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Mixed Plate Friday

Aug29

Strawberry Jam and Butter Sauce Packets

Yes oh yes, I was able to snag a few packets when Don Q had it in stock. Of course it was posted on social media and sold out like crazy. One of my favorite things to eat in Japan is the strawberry and butter sandwiches from the convenience store. It’s made like an uncrustable but it’s not easy to find and not at every combini. This will have to suffice until I find it in Japan again! Pretty good! I would definitely get more if I see it in stock again.

Fin’s Bagel with House-cured Salmon | $17.95
choice of house-cured fish: salmon, ahi, mahi, ono, or smoked fish salad with tomato, onion, cucumber dill, local sprouts, capers and cream cheese (we got roasted garlic cream cheese)

Thank you Chan for treating lol! This was for a meet-up with Kat, it was so nice seeing her and spending some time with her. I know her trips to Hawaii are always busy so I am happy she tries to schedule some time with us! Fin’s Bagels just opened up in downtown a few weeks ago so we wanted to try! We ordered our sandwiches with everything bagel and wow, they are HUGE. I could barely finish half for lunch. So how was it? While they are super generous with the ingredients and cream cheese – I thought it was just okay. I actually found the bagel itself to be too big and too chewy. I also don’t love sprouts so I would get it without the sprouts next time.

Fat Cheeks Hawaii Fish and Fries | $18.50
flaky white fish, battered with our house seasoning and fried crispy on top of fries. served with lemons, tartar sauce, and hot sauce on the side.

I joined in with Chan’s office order one day and finally got to try their version of fish and chips. Oh my gosh, it was SO GOOD. And it was a HUGE portion. 4 big pieces of fish fried to perfection and the fries are good too! Of course I couldn’t finish this, shared with Chan too. I didn’t even realize it came with a container of hot sauce on the side so I didn’t even use it! Ugh! They did find the hot sauce in the bag and thought it belonged to the hot chicken sandwich order but I guess it was for mine! It’s great that they have online ordering and they keep to the time you request. It won’t be ready earlier than that which is a good thing, you’re getting your food fresh!

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Stadium Pho – Salt Lake, HI

Aug27

Stadium Pho was a main stay for me when I would venture out to Salt Lake Target, they are located in the same lot as Ice Palace. During the pandemic, they switched to take-out orders only which I took full advantage of. I noticed that even after everything died down, they continued doing take-out only orders for a very long time. In fact, they only reopened for dine in very recently. We came for a lunch a while ago and this meal was a nice surprise because my baby brother treated all of us. Oh yes, all three brothers being employed finally is earning some perks.

Lemon Beef Salad | $13.25

Good dish, not great. I’ve had this salad better at other restaurants and actually prefer when the beef is raw. They usually serve it with the raw thin slices of beef that “cooks” in their lemon/fish sauce dressing. Tasted good but I prefer the beef prepared another way.

Culantro! Gotta have culantro, restaurants that don’t serve culantro with pho should not be serving food!

Special Combination Pho (Small) | $15.95
Special Combination Pho (Large) | $17.95

Steaming hot bowl of pho, one of the most comforting dishes. This is definitely what I would want if I was feeling under the weather. Either pho or jook. Delicious!

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Recipe: Steamed Pork Patty

Aug25

Another recipe that helps me cook to my roots. My mom used to cook this dish for us all the time and I hated making it when I learned how. You could technically use ground pork but that wouldn’t be the same. She would use pork shoulder and chop it down by hand which I hated but now that I’m older and wiser, I realized that having chunks of the pork makes all the different in this dish.

I didn’t have a recipe written for this but can recall certain details. I noticed that online sources have all kinds of variations but I went the super simple route. Remember when I posted this the other week?

Yup, it was to make this dish! I tried to use this recipe as inspiration for my dish but I ended up just improvising. My mom didn’t use water chestnut so I didn’t use that and I wanted shiitake mushrooms in it, so I added that.

