Several new restaurants have recently opened serving food Wichita didn’t have
Wichita is filled with restaurants offering cuisines from faraway countries: Lebanon, Vietnam, Turkey, Argentina, Peru and Korea among them,
But every once in a while, a food business opens offering cuisine Wichita doesn’t already have access to, and that’s been happening a lot in Wichita over the past few months.
Here’s a look at four restaurants that have recently opened and are serving food from countries not previously represented on the Wichita dining scene: Puerto Rico, Ethiopia, The Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The Philippines: Kusina Ni Cheska
Although Wichita has had Filipino restaurants in the past — places like The Philippine Grille at 9125 W. Central and Lola’s Bistro, which served some Filipino fare — none have been operating recently. Then, in October, Cheska Castilla opened Kusina Ni Cheska in the former Beautiful Day Cafe space at 2516 E. Central.
Castilla started in the food business in Wichita in 2020, serving at events like the Asian Night Market and the Wichita Asian Festival. In late 2023, she upgraded to a food truck and would regularly set it up at Welch Cleaners, 858 S. Hillside. She also took the truck to festivals all over the region.
The truck was going well, and Castilla decided she wanted to upgrade to a brick-and-mortar spot. She found the Beautiful Day Cafe space, which had recently been vacated by Las Abuelas.
Cheska still plans to operate the truck but likely won’t have it out again until the weather warms up, she said.
Kusina Ni Cheska serves traditional Filipino dishes like picadillo, pansit (a stir-fried rice noodle dish) and lumpia (Filipino egg rolls.) Its bestsellers so far, Castilla said, are its grilled pork belly, its chicken kebabs and its grilled chicken thighs. The menu also includes things like chicken adobo, fried milkfish and fried rice.
The restaurant has a quick-service setup: People order at the counter and wait for their food to be delivered to them.
Castilla grew up in Ilocos, a city in the northern part of The Philippines, and lived there until she was 22. She eventually went to work in Singapore, where she met her future husband. When he moved to Wichita to take a job at Koch, he invited her to join him, and they married.
When she got her work visa, she decided to get into the food business. So far, Wichita has been receptive.
“Everyone is saying that, ‘Finally, there is a Filipino restaurant,’” she said. “Everyone was excited to come over and try the food.”
The restaurant’s hours are 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays. The restaurant is closed on Tuesdays.
Puerto Rico: Planet Mofongo
Husband-and-wife Miguel Santana and Lucy Morales have recently introduced Puerto Rican food to Wichita through their food trailer, Planet Mofongo, which opened in late September.
Santana, who moved to Wichita from Puerto Rico 11 years ago, said he’d been dreaming about serving his native cuisine for around eight years and finally decided to purchase a food trailer.
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The couple now frequently sets up in the parking lot of a strip center at 125 S. Hydraulic, near Douglas and Hydraulic. For now, they’re open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Their specialty is mofongos de platano, which is a side dish made of a mixture of mashed green plantains, garlic, cilantro and spices, pressed into a bowl to get its shape, then removed and deep fried. The green paint job on the food truck is meant to represent the bright green of the plantains.
Mofongo is traditionally served alongside different meats, like fried pork, which the truck also serves. Another specialty is a sandwich called tripletas en pan sobao. It features steak, chicken, ham and potato sticks topped with a mayo/ketchup mixture and served on sweet bread from Puerto Rico.
The trailer also offers a popular shrimp salad and a different special of the day. Sometimes it carries a Puerto Rican “lasagna” called pastelon de amarillos, which is a sweet-and-savory dish made by layering ripe plantains with cheese and picadillo.
“It’s so much food,” Santana said. “It’s so much different food that we won’t bore our customers, I assure you.”
Though he was born in New York, Santana’s parents were Puerto Rican, and when he was about 10, the family moved back to Puerto Rico. In 2014, Santana’s eldest daughter enrolled at Wichita State University, and he helped her move. But he fell in love with Wichita and decided to stay, he said. The next year, his wife and other two children moved from Puerto Rico as well.
Santana has another job, with the United States Postal Service, where he works an overnight shift driving trucks. That leaves him time to work on the food truck during the day. He plans to eventually leave his job and devote himself to the food truck. When he does, he said, he’ll likely extend the hours.
The couple’s goal is to eventually open a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Santana said. But first, they want to educate Wichita on Puerto Rican food.
“All the support, it’s been incredible,” he said. “It’s been an amazing surprise. The support and the backup of the Wichita people has been so great. We are so blessed.”
Ethiopia: Sara and Tedros Ethiopian Restaurant
This new restaurant is a business inside a business: A local couple recently started serving a menu of Ethiopian cuisine out of the King Coal Hookah Lounge at 327 N. Hillside.
Called Sara and Tedros, the restaurant serves specialties of both Ethiopia and its neighbor to the north, Eritrea. Customers are able to stay and dine in the hookah lounge.
The couple declined to be interviewed, but a menu posted on social media lists dishes like doro wat, which is a spicy chicken stew; marinated lamb meat; gomen, which is collard greens cooked with garlic, onions and spices; and sambusas, which are pastries filled with either lentils or meat. The dishes are served with injera, a spongy flatbread that is used to scoop up the various dishes.
Sara and Tedros also serves traditional Ethiopian coffee
The restaurant’s hours are 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily.
Sri Lanka: Serendibz
Serendibz, which specializes in Sri Lankan cuisine, has been open at 3700 N. Woodlawn since the beginning of December, but it just added lunch service.
Owners Sahan Subasinghe and Shyani Subasinghe — who is the restaurant’s chef — say that Serendibz is the only Sri Lankan restaurant in the state of Kansas. Its menu features favorites from Sri Lanka, an island country off the southeastern coast of India.
Customers can build their own combo bowls, Chipotle style. Each bowl includes choice of ghee rice, vegetable fried rice or white rice and choice of meat: deviled or curried chicken, deviled shrimp, or deviled or curried beef.
Various Sri Lankan snacks also are available. Among them is “rolls,” which are similar to egg rolls; empanada-style pastries; and cutlets, which are meatballs made with potato, onion and chicken or tuna. Customers also can get hot chai tea and hot ginger tea and a couple of desserts.
The new hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays. It’s closed on Mondays.
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