 10-15 minutes passed and we still didn’t resume. Another 30 minutes passed and still nothing. We waited and waited, until it was like lunch time and still nothing. I remember thinking, “Well, now it’s time to break for lunch.” We were all just sitting there, captive, awaiting further instruction. I guess the one nice thing is that they don’t take your phone away anymore (they just make you put it on silent and promise to pay attention and not be on your phone during the sessions) so I was able to check emails and catch up on things in the meantime.
When the Judge and the clerk returned, they ended up releasing us to return to the jury assembly room for further instruction. Down there, we all ended up getting released, which is what I thought would happen because by Tuesday afternoon, all of the trials that needed jurors would have started already.
Come to find out, during the break (and all of that time we were waiting), they were making deals behind the scenes. The defendant ended up accepting a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to fewer counts but, I suppose, it was a win-win for everyone because the case wouldn’t go to trial. We get to skip everything and fast forward to sentencing, which just happens to be this week (if I remember correctly). I looked it up after we got released. You’re not allowed to look up anything, do any kind of research, or talk to anyone about the case/trial and I’m a good girl who follows instructions so I really didn’t look into it until after.
I was tempted to go to the sentencing hearing. Alas, I cannot because it’s during the work day. However, I am really curious what the sentence is. Granted, he plead guilty to fewer counts than what he was originally charged but this is the second such conviction for this defendant so who knows what the sentence will be? I guess I will just have to look it up later. Check back in a week and I’ll try to provide an update (if I can remember).
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