I don’t really have a recipe to type up, I used two pounds of pork shoulder that I chopped up. I added about 8 shiitake mushrooms. I rinsed off the salted turnip and minced that small but boy I messed that up. I should have rinsed and soaked the turnip overnight because bugga is SALTY. So salty.

I seasoned the patty with some oyster sauce, sugar, cornstarch, sesame oil, chicken bouillon and white pepper. No salt or shoyu cause it’s so dang salty. I also drizzled some vegetable oil on top before steaming it for about 20 minutes.

If it wasn’t so salty, this dish would have been perfect. Luckily I ate this with rice and some squash soup. I don’t know how traditional this is but when we had leftovers of this pork patty, my mom added eggs to make another meal out of it (almost like a meat chawan mushi).

I added a few eggs and some water (I don’t even measure, just eyeball it myself) – topped it with fresh green onions and steamed it for about 10 minutes or just until it is set. And boom, another entree! Ah this was a good dish. I had enough pork mixture to make two pie platters so I froze half for later. If you want a recipe, let me know and I’ll try to type one out next time I make it.

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Mixed Plate Friday

Aug22

Notice anything odd about this? I was driving one day and this truck was BEING TOWED through the roads like this. Yup. With all the garbage bags, gardening debris and the garbage can in the back. Nothing flew out at me but then again, we were stuck in traffic. Isn’t that’s crazy?

Trolli Gummi Pop | $8.99

I’m such a silly sucker for trends. I saw this on social media and was intrigued, a gummy worm type textured popsicle? I love gummy worms so I wanted to try this out! They sell this in Safeway and took a while to get here. How was it? Ehhh…it has a weird texture that is a bit flexible for a popsicle but not exactly a gummy worm texture. Wouldn’t recommend it.

Kokoro-Tei Omelette Rice | $14.98

I love Kokoro-Tei and have been wanting to try their omelette rice for a very long time. They only have this for a daily special so you have to check their website to know when to order it. First time trying it and I loved it. Love the soft runny omelette and the demi glace sauce over the rice. Great dish! I would definitely order it again! And love their online ordering system – makes everything so easy peasy!

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Recipe: Cambodian Stir Fry Shrimp

Aug20

When I saw this recipe on TikTok (duh), my mouth was salivating already. It’s a simple dish to make but I did have to venture out to Chinatown to grab a bottle of crab paste.

Don’t ask me what is in crab paste, I hope there is crab but I don’t love that it says formula 2 on this bottle lol. The bottle is also kind of pricey, I think this was almost $9.00. I asked the lady the price and she was nice but was defensive when she told me the price because she said this is the good one. Okay, I’ll take your word for it lady!

Funny story, some folks add other seafood like mussels to this but I decided to add squid. Times had baby squid on sale so I bought a box. The cashier starts scanning it and then asks me if I fish. If you know me, you know that I absolutely do not fish. She asks what I’m going to do with it and I was like…”eat em?” and she mentioned that a lot of fisherman buy this to use as bait for fishing. Well come time to make this dish, I regretted buying this box of baby squid with every ounce of my soul. The amount of cleaning and prep work I had to do with the baby squid was insane – it was not worth my time or efforts cause by the time it was “cooked” there was barely any meat. Ugh! No wonder it’s used as bait for fishing.

Garlic and Crab Paste Sauteeing!

Add the shrimp to the sauce and stir fry

Add jalapenos and green onions and continue cooking until the shrimp is cooked through (and look! Where even is the squid! Ugh!)

Cambodian Shrimp Stir Fry

1 bottle of crab paste
2 lb. head-on shrimp, deveined
1 head of garlic, minced
2 T oyster sauce
1 t chicken bouillon
1 t black pepper
1 T chili oil
1 T sugar
3-4 jalapenos, sliced (keep the seeds for extra spice!)
3 green onions, chopped into 2 inch sticks
1 T neutral oil

Heat up a wok and add neutral oil and garlic, fry until fragrant. Add entire body of crab paste and heat up for about 1 minute or 2. Add shrimp, oyster sauce, chicken bouillon, black pepper, chili oil and sugar and stir fry for about 3 minutes. Add jalapenos and green onions and continue to stir-fry for about 6-7 minutes or until the shrimp is cooked through.

