Sweet Home Cafe – Honolulu, HI

This is going to be such a weak post. I hardly took pictures of this meal because I was too busy eating. I got a picture of the food before we put it in and then the dessert…lol. If you haven’t heard of Sweet Home Cafe, you may be living under a rock. Okay just kidding but also not really. This place is still one of the more popular eateries and I can see why. Good food, reasonable prices and an awesome free Taiwanese Shave Ice dessert. How can you go wrong? Well…I guess the external factors can. The long wait time, the limited parking lot…these things can definitely put a damper on your dining experience. I know now to come super early. Like eat before senior citizens kine early to avoid a long wait. I do have to say, I hope everyone gets to try this place at least once. If you can’t wait, try Golden Eagle Chinese Restaurant two doors down. It’s a good Chinese restaurant run by a small family. Support small business! Okay, here comes the pics.

140117-01Meat meat meat meat. Or for us, meat meat lamb lamb. I suggest the lamb. If you haven’t been here, you order the soup and meat with the waiter. The rest of the food items are in the refrigerators so it’s like the Genki of hot pot restaurants. Color plates corresponds to the cost. They have a bazillion dipping sauces to choose from and raw green onion and cilantro to accompany your food. Rice costs extra. The small portion is very cheap and fed three of us. In fact, we had rice leftover.

140117-02This is like the same picture as before…but now you see all the meat.  I apologize for my terrible reporting on this meal.

140117-03Now, do you know what this is? If you’re Chinese, you probably do. This is a cold dish in the refrigerator, no cooking required. It just tastes great with some rice, nicely seasoned. The texture is awesome. I usually make people try this before I tell them what it is so I can get their true reaction. Do you wanna know what it is? Do you really want to? Comment if you do and I will give you the answer. If not, just eat em!

140117-04After stuffing my face, I finally took another picture. Here is their famous free dessert. It includes shave ice with like a brown sugar syrup. Lots of different flavors of jelly (i.e. mango, lychee). The middle is like a creamy coffee jello thing.  The white blobs are like chunks of almond float. They are very accommodating here. If you cannot finish the dessert, they can put it in a take out cup. They also ask if you want the soup after you’re done in case you want to take it home to use again. I don’t know about everyone else, but the soup I use (healthy herb by the way) is always all murky and sludgy after all the cooking so I usually decline. Give them a try! It’s worth the wait.

 

Recipe: Baked Spaghetti

I got a request from a reader (thanks yuko!) for my Baked Spaghetti recipe so here I am to share it! Always a pleasure to share recipes. 🙂 My recipe is super specific, down to the brand name but this is what I do to make some gooood baked spaghetti. I’ll share some pictures and the recipe after the cut.

140116-01This is the stuff! Ooey, gooey and delicious. Join me won’t you?

140116-02Ground beef ready to go!

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Ground beef and minced onions

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This is how the dish looks like after the initial baking. This includes the noodles, pasta sauce and cheddar cheese. 

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After the first bake, you sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Baked Spaghetti

32 oz. Meatless spaghetti sauce, any flavor  –  I use Hunt’s Brand – Garlic and Herb  (in the 26 oz. aluminum can) – update: 5/4/14, they sneakily now make the cans in 24 oz. sizes. When the Hunt’s brand canned spaghetti sauce is on sale, it is much cheaper than the glass jars so I just buy two but still measure out 32 oz. for this recipe.
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes with green pepper, celery, and onion – do not drain (I use Hunt’s brand once again)
1 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion, minced
1 box (lb.) spaghetti or angel hair pasta, whichever you prefer – I use Barilla brand spaghetti
1 8 oz. bag shredded mild cheddar cheese
1 8 oz. bag shredded mozzarella cheese (you can add more if you like a lot of cheese for both cheeses, for these pictures, I used only one each…when I’ve made the recipe in other times…I’ve added more mozzarella)

Either one 13 x 9 baking pan or two 8 inch baking pans.
Olive Oil Spray – to grease the pan(s)

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Break the pasta into 3 inch lengths. I usually yield about 3 “sticks” from each stick of spaghetti and then cook according to package directions. I usually remove it about 2-3 minutes before the pasta is cooked. The pasta will continue to cook later in the sauce and eventually in the oven so you don’t want to overcook the pasta. Rinse and drain the pasta, place aside.

