Pumpkin Spice Latte is back in stores! That’s the true sign of Autumn. I decided to give the iced version a try the other night. I wasn’t a fan – I would definitely recommend the hot one only. Delicious!
Archive by Author | Jenny
Chukaya Sea Dragon Table – Ala Moana, HI
I’ve been wanting to try Chukaya Sea Dragon Table ever since they opened up a while back because I was curious how Japanese style Chinese food would taste like. The start was interesting. First off, you have to find your own parking so I parked in the sketch are behind a well known druggy park. We got to the restaurant and decided to check out some shops on the side before heading in. The restaurant opens at 5pm and we got in at about 6pm. Well, we tried to get in at 6pm. The restaurant was fully lit and employees were inside waiting for customers to come in. So basically, they hadn’t unlocked their door yet and we were their first official customers. I couldn’t believe it and I bet if a customer tried to open the locked door and couldn’t, they would just walk on by.
My friend and I were pretty excited about a few dishes we saw on Yelp but as we browsed through the menu, many of them were crossed off. We were informed that they are going through a re-design and would be changing up the menu. We were disappointed but stayed around anyway. One of the main dishes I wanted was their Dragon Ball soup which is something they discontinued. The waitress was nice enough to ask the kitchen about it and they were willing to make it! Check out our meal…
Jajamen
So, I am used to the Korean version of this dish and this was a lot different. They used more of a Chinese red bean sauce which I liked as well! The noodles were great, chewy and firm. I enjoyed it!
Spicy Eggplant
I’m not a huge fan of eggplant but my love for it has been growing lately. I guess what they say is true, as you get older – you start liking things you didn’t like before. I like when eggplant is prepared like this – braised. This was delicious!
Dragon Balls
The famous dragon balls! Which they no longer carry. If you folks know what cha gor (tea roll) is, this is very similar. The plain mochi covers a savory filling. In this case, their filling is like a spare-rib/pork hash filling. It was pretty good but nothing I would order again (not that I can anyway). I think I just compared it too much to the ones I grew up with and nothing beats home cooking!
As we were walking back to our car, I saw the J-Shop that Jalna posted about! I had to check it out and saw this big hunk of meat for $1000! Insane. Only Japanese restaurants can afford this kine of thing huh? How much do they have to charge to make their money back?? That marbling though, looks amazing. But $1000…craziness to me!
Restaurant Do-ne Japanese Food
Wait a minute. Did that really just happen? So I’m totally stoked for the new iPhone and I just put in my order…and it went through. Like for real. I did it within 15 minutes of the official release. I’m pretty stoked but knowing my luck, I will get some kind of error message tomorrow. Hahaha ah well. I’m not dying to get it first…I just wanted to get it and not stand in line. We will see huh?
Can I start off my post with a big MAHALO to Ono Kine Recipes? I’ve been following them for a while now and I was so honored when I saw them featuring my recipes two days in a row! People seemed to like the recipes too so it was such an honor, really. Welcome all new readers to my humble little blog, I hope I get to talk to you folks soon. This should also serve as motivation to make new recipes for the blog! I do have one recipe that I’ve been holding onto, it’s SO good but I think I should ask for permission before I post it. It might be too top secret to share…lol.
Anyway, I hope you are all having a great week. Tomorrow is Friday! Yay! Classes have been going okay. Then again, I haven’t had to start my papers yet so it’s a bit early to judge. I am however interested in everything I’m learning about so that’s a good sign! Today, I’m sharing a dinner I had recently at Restaurant Do-ne Japanese Food. I’ve dined there before and liked it, this visit was no different! Great food! Great…company? Well, my dining companion was cool…there was a table of older gentlemen, and how can I say this nicely? Getting bombed. They kept offering everyone cigarettes and beer. Yeah. Hahaha but other than that, it was good. They have limited parking but you just double park and it’s a small enough restaurant that you can tell people leaving that you can move your car. Let’s get to the food!
Katsu-don Set – $12.50
I usually go for a raw fish don but this night, I felt like like a good old..katsu don. It was delicious! The seasoning was just right and the chicken was moist and tender inside.
Always enjoy their salads! Very refreshing, the dressing has a citrus/ponzu flavor.
Seasoned Eggplant. I really want to learn how to make their side dishes. I’m not even a fan of eggplant and I ate this right up.
Okra with Mushrooms. Not sure what kind of mushrooms exactly, delicious once again. Yes, okra has a bit of a slimy texture but it’s totally fine in this dish. Once again, their flavors are on point.