Very spicy but very delicious! Definitely a rice thief dish. Chan and I enjoyed it immensely!

Recipe Credit: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8kvRc6S

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Lam’s Kitchen – Chinatown, HI

Aug18

One faithful Sunday morning, after doing a quick grocery run with Chan, I offered up a drive to Chinatown to get some GRUB. Had a hankering for some beef noodles even in the hot Hawaiian summer heat. We parked in my favorite municipal lot and headed out. Lam’s Kitchen is super busy all the time but guess what, it ain’t busy before 8AM lol. We were the only 1 of 2 diners that morning. They did however have a lot of Chinese folks walking in and out of the shop for their takeout orders.

Chinese Doughnut Stick | $3.00

One of Chan’s favorite dishes and it was nice and crispy here too. We didn’t have jook today but it is nice dipped into the noodle broth too!

Beef Flank & Tendon Mein with Won Ton $18.99

I made Chan order his with won ton so I could just have one or two (mwahaha) and it was so much food, Chan could hardly finish his bowl even after giving me wonton. He got his with the skinny mein noodles.

Beef Flank & Tendon Look Fun | $14.50

Look fun is always good and Lam’s makes it very well. I got all confused in my mind that morning and was feeling like lai fun. I don’t know why I’ve been hankering for lai fun lately and I hardly see restaurants carrying it, let me know if you know of a good lai fun joint. Anyway, lai fun is kind of like udon noodles but a bit skinnier and not as soft. Anyway, this dish was good as always! Can’t beat a classic!

Noodle Pull!

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Recipe: Taegu Tofu Poke

Aug13

Another TikTok recipe but this time it was harder because she gave ingredients enough to feed a big party. I tried to cut it down to a smaller portion and it still came out to a LOT but I wasn’t about to use a whole jar of furikake and a whole jar of chili oil (LOL). I’ll try to give you folks the ingredients I used and I’ll link her video below too!

Triple Tofu Action!

So much chopping…

Taegu Tofu Poke

1 pack extra firm tofu, cubed
1 pack firm tofu, cubed
1 pack unseasoned aburage, cubed
1 3 oz. container taegu, chopped
1 kamaboko, cubed
1 package vegetable tempura fishcake, cubed
1 container sea asparagus (I bought the container from Don Quijote)
1/4 C Furikake
3 T chili oil
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 sweet onion, minced

Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl and refrigerate, tastes best as it marinates in the fridge!

Recipe Credit: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8k7322S

This was very good and everyone I shared it with enjoyed it. I liked it too but do you ever make recipes and then after you’re done making the dish, you don’t really want to eat it? That was me, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted. The sea asparagus and sweet onion adds the perfect crunch to this dish, and the taegu and chili oil add plenty seasoning. I think I added a dash of shoyu initially before it got to sit in the fridge but that’s probably not needed.

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Tempura Ichika – Honolulu, HI

Aug11

Let me apologize ahead of time for a very long post, I did not realize how many pictures I took! But hey, I want to show you the full experience. Chan and I were invited to a wonderful dinner at Tempura Ichika, I never heard of them before but they serve up a tempura omakase. Intriguing. I wasn’t sure how I would take to a never ending spread of just tempura but boy did I eat my words (and tempura). Very special experience, intimate dining room with awesome food and service. Let’s take a journey shall we?

Bonito and Red Snapper (Tai) Sashimi

I got too excited and ate mine before I could take a picture, luckily Chan’s friend took one and sent it to me. Very fresh pieces of fish, nice way to start the dinner before all the fried food comes out.

Table Setting

Here they are readying you for your tempura, there is a lemon slice in the silver serving dish, regular salt, konbu salt and curry salt. Bottom right is the tentsuyu with grated daikon. The server will tell you how to season each piece of tempura that gets served.

