Father's Day Giveaway Winner

Kathy Piper- Frye is this week's winner for the $25 gift card and accessories from Westlake Ace Hardware. If you are disappointed you didn't win, cheer up! There will be more chances to win more accessories from Westlake Ace Hardware this summer. Just stay tuned to hear more! Thanks to everyone for participating

Spring 2013 Pics of Food

Oriental Express - A Taste Of Asia

View Larger Map


For some reason I didn't even realize there was a Chinese restaurant at 29th and Wanamaker. Now that I have discovered it, thanks to my brother-in-law's girlfriend Chelsye, I plan to return often.

They consider themselves an Asian restaurant so they feature various dishes including noodle soups, stir fries and sushi. I tried some sushi and cashew chicken.

The sushi was fresh and tasty. I ordered a rainbow roll because it's my favorite, Drew ordered an orgasm roll and Chelsye ordered a sunrise roll. The rainbow roll was your typical rainbow roll that you can get at any good sushi restaurant. The sunrise roll was my least favorite but only because I am not a fan of smoked eel - so if you like smoked eel, you will definitely love this one. The other ingredients include avocado, cucumber, crab meat and cream cheese.

I enjoyed the orgasm roll. I thought Drew was joking when he said the name of it, but that's really what it's called. It's a good name. It was memorable because there is shrimp tempura, kani, avocado and salmon in the middle, wrapped in Nori and rice, then baked with spicy mayo and seasoning on the top. When baked the mayo sets up so it's not saucy anymore and the crunchy topping bakes into it. I tried to find out what the "special seasoning" was but they couldn't answer me - they might not have even known what it was. Whatever it was, it was delicious and I want more. (Kani is crab and nori is the seaweed wrap used in most sushi.)

The cashew chicken I ordered came with jasmine rice. Some places don't automatically serve it with rice so I appreciate that it's included so I don't have to spend more money. The sauce was thicker than I am accustomed to, but it wasn't bad, just different. The vegetables were zucchini, celery and carrots and the meat was dark chicken meat. I picked the celery out because I think it tastes like dirt and is only good for adding flavor, not actually eating it. That's just a personal preference - next time I will ask for them to leave it out completely.

I plan to return and try a few other dishes and sushi rolls because I enjoyed my first visit. The servers were nice and helpful and the restaurant was clean and taken care of.

For their sushi menu and regular menu and other general information about the restaurant, check out their website at http://www.orientalexpresstopeka.com/.

Westlake Ace Hardware Father's Day Giveaway

All right, here we go... I am doing a Father's Day Giveaway!All you gotta do is subscribe to my blog, comment on a post that you like and share this status! It's easy and you will get entered into a drawing to win a $25 gift card to Westlake Ace Hardware and a cool grilling accessory from there. It's simple :)
I will do the drawing the Wednesday before Father's Day, 6/12, so you can give your dad these items as a gift, if you want. Of course you could just keep them for yourself! 

Here are Westlake Ace Harware locations:

View Larger Map

A Taste Of Leavenworth: Suprisingly Good Thai Restaurant

View Larger Map


On Memorial Day my husband and I traveled to Leavenworth, Kans. for his work and planned to have lunch there. We found a Thai restaurant and decided to check it out, it's called Baan Thai.

Walking in I liked it right away. The decorations were nice and not over done like some Thai places, and they weren't burning incense. Some places like to burn some strong incense and I think it should smell like the food at a restaurant, not incense. They also used white China with blue design and I thought that was cool.

I ordered the appetizer sampler that came with soft egg rolls and fried egg rolls, crab rangoon and chicken satay with a variety of sauces. My favorite sauce had little slices of cucumber and red onion and the sauce was sweet and rice vinegar-like, which complimented the cucumbers well. I liked to put them on the slightly curried chicken satay and eat them together. The crab rangoons were pretty tasty and different than what you would get at a Chinese restaurant - the filling was a little thinner and it had different spices than what I am used to.

The soft egg rolls are amazingly tasty and served cold. They aren't fried, but are made with a special rice wrap that is soft and almost sponge-like. Inside are ingredients like lettuce, cilantro, carrots, shrimp and rice noodles. I liked dipping these in the sweet and sour sauce.