Brown onions and ground beef together until the beef is cooked through. Drain excess grease if necessary. Stir in spaghetti sauce and diced tomatoes with the beef mixture and simmer for a few minutes until the sauce has thickened.

Stir in the pasta. Once incorporated, stir in all the cheddar cheese. Stir the mixture until cheese is completely melted.

Grease your baking pan(s) and place your pasta mixture in.

Bake the spaghetti for 15 minutes, take the pan(s) out and sprinkle the mozzarella cheese on top and bake for 15 minutes more or until the cheese has melted to your liking. Enjoy!

Note: Another great thing about this recipe is that it freezes very nicely!

140116-06You won’t regret making this.  Adult and kids enjoy it! Let me know how it goes if you make it! 

Cooking Fresh For You – Honolulu, HI

I’m not going to mention where I work exactly but I think those who work in the same place as me will figure it out with this post.  About a year ago, food trucks have been popping up near my work place and I have loved it.  It’s great to have other choices for lunch and I like to support small business owners who work hard to run their food trucks.  I’ve tried Cooking Fresh For You a few times since they’ve been on-campus.  What’s cool is that they were one of the first trucks that popped up and they are still staying strong.  I find their plates to be hit or miss, they focus on serving fresh and healthier food plates.

Well, after a long break from them…my desperation for food came through when I had no other choice (sorry!).  I definitely did not regret this decision!  My plate was delicious!  I ordered their chicken with mushroom sauce.

140115-01Fresh fruit, mixed greens, three chicken thighs (dark meat is the best!) served on top of brown rice

140115-02I was surprised that they served chicken thighs but was fine because the meat was so tender.  The chicken and sauce were delicious, the brown rice was good.  I enjoyed the addition of fresh fruit slices, they were surprisingly juicy and sweet.  My only complaint is the salad.  Don’t get me wrong, I love salads but the greens they use while high quality are very bitter.  I can’t take the bitterness.  Their prices are also very good!  I think this dish was about 8-9 bucks, I’d go for this dish over L&L any day!

 

New Diner’s Drive-In – Honolulu, HI

Have you been to New Diner’s Drive-In?  This place is located on North King Street right next to the Post Office.  I gotta say, being a Kalihi girl…this is one of the few places I don’t like going to. There’s such a big mix of “interesting” people here.  I’ve been approached more than once by these “interesting” folks which has scared me off enough. Well, I needed dinner one night and this was one of the few places open that night…so I had no choice! The people were still as interesting as usual so I grabbed my food as soon as I could and proceeded to grind at home.

140113-01Here is one of their signature dishes. Fried saimin with BBQ chicken. I can’t deny it, it is delicious! Especially slathered in Sriracha sauce…

140113-02Here was my dinner! Kimchee fried rice. I gotta say, this was really good!  Kimchee fried rice is usually hit or miss in restaurants and I find that a lot of them tend to make kimchee fried rice a bit sweet. They made this fried rice very savory and tasty.  Too tasty.  That means I could taste butter which was nice but there was a bit too much butter.  I still think it tasted great. If I work up the nerve, I may have to return here one day.

