Topeka Fun
Topeka Eats: Flying Monkey
Location: corner of 17th & Washburn Road.
Kind of Food: coffees and light lunch – salad, sandwiches, quiche (maybe)
Date visited: Tuesday, December 6 at lunch
Here is the review from Food & Flicks. I had a very different experience.
First, it’s a cool looking, modern-minimalist place. No clutter, just a place that you would expect to have in a metropolitan area like Denver or the Plaza even. So – kudos for that.
Staff was friendly and engaging.
Food:
I ordered the quiche…and they didn’t have it. I then ordered their salad with hummus. And they didn’t have that. So I’ll go with the Turkey Club and they didn’t have that.
I quote my conversation with the cashier at this point.
Me: Okay…so why don’t you tell me what you do have on this menu.
Guy: Pretty much anything you see on the menu.
Me: I’m 0 for 3 ordering off the menu. Help me out a bit.
Guy: We have a soup.
Me: Great, what is it?
Guy: It’s the Soup de Jour.
Me: LONG PAUSE. So you’re telling me that the soup of the day is the soup of the day?
(To be fair, he could have trying to be funny and it just didn’t work. I couldn’t really tell.)
The other guy finally tells me it is a Cheese Ale soup. I order it. My buddy (who invited me to the place) ordered a Cranberry Chicken Salad Sandwich. We both ordered the Ecuadorian coffee. It was the best thing of the whole experience. The coffee was outstanding…a bit expensive…but outstanding.
The soup was good but tiny. Very tiny. Think small coffee cup size. My friend said his sandwich tasted great as well. But…
Price:
There is no way around this – it’s expensive. 7 to 9 dollars for a salad or a sandwiches that are medium to small portion sizes, with no chips or side or drink is a bit much. It’s like tourist prices….but without the view or travel.
What made it all the more disappointing was just yards away stood my favorite place to eat – The Burger Stand – where I could have gotten a huge hamburger, whole side of fries and a drink for the same price as my cup of coffee and cup of soup.
Overall Experience:
It’s a nice place. It is a quiet, comfortable place to meet and talk over coffee.
But don’t go there hungry. While the food quality is outstanding, the portion sizes versus pricing is considerably out of kilter.
UPDATE: Just learned that today was the first day they were serving food. A ‘soft open’ I believe is what they call it in the Biz. That may explain not having the full menu available.
KC-135 Stratotanker Refueling Mission
Chris Gnagi invited me on a “Civic Leader” flight out at Forbes Field today. (Why he thinks I’m a civic leader is a whole other discussion.) Got to the gate at 7:30, inside the auditorium by 7:45. At 8 am, the briefing started. After some time on the history of the National Guard, the actual flight crew walked us through the mission.
We were going to fly down to Springfield then over to Oklahoma City then back to refuel and do training runs with a B-52 out of Barksdale AFB (LA). The KC-135 that we were using today was built in 1957 and can fly halfway around the world before needing to refuel. They can refuel anything military and NATO. No helicopters and no commercial airlines.
Chris got me in the cockpit for takeoff. Lots of communication between pilots, cargo crew, ground crew, and tower. Lots of knob twisting and checklists. Found out there is triple redundancy on the engines and power generators. That’s good to know.
Each engine has to be spun by air pressure first. As they gain speed, fuel is pumped to them and is ignited. Each engine does this independently. I feel the plane pop a bit with each engine coming up to speed. Those quick take-offs in the movies that let the good guy get away? I don’t think that is happening with this plane.
Pilot is getting last minute instructions as to what runaway to use for takeoff, what elevation and climb he needs to take. Then he has to report who is on board. “18 souls onboard.” 14 passengers, 4 crew but they still say – “souls” when reporting how many people. I like that.
Wylie 31 Heavy is our call sign. Rogue 07 (Zero-Seven) is the B-52 we are refueling. As we taxi to takeoff we got confirmation that Rogue 07 is airborne.
The first overwhelming feeling is takeoff. 4 huge engines just lifting this beast off the ground. All the while there is constant conversation on the radio – altitude, tower control, bearing information. It’s multitasking on steroids. It feels much like a commercial airline take off except for one major difference – the noise. It’s loud and I’m thankful for the headset.