My favorite side dish of the night – by far! This is made in the style of Mentaiko Pasta but with konnyaku. My gosh, the crunchy texture of the konnyaku with the creamy yet spicy sauce was heavenly. The little strands of basil I assume were the perfect accent. I wish I could steal a whole pot of this and run far far away. I would love to recreate it if I could! Maybe I will…
Superb Sushi – Kalihi, HI
I live in the heart of K-town and noticed that Superb Sushi put up a banner a while back advertising their fresh poke bowls for $6.00. I’m down! But they were never in the forefront of my mind because I always thought they were a catering company so it didn’t automatically click until about a week ago. It’s a great little shop, you basically walk into their open air kitchen that has a small counter area. I was stoked to try their food! They make the food pretty quick and there is a very interesting painting in the waiting area – try take a look when you visit. If there are any kids around, I wouldn’t let them look too closely at it…you’ll see what I mean when you see it.
Poke Bowl/California Roll Special – $10
Awesome poke. I don’t know if you can see it too clearly here, but there are salt crystals that you crunch into. I wasn’t super into that at first but grew to like it quite a bit.
California Roll, classic. This set also comes with a miso soup. That was probably the one downer of the whole set – it was SUPER salty. And this is coming from someone who likes salt. I don’t know if they made my soup wrong or not, but I had to dump it because of the salt.
Futomaki with Unagi – $6.50
Yes, I sprung the extra dollar for unagi and it was DELICIOUS. This roll was so good. What is that pink thing inside this roll? I know it was a type of seafood and it seemed to be like sugar crusted. It was good! I really enjoyed this roll as well. I definitely plan on returning to this place.
Go Pink or Go Home
If I were to compare my studying last Saturday to today – I would get a big fat F. It was a pretty tough week and I basically spent today sleeping. I had two long naps! Crazy right? Anyway, I help out by picking up my brothers from Chinese School on Saturdays. Chinatown is abysmal but in the past, I was able to stop on the side and they would run out. Well, this year – the teachers have decided to play it safe and not allow the kids to run off anymore. What does that mean for me? It means I have to find legal parking, park and then walk over. Parking in Chinatown – horrific. But I’m able to find spots so I pay the meter and run out to grab them. Today was a weird day. My usual spot was taken so I had to park further away. So my car is parked and I am waiting for the right moment to leave and notice a woman passed out on the side. She seems to be normal (meaning she wasn’t obviously homeless…how do I explain..) and she was just laid out and her pants were like a bit down so her butt was on full display. It just so happened that a cop had pulled up and parked his car right next to her at the same time as me so I figured, okay good.
Well a few minutes later, I get out of my car and start walking towards the school and towards her…I’m freaked out because I’m actually hoping this woman is alive. I look at her…her face is all red and sweaty (the sun is right on her!) but she moves so I breathed a sigh of relief. I glimpse at the cop and he’s in his car with the windows down. I keep looking at him because I’m thinking – is he gonna come out? Now that I think back to it…he had a baby car seat in his back seat. This was totally his personal car but he had one blue light on top. I’m still confused. Anyway, I grab the kids and come back to my car and lady is still in the same position passed out. The cop still in his car. I get in my car and sit there staring at her…cause now I feel a sense of like responsibility. The cop then drives off! I’m not sure why he was parked there in the first place. So I sit there for at least 5 minutes wondering what to do…like if I should call 911. When finally she gets up and starts like arranging herself, I finally feel okay to leave. I don’t know what to say. Maybe this is just how it is all around Chinatown? What is the proper protocol in these situations? I can tell you what I did observe, choke people walking by and seeing her and just…like taken aback and then moving right along with their business. I knew I wasn’t going to leave her like that unless I saw her gain consciousness or I would have called 911. Anyway, that was my Saturday so far. I hope that all my sleeping today leads to a good night of studying – I doubt it. Hope you folks have a good one.
Quick share of a recent purchase. That’s right, pink tools. Go pink or go home. Wait, I already stay home. Haha nah, I just wanted some handy tools around. These are definitely not high quality but gets what I need done…which is nothing serious.
Any Kine Grinds
I should just start a corner of random foods I eat. Just a quick update!
Looks good ah? It was pretty good. I could do without the carrots. Why did I add them in??
Look what’s back! Chicken Fries at Burger King! Gosh, they used to be so good so I was surprised they took them away. They brought them back for a “limited time” maybe this will be their McRib Sandwich.
