Bella Luna

I love taking my son to new places to dine.  I want him to experience all the wonderful food available.  I was meeting his girlfriend for the first time earlier this week, so I gave them a choice of three restaurants to choose from and they chose Bella Luna.

Bella Luna has three locations in Wichita.  I had only eaten at the west and east side restaurants, so we decided to hit the one in College Hill.  The inside was quaint and tiny compared to the sister locations.  There is no front desk, so we were not sure if it was a seat yourself type of establishment or if they came to seat you.  After one minute of waiting, we took it upon ourselves to sit at a table.

Bella Luna serves Mediterranean food and has a great reputation for awesome hummus.  Having been here before, I told the kids we could each pick an appetizer.  We opted for the hummus ($7.95), calamari ($8.95) and Greek salad ($5.95).  My son LOVES calamari.  We were sadly disappointed that the calamari was way overcooked.  Many restaurants will tend to do this.  It was almost inedible, but my son ate it anyway.

The hummus was excellent, the texture was light and creamy.  The hummus always comes with soft pita or the homemade pita chips.  The chips were stale, so we devoured our hummus with the soft pita.  Delicious!

Alli and I both ordered a side salad to accompany our meal.  Alli loves the Fattouch salad ($5.95) and I am a big fan of their Greek salad.  I absolutely love feta cheese and the brininess of the dressing against the crisp greens was perfect.  The Kalamata olives are my favorite olive, so I was super delighted to have several in my salad.

Up next were our entrees.  I went with the highly recommended Chicken and Shrimp au Poivre ($14.95).  This was excellent!  The peppercorn sauce used on the dish was superb.  It was light, not overpowering or heavy.  It paired excellent with the shrimp, chicken and vegetables.  Look at the beautiful plate presentation.  I loved every bite.

My son opted for the Kobe burger and fries ($10.95), which he claimed was the best restaurant burger he has ever eaten.  That's huge coming from him.  He really loves burgers!  Alli got the Seafood Trio ($15.95), which consisted of scallops, mussels, shrimp and crab with a lobster sauce over rice.  I tried a bite and it was tasty!

We were stuffed to the gills and needed to-go boxes.  These came quickly, but we had to wait for quite some time to ticket out.  My son finally asked another server to ring us up so we could get on our way.

Our server, Lina, did a pretty good job overall and was tied up on a conference call as we were leaving.  They were apologetic about the wait, but we didn't mind.  Our overall bill was $78.38 and I left a $14 tip.

It was a great dinner out with my son and his girlfriend.  I am so glad they enjoyed this place as much as I did.  If you are ever in the College Hill area and would like to try some great Mediterranean food, stop by Bella Luna and try that awesome hummus!

PF Chang's - Sort of Chinese

Some friends and I went out to dinner a few nights ago.  They have never been to PF Chang's, so we decided to help them out of the rock they were living under and dined around 7:30 this past Monday.

P.F. Chang's is an Asian-inspired restaurant who claims to give a modern "twist" to their food.  This rings true for a few menu items.  The one menu item I refuse to eat are the lettuce wraps.  Growing up in a Korean household, we know what REAL lettuce wraps are... and the wraps at Chang's are not it.  We can talk about that another day!

Getting along with our evening, the group let me be the food guide for the meal, so after ordering my Coconut yummy goodness (non-alcoholic), I decided we would order three appetizers and three entrees.

The first appetizer was the garlic noodles, easy on the spicy (we had a younger palate with us).

These were a hit with everyone!  The cucumber was refreshing in the mix of the noodles, garlic and chili pepper flakes.

Up next were the shrimp dumplings.

These can be ordered pan fried or steamed.  Pictured are the pan fried.  These dumplings are filled with shrimp and drizzled with a light chili sauce, not too spicy at all.

My all-time favorite was next... Dynamite Shrimp

This tempura-battered shrimp is drizzled in a spicy sriracha aioli that I could bathe in, it's so good!  Yumm!

The three of us were already heading to full bellies, so when our entrees came, we knew it was going to be party of three - 0, entrees - 3.

I ordered the Lemon Chicken (for the youngster), Mongolian Beef and the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce.  The Lemon Chicken was my least favorite because it was the least inventive dish and lacked flavor.  It looked like a piece of fried chicken with a side of sauce.  I loved the other two dishes.  The Mongolian Beef reminded me a tiny bit of bulgogi and the Shrimp with Lobster Sauce is the one dish I order the most.

My friends took home lots of leftovers and really enjoyed their first trip to Chang's.  I won't likely come here again if it were my choice, but I won't turn my nose at it if friends are interested.

The service was excellent.  The restaurant was clean, not too noisy and the wait time on our food was reasonable.  The temperature of the food was great and the portions were normal.  You can find reviews and more information about P.F. Chang's on Zomato.

Eating My Way Thru Doc Greens - Dr. Fiesta

I posted about this before on my other blog.  I absolutely love this restaurant!  I was first introduced to Doc Greens a month ago thru a friend at work.  He always gets the same thing.  I really liked the place and everything on the menu looks wonderful, so I decided I would eat my way thru the entire menu, one item at a time.  It's worked out pretty good so far.  I have already had the Chicken Breast Panini, the Dr. Beeks salad and the Dr. Grilled Veggie salad.

Today I got the Dr. Fiesta salad.  It is now my new favorite!  I usually get the salad to go and today was no different.  This salad has romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheddar cheese, red onions, black beans, corn salsa, julienned carrots, crispy tortilla strips, chicken and dressing.  I opted for the grilled chicken and a side of guacamole.  Holy cow Batman!  It was delicious!  I ate every bite.