For my entree I ordered the cashew chicken, which is served with jasmine rice. This is my favorite dish and Baan Thai truly impressed me with this dish. There were carrots, dry chilies (which are spicy as hell, by the way), cashews and onions and a lovely sauce that I liked to soak in my jasmine rice.  The vegetables were cooked thoroughly but not mushy and the sauce was sweet but not too with the spiciness of the dry chilies. I wouldn't recommend eating the dry chilies unless you want your mouth to be on fire for awhile.

Although it's taken me 29 years to go to Leavenworth, now I have a reason to return. Baan Thai gets my approval and I plan to return in the near future.  If you ever find yourself in that town, stop by and try some cashew chicken or pad thai - I didn't try the pad thai, but I bet it's good.

Red Snappa' snapped me

View Larger Map


 I must say I was skeptical when I heard about the new Cajun-style restaurant opening up downtown on 5th and Kansas. It surprised me and I plan to go back - but maybe when they aren't so busy.

The food was good, the service could use some work. My husband and I waited about 13 minutes to get a drink order in and menus brought to us - and about 15 minutes before we got our food after ordering. I think this is something that can be worked on, plus, we got there at about 1 p.m. and that's still considered a lunch rush time and all the tables were full.

The menus are on white paper, the walls are bare but the atmosphere is inviting and the food speaks for itself. Featuring sea food Po' Boy sandwiches and jambalayas the cuisine is pretty close to the real thing. I ordered the sausage, chicken and shrimp jambalaya and Ryan ordered the seafood po'boy sandwich and fries. My jambalaya came with corn bread but I also ordered some coleslaw because I wanted to try it.

I enjoyed the jambalaya but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. When I was in culinary school one of my chefs, Chef Richardson, was born and raised in Louisiana. He made jambalaya one day and it was so spicy and full of flavor I just kept eating through the spice - even though it was way hot to me. Now, that I have acquired a taste for spiciness I would have welcomed that spice, but this jambalaya at Red Snappa' was not as robust. Also, the sausage wasn't Andoullie like I was expecting/hoping. It was just a  Johnsonville sausage or something like that. I would have liked to have a harder sausage. Other than it not being as I had it before, it was a tasty dish. I thought it had a hint of heat, and I enjoyed the mini corns, which I didn't expect and ended up liking.

The cornbread was so sweet and delicious. It was crumbly but it didn't fall apart. It was some of the best cornbread I have ever had. I ordered more because it was so good.

I tried the seafood po'boy and I liked that. The shrimp and oysters were breaded in some sort of beer batter and fried, and thrown on a French bread slice with onions, tomato, lettuce and brown mustard.  The seafood was crispy and tender and the French bread held up well to the bulk of it. I would have liked more of a sauce, Ryan agrees, but it was good anyway.

I plan to go back because the food was worth our wait. If you are looking for a quick bite on lunch hour, this is not your place. If you have an hour I would say it's a good place. Maybe after they are open more than 2 weeks they will have better service. I still say to try it out some time.

What the heck Mr. Stirfry?

Just a couple weeks ago I wrote about the injustice Mr. Stirfry was a victim of. Well, unfortunately for them the false post was on the right track. Although the buffet doesn't have pest problems, they have sanitation problems it appears.

According to the article link below on CJonline.com, Mr. Stifry has had more critical food violations than any other restaurant in Topeka. The worst violation that I read about what the overflowing, cut up, raw chicken that was stored above raw vegetables. This is a simple, common sense thing and I feel like the blame is on management. They need to train their employees better and require them to pass food safety tests.

When I lived in Maricopa County in Arizona, before I could even get a job in the kitchen I had to take a test and pass with a certain percentage before I could even apply for a kitchen job. Why doesn't Kansas have this same law? I think it should be required in all counties, but that is my personal opinion.

The only thing that scares me is that Mr. Stirfry offers sushi. Some sushi - not all - has raw fish and other items. One of the problems with their violations, as I stated before, was with storing raw chicken incorrectly. The correct practices should be common knowledge.

If you look at my recent posts, I also reviewed Sakura restaurant in the past. They had tasty sushi and good service - plus it was close to my house. I bet if the people handling food there had been trained or were required to have certain knowledge, that place wouldn't have closed. Sadly, it's not the worker's fault, it's the establishment and the management for not enforcing safe food handling practices.

Anyway, at least they don't have bugs or mice like some Topeka restaurants do.

http://cjonline.com/news/2013-04-29/mr-stirfry-fined-3700-food-code-violations