P.S. I did bring the caramel apple oreos to work and the office practically ate it all! In fact, it’ll probably be gone tomorrow…ha!
Happy September!
September! You know what that means right? Autumn! I consider this officially autumn and while Hawaii does not have seasons as much as I would like, I will still enjoy it and look forward to the holiday season. I was walking through Target the other night and noticed a new variety of Oreos. Is it bad to say that I half bought it to share the results with you folks? Ah, you guys are worth it…:)
This sounded really good when I saw it. I also hadn’t eaten yet so….
Here they are in the opened glory. How were they? Gosh, I hate to say it but it’s another dud for me. I really wanted to like it but the filling tastes so dang artificial that I can’t like it. The apple was a very weird waxy apple candy like taste…and I guess the caramel part was fine. I couldn’t shake the artificial apple taste from my mouth for a while so that bothered me a bit. This all could just be me. I hope my co-workers will like it better than I did.
So how did I spend my three day weekend? While I did have productive spurts here and there with housework – I mainly locked myself up and studied. As I explained last post, I am taking two courses this semester. So far, one course is super on it with the syllabus and assignments. The other…I don’t know yet. No syllabus and no assignments just yet. I spent all weekend reading up chapters (reading not necessarily understanding). Status update? Right now I have finished my assignment for this week and just finished the reading for next week. I plan to continue though. I also have to start thinking about the papers and projects we have to do.
My Saturday. Book open. Huge cup of coffee. Netflix sponsored fireplace. It’s awesome. It has a holiday version, plain crackling fire version and a easy listening version. LOL. I love it. You know what my brother asked me? Is there a season 2? Hahaha insane.
This is how everything looked yesterday. This was after I made a trip to Target to up my studying supplies. This is very similar to how things looked today. I hope you folks are all having a great three day weekend!
First Taste Friday
Okay, I never tried these on a Friday but I was trying to be witty. Today was one bomb day. Bomb as in terrible, not good. But I am still in high spirits! Surprisingly. I have decided to take two graduate courses this semester while working full-time. I am insane, I know. A lot of people are worried that I cannot handle but I am confident that I can. I plan to dedicate myself to it. Today was the class I was scared about but it ended up being a great class. I was scared only because I didn’t know if the material would be over my head or not…but I think I should do okay. The instructor seems great too.
Anyway, just a fore warning of possibly lesser posts in the next 2-3 months because of my work and course-load. I hope not though. Anyway! I tried a few limited time flavors of snacks recently and wanted to share my opinion.
How can I explain this Wasabi Ginger flavor? MSG Strong? It really does taste like you’re eating the old school uncooked crushed ramen coated with the MSG packet with a hint of wasabi. It’s not my cup of tea but many people like it!
I’ve been waiting for these to make their way over to Hawaii for a long time! Or more like, I’ve been wanting to get it for forever. How is it? To me, it tastes very coffee-ish. It’s interesting but once again, not a fan. Give me the regular oreos.
Hong Kong Style Breakfast
Hey folks! Time to dig into my archives and share some travel photos. This is from my trip to Hong Kong a few years back. I wanted to share a few different breakfasts we had. It’s really interesting to see how global chains adjust their menus to suit the taste of their customers. Hong Kong is really cool because it’s such a good mix of both East and West food and cultures. I’ll share more pictures of Hong Kong soon!
Macaroni is a pretty big part of breakfast menus in Hong Kong. Macaroni in a broth/soup.
Sample of the Western influence – very English breakfast set-up.
This is breakfast from KFC. Yes, their KFC is open for breakfast. This is a combo that includes a roast chicken thigh, egg and hash brown. The container? You guessed it. Macaroni in chicken broth.
Coffee with KFC brand sugar…lol. I’m sorry I didn’t get to try their Flava Crava Meal.
Breakfast at McDonald’s is very similar to the restaurants in the U.S. I think they also have macaroni in soup but I was pretty tired of it by then. Their food tastes very similar to the American counterpart. KFC in China tastes way better than the U.S.
Salmon Ikura Bowl – Hokkaido Ramen Santouka
Just a quick post today. This is one of my favorites from Hokkaido Ramen Santouka! If I wasn’t such a glutton for noodles, I would get this by itself and just gobble it down. The rice is perfectly cooked, the salmon is freshly flaked and the ikura. How do I explain ikura? An explosion of flavor. Mmm…soo good…
Hokkaido Ramen Santouka Post 1
Hokkaido Ramen Santouka Post 2