Dr. Fiesta

I really like the atmosphere of the place, the workers, and the management staff.  It's also super clean.  They are constantly wiping things down and it's good to see an establishment care so much about the quality of their establishment as well as the quality of their food.  The manager has done an awesome job of training his associates.  The location I go to is on north Maize Rd.  I have not ventured to the one out east, but I am sure it's pretty good as well.  I try to stop once a week to try a new menu item.

If you get a chance to stop by and want a refreshing filling salad for lunch, I highly recommend Doc Greens!  You can also find their restaurant on Zomato.

Zomato

Looks like Urbanspoon is out and Zomato is in!

Big Buffalo Grill

We came back to the Big Buffalo Grill located in Bethany for brunch today.  It was our second visit to the restaurant since the ownership has changed hands.  I was slightly disappointed this time.  The food and service were... just okay.  I ordered coffee to start and waited for our guest to arrive.  While waiting, we reviewed the menu.  There were numerous items taped over, so many that there needs to be a serious menu makeover.  It was quite tacky.

I ordered the two egg breakfast.  The Grill was out of sausage patties today, so I got the links instead, eggs over-medium, country potatoes and a biscuit with gravy.  I asked for a pancake on the side because the pancakes were delicious the last time I visited.  Here is my breakfast!

The eggs came out over-easy.  The sausage links were super tiny.  The biscuit was okay, kinda cold.  Thankfully the gravy was warm.  I should have eaten the pancake first because it was ice cold when I finally got to it.  My boyfriend ended up eating almost all of my pancake and a sausage link.

The food was just okay.  Nothing special.  The last time I visited I got the chorizo omelet, which was outstanding.  Perhaps the new owners only know how to do good Mexican food.  Anyway, our server, Dee, was good.  She had to cover about 6 tables by herself while we were there.  I noticed the owners didn't even help her out.  In fact, there were three workers sitting at a table and talking, watching her work.  It's a bit of a turnoff.  I heard this server has been here for a long time.  I could tell she knew her customers as she would ask them if they wanted their usual.  This kind of service is hard to find.  I am hoping the new owners understand this and won't drive her or the business away.  I don't have high expectations.

You can read more about how the restaurant used to be on Zomato.  Kind of glad I wasn't a regular back then.  I would be upset with the new changes.

The Shack

I decided to have my first post back be my birthday dinner post.  This evening was wonderful.  I looked up several restaurants on Zomato, as I am not overly familiar with the restaurant scene in OKC.  Even though my boyfriend is from here, he only knows about a couple of dives and I look forward to sharing those places with you here.

Out of all the restaurants I could have picked for my birthday dinner, I decided on The Shack Seafood and Oyster Bar.  I wanted, no... needed a Cajun/creole and seafood fix.  It's been a long time since I had any sort of good Cajun/creole food.  I decided tonight would be a perfect night to try something new because it was the only way I was going to get my boyfriend into a new restaurant.

We started off with drinks.  I usually get water, no lemon, but decided to get iced tea, no lemon.  I will school you on why no lemon some other day.  It's a foodborne illness nightmare.  Anyway, after mulling over the menu for what seemed like hours, I finally decided on the fried pickles.  I am picky about fried pickles.  I really dislike the thick breading and super thick slices of pickle many places have.  But the Shack did it up just perfect.  The fried pickles were lightly breaded and tender.  The pickles had the perfect amount of brininess and the breading was flaky.  It came out with a side of ranch.  It really doesn't need ranch as it was good all on it's own.

You will have to excuse my extremely amateur pics.  I'm not a professional.  Lol... After looking at the menu, I asked our waitress about recommendations.  She recommended the Crawfish Half and Half, which is what I chose.  My boyfriend decided on a cup of the red beans and rice and a cup of the chicken and sausage gumbo.  The red beans and rice were okay, I guess.  Nothing special.  The chicken and sausage gumbo was delicious!  The roux was dark (not as dark as the red beans and rice) and had a great flavor.

My dish was simply amazing.  There is no other way of describing it.  It came out with the crawfish etouffee on one side and the fried crawfish tails on the other.  Down the middle were two beautiful scoops of dirty rice.  Let's start off with the etouffee.  The stewy goodness had crawfish tails, a blend of vegetables and seasonings.   The sauce had a perfect amount of heat, just enough to tickle the back of your throat, clear your sinuses and leave that warm feeling in your belly.  It was the kind of spiciness that kept you wanting more, like a good bowl of kimchi soup on a cold day.  The crispy crawfish tails were the perfect interruption between bites of etouffee.  The fried nuggets with the aoli cut thru the richness and spiciness of the other half of the plate.  It was a perfect marriage.  I am so glad I took the recommendation.  Here's what my plate looked like:

Empty!  If you want to know what it looks like, you must go to The Shack right away and find out.  Honestly, the food looked so good, I forgot to snap a pic until it was too late.  If I could have licked the plate and not been stared at like a mongrel, I would have.

We ended my birthday dinner with a free dessert.  I originally ordered the chocolate chip bread pudding but they were out of an ingredient.  Darn!  So we decided on the Mudslide.  It was a good choice.  The chocolate cake was warm and moist (yes, I said moist) and the chocolate center was fantastic.  I like to mix it with the whipped cream while my boyfriend prefers the ice cream.  This dessert is rich, so it's an easy share with someone you love!

Our meal, without dessert totaled to $33.54 before the tip.  We left $8 to our waitress and decided to take one of the cups home as a memento for my birthday dinner.

I absolutely love this place and will be recommending it to all my friends.  It's right behind Abuelo's and La Quinta on Memorial Rd.  I am kind of glad it's not right on Memorial.  It's almost like it's a hidden gem and it's all mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update

I do believe it's time to update and get this blog back up and going.  Stay tuned!