About 10 seconds after lifting off there is a glitch. The landing gear. There was the big bright light on the lever that indicated that not all the wheels were up. Pilot calls back to cargo for visual inspection. Cargo tells us that he can see the wheels and that they are in retracted but we have no confirmation that the they are locked in place.
During this whole time, the tower is giving instructions as to heading and altitude and speed and climb rate. There is quite a bit of chatter. We are told the nearest plane to us is a Cessna about 6 miles away at 6500 feet.
We get to 4,000 ft and the pilot goes “around the horn” on recycling the landing gear. This means every crew member says yes/no on whether to re-engage the landing gear then pulling it back up. All say yes. The pilot tells tower what is going on. The landing gear lever is dropped and I can feel the plane start dragging. It’s like someone has hit the brakes. The wait a few seconds then pop the lever back up. All lights go dark. In this case that is a good thing because that means the gear is up and locked in place. All good, off to refuel.
We are at 6k ft and are clear to go to 23,000. It’s pretty foggy. Heavy cloud cover. Can’t see anything. Until we get to 23,000. Then the sun pokes thru and you can literally feel it warm the plane.
On radar we can see these white dots with numbers on it. +7 means that plane is 7, 000 feet higher than we are. -4 means 4,000 feet lower.
We get a call – Rogue 07 is inbound, 1 mile away. They will be coming up on our right wing. Gnagi gives me a nod to head back to the boom. I drop my headset off and am immediately overwhelmed by the noise. It is loud. The only way to really communicate with one another is screaming.
I make my way down the cargo bay, grab an airmask to wear in case the cabin loses air pressure and some much needed ear plugs. You can see here that they come with simple instructions. This mask comes with 5 minutes of oxygen. (That’s what the label says.) I guess that means if the pressure goes, they’ve got 5 minutes to get to a lower altitude.
I can see the B-52 off our wing and it doesn’t look that big. In the galley pics below, if you look closely it’s just underneath the wing. Of course…that is one mile away. He’s about to get a lot closer.
The boom operator lays down on this couch and has both feet and hand controls over the boom. There is an extension that comes out and actually connects with the plane. There is also some play with the boom – up/down and right/left.
There is close to 80,000 lbs of fuel in this bird. (I think that is the number…it was pretty loud in the plane so don’t quote me on that.) It’s located in the wings and under the fuselage where most aircraft put luggage. Gravity does most of the work moving the fuel around. Less mechanical dependency, less mechanical failure. Chris tells me that it’s possible to send fuel from the receiver plane to the KC-135 but not preferred. In fact, he said only in extreme emergencies would they even attempt it.
It’s hard to describe the feeling laying down watching a B-52 fly right up underneath you. So I shot some footage with my iPhone instead. What a ride!!!
NOTE: The footage is in HD and looks incredible but is taking a ridiculous long time to upload. So I’m working on a faster process but the video is coming. And it’s pretty incredible. I’ll update it again on Twitter when it’s finished. In the meantime, enjoy the pics.
Video is done and here it is. Be sure to watch it in HD. Pretty awesome.
Topeka Food: Toucan Express
Image is from Food&Flicks.
Toucan Express
1003 S.E. Quincy
Topeka, KS 66612
(785) 233-5900
Grabbed lunch with my good friend Gary Manford yesterday and we decided to try the Toucan Express – Brazilian Buffet. After 10 years of visiting Brazil, my family has a love for the Brazilian food and culture.
Let me get the most annoying thing about this place out of the way right now. Parking. I realize that really isn’t the Toucan Express’s fault but this location has seen something like 37 dinner restaurants come and go. I think the biggest reason is parking. There is nowhere to park and the 4 places you can park is going to cost you about a $1 an hour – in coins.
START OF MINI-RANT: I wonder if the city of Topeka really wants the downtown area to thrive or not. They seem to do everything in their power to make life difficult for the customer. It’s a shame because I can count 6 places that I think are superior places to eat but are absolutely ridiculous to get to because of parking and parking meters. END OF RANT.
I didn’t have any coins. So I walk in and ask Gary if he’s got any coins and he doesn’t. The waiter reaches in his pocket and pulls out 3 quarters and gives them to me. That has got to be the best service I’ve had in a long time. (And you can bet I rewarded him greatly with my tip after the meal.)
The decor is sparse. I wanted there to be this overwhelming sense of smells and sights that took me back to Brazil. The smells were there. The sights were not. Of course, they are still in their soft opening phase. If you aren’t familiar with what a soft opening is – see Oceans 13.
