Tommy Bahama's Palm Desert

Okay, we like Tommy Bahama's for the cocktails, but the food is great too.  It's not as great as it once was, but it is still very good.  When we are in Destin, FL, we always go to Tommy Bahama's.  When we went to Palm Desert, CA, we had to try it out.  We liked the cocktails--we went twice. 

On the first occasion, I had a coconut cocktail thing that was delicious.  I also had a Vodka martini and that was great too.  I ate the 20oz. Porterhouse.  I know, I should have had seafood, but I'm just jaundiced toward sushi.  The Porterhouse was excellent.  I didn't take any home for lunch.  I can't remember what the regular copilot or the others had, but I do know, I'll go back.  Tommy Bahama's is a consistently great restaurant.  It isn't the top of the line, but it isn't average.  It is really great food in a really great atmosphere.  Did I say there was live music.  Always live music at Tommy Bahama's. 

The second occasion, we went after eating dinner at Arnold Palmer's.  I'll write about that experience later.  I had a BBC--very nice and rich drink.  The regular copilot had a Lemon Drop martini.  I was good for her.  Someone had the Key Lime pie.  I was happy with the drinks.  Go to Tommy Bahama's, it's a great and fun place--you can't go wrong.  

Repeats and a Promise

I haven't been going anywhere new for a while--that's my excuse.  I've been to the Wasabis on the east side every Friday for the last few weeks.  I even took a whole group there--I can't help that I need a sushi fix every week.  I'll tell you I've set on a couple of dishes as the perfect combo for the winter.  I can't remember the name of the dinner Japanese bento boxed meal.  It typically comes with tempura, fish or meat, pickles, sushi, shashimi, sweet fruit, and rice.  A bento is a lunch meal in a box (typically cold), while the dinner is a typically hot and cold mix.  To make one at Wasabis you just order the sushi combo A and one of the boxed dinner meals.  I like teriaki beef--ask for it medium rare and it comes close to a real Japanese dinner.  Wasabis could be more of a "yes" restaurant, but it is not bad.  For example, they won't make special rolls or allow mixtures of shashimi on their main shashimi set.  So, I'm stuck in a rut.  I like hot and cold especially for dinner in the winter and of course, I must have hot saki.  The Japanese culture is fantastic at keeping the hot and cold part of a meal in balance.

I also had steak tartar at the Candle Club again during Cigar Night.  I confirmed that a small brut Flexinet is the best with steak tartar and the Candle Club's steak tartar is one of the best.  I smoked a couple of high end Partagas that night and I'm smoking a Partagas number 10 right now.  Plus, the Candle Club does a great job making drinks just the way I like them.

I will be going to Oklahoma City soon and will try some dining there.  I hope to give a report on some new restaurants.  That's my promise.  I'll get to some other restaurants in Wichita soon--that's the plan.  Until them--great eating, drinking, and cigars.

Wasabi in Wichita

A Wasabi sushi restaurant opened up on the east side.  I went there with the regular copilot on Saturday night. 

We are fish and sushi snobs.  This is because my family was raised with fresh fish and the regular copilot loves fresh fish.  We live part time in Florida for goodness sakes.  In this modern era, you can get fresh fish in almost any large city in the USA, and Wichita has some great fish.  Until Kwon Court had to shut down, that was the best sushi in Wichita and likely in the Midwest.  There really wasn't a great sushi restaurant on the east side.  Now, Wasabi has put a branch in the east and it is excellent.  They've been open for about 10 days.

We went on Saturday and didn't need a reservation.  You usuallyneed a reservation for Wasabi in old town.  We were seated at the sushi bar, but they have lots of table space.  I like the sushi bar, the regular copilot, not so much.

I drank hot saki.  The brand was good and the saki was hot--hot is important.  The regular copilot drank a Saporo light.  I ordered the avocado salad (because I wanted to see what it was like).  The regular copilot ate a seaweed salad.  Both were excellent.  The dressing on the avocado salad was perfect.  They were both huge portions.

For the main dish, I had a chirashi sushi (bunch of raw fish on sushi rice--a junk box, the common Japanese sushi meal).  It included salmon, tuna, yellow tail, tomago, crab, and abachor tuna.  The regular copilot had the chef's choice sashimi.  We each ordered a spicy tuna hand roll and miso soup.  The fish portions were huge.  Even after the first blush, when the portion sizes decrease--if they are half, they will still be large.  The fish was very fresh and high quality.  We took loads home (because we had too much to eat in a single setting)--the fish was still great the next day.  The handrolls were excellent and the miso soup was good, but not great.

All in all, Wasabi is an excellent restaurant.  It is better than the old town location with a better ambiance and a very attentive staff.  We highly recommend it.

Ciao - 11 Nov 2011

We made a visit to the new Italian restaurant on the east side of Wichita--Ciao.  The place was filled when we went there on Friday night at about 7:20 and were told there was a 45 minute wait.  We went to the bar--of course.  The bar was filled but we got seats pretty quickly.  We ordered a gin dirty martini with blue cheese olives and a dry vodka martini with blue olives.  Both were shaken.  The martinis were excellent.  They were shaken correctly and very nicely done.  The blue cheese olives were freshly packed.

We needed some basis for our drinking so we ordered the combo appetizer.  Wow.  There was calamari, chicken fingers, fried provolone, fried Spanish ravioli, fried zucchini, artichoke dip and they gave us fresh bread and dipping oil.  The bread and oil was great.  The appetizers were all fried, but the food was good--and lots.  We decided that was all we needed and went home.  We didn't get to try anything else.  We put it on the list again, and we recommend it.  Go try out Ciao.