Rant and Rave

I’m just gonna start off with a rant and then end with a rave so it can be on a positive note. On Friday, I had a day off from work and decided to pick up my brothers from school and spend time with them and my cousin who was leaving back to school in Chicago. I may have mentioned this before but my brothers are very young and I could be their mother. Well if I had my kids early in life, then yes, I can be their mother. I’m not. So the first pick-up was for the youngest at the preschool. It was nap-time and I told the teacher I was picking up Jayson. She was very friendly, don’t get me wrong…but I still believe she was very rude. She asked who I was and I told her and then the questions started. First she asked how old I was, and sorry but I am now at the age where it is SUPER rude to ask me how old I am. I am pretty sensitive about my age now, haha. Then she just keeps going, so I basically have to share my life story about my father and him having kids with his new wife, etc. She bombards me with non-stop questions, where do I live, who else is in my family, majorly personal and sensitive questions. I’m not comfortable but I answer them because, get this, I don’t wanna be rude! So after the whole inquisition, she then says she has to check my ID to pick him up in case I’m kidnapping him or something (ha! sarcastically).  Then at the end she has the wonderful foresight to tell me that if I had a kid, my youngest brother would be an uncle.  Thank you for the information. I’m glad she had a laugh at her own rude joke.

Anyway, sorry that was the rant. Maybe I’m at that point of the month where I’m sensitive but I still think her personal questions were rude. I got the sense that the way she asked them were also judgemental. Sigh. Other than that I had a pretty good day off, can’t wait to share the pics with you! Let me share with you a picture from Lanikai last week!

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Retirement Coffee Hour

We recently had a coffee hour for our director that retired in December.  Gosh, December was such a blur but I would take home cooked food over take out food any day!  This day was filled with so many home made goodies, I just wanted to share them!

140111-01This looks professional but was homemade!  There were black bean sauce in these noodles, very good. A lot of pictures are coming in this post, you have been warned!  Continue reading

Sunny Side – Wahiawa, HI

I’ve heard about Sunny Side for years now but I hardly go out to that side so I never got to try it.  On my productive day off, I decided to hit up Sunny Side on the way to the North Shore.  What a great idea!  I’ve been missing out all these years!  I love the feel of this place, definitely a small business that serves up some great food for us locals.  We got ourselves some breakfast and a slice of their infamous pie.  Check it out.

140110-01Fried Rice Special with Eggs over Easy.  Delicious!  And so cheap…cash only though.  Luckily I knew.  

140110-02Side of hash browns.  Can’t go wrong with this.  I thought it tasted just fine!  Like my art work?  Haha!

140110-03Slice of their blueberry cream pie.  This was mainly for my cousin who is a blueberry freak and she LOVED it.  She’s pretty picky too.  She even asked for it the other day…I guess we’ll have to go back when she comes home again!

Day off – North Shore, HI

So as I have mentioned before, I was super stressed in December with a lot of different projects at work.  When my final project was complete, I totally took a vacation the day after.  Since I was taking the day off, I wanted to make it a productive one and I certainly think I did!  We drove out to Wahiawa to try Sunny Side Bakery, then up to the North Shore to get shrimp for lunch.  The day ended with dinner and a movie, while that included a lot of “doing,” I felt completely relaxed!  Let me share some pictures!

140109-01Pupukea Beach Park.  There was a guy sitting up front forever which ruined all our shots.  I finally got this when he left…hehe.

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Christmas 2013

Late post but I just wanted to share some quick pictures from Christmas. A picture of my present from my friend Kristian. As you will learn in this blog, he’s an amazing gift wrapper. Take a look at his gift this year!  He already has an inspiration for next year and I’m super excited to see it executed. Hahaha…for lunch, I cooked up a whole bunch of portuguese sausage, eggs and rice for the family. It was delicious!

140108-01Courtesy of Kristian!

140108-02Best breakfast (for lunch!) ever!

King’s Korean BBQ – Honolulu, HI

King’s Korean BBQ is a cozy little Korean BBQ joint located in the same lot as Sweet Home Cafe and Kozo Sushi in Moilili. We’ve done lunch orders here a few times since it’s close to us!  I love to support this joint over Gina’s (she is so mean!) since it is run by a really sweet Korean couple all on their own.  Their portions are good and the prices are reasonable.  Check out the pics!

140107-01Mini Kalbi Plate ($9.00) – Pretty good price I think!  Their mini plates comes with two scoops of rice and two veggies. Continue reading