Toucan Express only serves lunch as of right now and every day is a different menu. Today being Thursday meant we got the Brazilian Roast Beef and Chicken Stroganoff. Of course, there were the usual rice, beans, yuka – potato like root from Brazil (very good), and their cornbread. Two kinds of cornbread – the regular and coconut. I’m not a fan of coconut but Gary is. I lost track of how many pieces he ate. I assume that means he thought it was very, very, good. Rice pudding was also served as a dessert.
The food was very good and hearty…and plenty of it. The beef skewers were outstanding. Thin pieces of beef wrapped and marinated — good night, it was good. I’m not really doing it justice. The cook came out and spent some time talking to us. She asked about our food and the conversation turned to her home in Rio de Janeiro.
Overall: Good place to eat. 10 bucks gets you all-you-can-eat buffet and a drink. Pretty reasonable.
Parking is a nightmare, I hope they can overcome that.
Future Plans: Chef said that the hope is to have a churrascaria on the weekend. That’s the swords full of meat for those of you wondering.
Topeka Eats: The Burger Stand
The Burger Stand is located in the College Hill section of Topeka (16th & Lane, across from Washburn U). I took the fam this past Wednesday night as sort of treat and an apology from me for being absolutely crazy busy since Labor Day.
Loved the atmosphere. With a Fat Tire bicycle over the bar along with the O’Dell posters on the wall, it felt like I’d just been dropped into Fort Collins. I will say that those who have smaller kids – toddler and younger – this could be a pretty overwhelming experience. You order at the bar, the menu is in chalk, there really isn’t a kid menu. So folks with little families – might not be the best experience for you. We had our 3 kiddos with us but they are older.
Here’s what we ordered:
The Classic – white cheddar cheese burger with greens. This was probably the best burger I’ve had in a long, long time. Just a good ole, thick, juicy burger and the white cheddar was perfect. Every one of ours was cooked to perfection.
Corn Dawg – one of the kids ordered this. You know those frozen corn dogs that you get at a fair? This was nothing like it. This was the Cadillac of Corn Dogs. Think of a great big foot-long Nathan’s hotdog dipped in a special beer-batter, fried to perfection.
The Fry menu took a little explaining. They’ve got regular fries, sweet potato, duck fat, truffle, and onion rings. Duck Fat Fries are fried in duck fat, then tossed in some seasoned salt and some chives. I REALLY wanted to try these and one day I will go back and get them. But after dropping all this weight – I just could not bring myself to even say the words Duck Fat, let alone order something and put it in my mouth. But I will…
Truffle Fries – from what I could get gather from the cashier, is basically fries tossed in some truffle oil. I will admit that I am no food snob so I can’t really tell you if this is at all a good thing or not. I know that truffles are expensive and they are this “amazing, wonderful” ingredient that you can only get if you are cooking on some chef elimination tv show like Chopped, Masterchef, or Next Food Network Star.
We ordered:
Regular Fries: Pretty regular. Nothing to write home about.
Onion Rings: The beer-battered rings have a distinct taste. First, you can taste the beer in the batter – which is unusual in most places. Second, it’s not the sweet batter that most use but has a little bitter to it. We had mixed reviews at our table. Some liked them, some hated them. I think I would have liked them but I had ordered something else and after tasting them – nothing else was going to taste good. What was that?
Sweet Potato Fries: Oh. My. Gosh. I have a love/hate relationship with sweet potato fires. There are some places that use so much cinnamon and carmel and sugar that I just can’t eat them. It’s like eating fried sugar. These were cooked perfectly. Not artificially sweet, just fried perfectly with a little salt and let the sweet potato stand on its own. PERFECTION. These were the hit of the night as I had to fight off Amy from eating them.
Sauces: The Burger Stand really stands out as a Gourmet Burger place with their sauces. They don’t just have ketchup or mustard or if your my daughter – mayonnaise. (Why would you put mayo on a burger??? Ughhhh…) Each sauce has a twist to it. The ketchup has some heat to it along with a hint of cherry. Mustard has some heat as well but I didn’t taste it so I can’t really attest to it. It may sound weird, but they all got great reviews from our table. Except from my youngest kid – she wanted normal ketchup for that corn dog. Oh well…she survived.
