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.