Other Menu Items:
They’ve got a vegetarian menu (why???) that seems to be pretty good. Sun-dried and truffle and all those other key vegetarian words were used on the menu so I guess that is good.
They also have a variety of “Dawgs” and Brats on the menu. They look pretty amazing but I just have a hard time ordering a hot dog anywhere except at a ballpark. There other burgers are going to be on my menu the next time I go. A Kobe burger, a Black & Blue Burger, Fire, and Smoke are also on the menu.
$$$ - Our bill came in under $50. For a family of 5, that’s not ridiculously expensive but it was a bit more than just fast food. We didn’t order drinks either – waters for everybody. For the quality of food we got – I feel like it was a great price. Amy and I will absolutely come back by ourselves. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been out and wanted just a good ole burger in a local joint without having to go through the ‘sit down, wait, order, get, shove it down because they are waiting on that table’ experience.
In hindsight, we could have saved a few pennies by just ordering a couple of large baskets of fries instead of each of us getting a half basket. We had plenty of fries – except for the sweet potato ones. Every crumb of those were licked up. Neither one of our older kids finished their burgers completely. That’s how big and thick those puppies are. So we probably could have split a burger between them.
Overall Experience:
Outstanding. Folks were friendly, food was great. I have a feeling that this will become one of our favorite ‘splurge’ places to eat.
Jazz In Topeka – London Style
Last night was the Friday night art walk and I had a great night planned for Amy & I…plans that never happened due to circumstances which aren’t all that important. BUT the we ended up stumbling upon a great little gem of downtown Topeka – London’s Jazz Cafe. It’s located just off 6th & Kansas, in the old Himer’s Luggage store.
What got me interested was a rumor going around that they served fried chicken and waffles. Now that is southern soul food, right there. And don’t knock them until you’ve tried them.
MINOR RABBIT TRAIL: One of the biggest issues of living in the midwest and west is that these people out here don’t know really how to cook to fried chicken. So it’s risky ordering fried chicken. Most places out here have this crispy, golden skin (good) with a bone-dry meat underneath (horrific). OR the breading on the chicken is slimy, not crisp and golden. There are not to many things more disappointing than getting your stomach all set on some good fried chicken and having to eat that junk. And for the record — the best way to fry chicken is in a cast-iron skillet.
BACK TO LONDON’S: You could hear the live music spilling out onto the street. That Blues Band was in a groove…and it was good. Not Bealle Street good but good enough. The owner (Lisa Kirk) met us at the door, gave us a great big friendly welcome and off we went to experience the food.
THE GOOD:
$5 cover charge – more than reasonable. Great musician and good vibe in the room.
$10 Chicken & Waffle Special – you get two big pieces of chicken, a waffle, all the sweet tea you can drink and a dessert the size of a hubcap. The chicken was cooked about to perfection. Very good, very moist.
Dessert – there were 6 or 7 different choices, one of which was a lemon cake that probably weighed 4 lbs. One dessert is plenty big enough to share. Try the brownie/ice cream/cookie tower dessert as well.
Atmosphere – about halfway through the night, I noticed two distinct things. First, there was no alcohol and there was no smoking. Finding good live music on the weekend is a tricky proposition. Most of the time when you find great music, you have to fight the smoke-filled room the first part of the evening. I have ridiculous allergies so not having to sneeze, hack, or cough my way home was a nice treat. The second part of the evening is avoiding the intoxicated people whose lack of dancing ability is no longer an issue for them OR they want to tell you how wonderful of a person you are even though you just met. Again — nice benefit of the night at London’s. Good food. Good music. Good atmosphere.
Needs Some Work:
Sound/Volume – the band sounded great, the guitars and bass, drums and percussion were tight and clean. The vocals were muddy in the mix and it was just a bit to loud for that size room. Especially for jazz and blues. A softer touch on the mix with a bit more emphasis on the vocals will do wonders for an already great experience.
Service – people were friendly but wait staff was not outstanding. It was average. Plus, the cups they served their beverages in were extremely small. So constant refills were needed but wait staff could seldom keep up with the demand. (They should have left a pitcher at the tables…another idea.) On the positive side, we did not have to wait long at all for our food.
Overall – great experience and will return. Highly recommend for our Topeka friends looking for a good night on the town. Check website for schedule.