Kyushu Fried Shrimp Head

No waste. I like it! And I love shrimp head so this was great! If you don’t like fried shrimp heads, please dine with me and I will help you out.

Kyushu Shrimp Tempura

Isn’t that a thing of a beauty? Not only does it look pretty, it tasted amazing. The shrimp flesh was so tender and sweet. Absolutely one of the best dishes of the night, in fact, it was Chan’s favorite of the night.

Kisu (Japanese Whiting Fish) | Fried Bone and Fish

Wow. We were instructed to eat the bone with some salt sprinkled on top and the fish with the tentsuyu. Perfect dish, the bones were super crispy and light.

Kani Miso

Some kani miso (essentially crab organs) – my favorite part of the crab! This was actually the “sauce” served with the next dish.

Snow Crab

Um…yum!! We were instructed to dip this snow crab into the kani miso and then sprinkle fresh squeezed lemon juice on top. So so good.

Palate Cleanser | Shio Koji Marinated Succotash

Not sure what succotash is used in this context – I think this included celery and radish? Very refreshing, perfect cleanser mid-meal!

Cauliflower

Yup, cauliflower. We were advised to eat this one with the curry salt. The curry salt isn’t very strong in curry or salt (lol) taste – this dish was just okay. I mean, it’s cauliflower. It’s nothing special…

Salted Snapper

Oooh another raw fish dish. I like that they keep mixing in fresh dishes between the fried dishes. This was good, not great.

Kizami Wasabi (chopped fresh wasabi stems)

I love kizami wasabi – the fresh wasabi tends to sting less and has a smoother taste!

Sea Scallop

Eat one side with the kizami wasabi and one side with the konbu salt. This was hands down my favorite dish of the night. The scallop was so firm and sweet – so meaty in texture! It was perfect with the kizami wasabi, I loved this dish.

Nasu (eggplant) with Bonito and Ginger

Not usually a fan of eggplant myself but you can’t really lose with this combination. Tasted great!

Tomatoes with Snap Peas, Tororo Dried Konbu

Rakkyo Shallots

Seabass with Shiso Wrap

We were instructed to eat this with the rakkyo shallots and a bit of konbu salt. It was good, but honestly, not super memorable.

Konbu Wrapped Hokkaido Uni with Truffled Salt | $30.00

This dish is not included in the omakase, this was an extra we ordered off the ala carte menu. Luscious and decadent – so rich and delicious. Still doesn’t beat the scallop lol.

Anago (Conger Eel)

No seasoning needed, eat as is! That’s a big wad of wasabi I think and yeah, it was hot. Chan probably laughed at me.

Maitake Mushroom

I don’t remember if we were told to dip this in anything, I might have dipped it in the tentsuyu myself. It was good! I love mushrooms.

Miso Soup

Tendon

Tendon Ikura Topping | $25.00

Not quite sure why a lot of Japanese meals end with either a rice or noodle dish, I like to eat those in the beginning or during the meal! Now, did I body this bowl? Yes, but still. We had a lot of food all through the night so saving this for last is a bit harder but I’ll take one for the team. It was delicious!

Dessert

I think I gave up on taking notes by this point, it was a small scoop of a very fresh tasting yuzu sorbet, it was very nice!

Green Tea

What a special meal, and apparently this is one of the few tempura omakase restaurants in the world! Very rare and I am very happy to have tried this. I am unsure of the price since Chan’s friend very generously paid for the meal but I know it was pricey even just from the ala carte prices! It’s definitely a splurge experience but I would recommend you try it at least once if you love tempura!

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Mixed Plate Friday

Aug8

Lasoon Butter Chicken Mini Plate | $12.45

It’s great to have a good Indian food establishment on campus. I was feeling like Indian last week so I got myself a mini plate and a samosa (Honestly, I wanted the samosa most). This butter chicken is sweeter than I expected, and didn’t contain as much spices and I would have liked. I enjoyed the cabbage side dish and the basmati rice. I got some acid reflux after eating this but that could just be me and the tomato based dish. I do want to return and try the lamb curry next time!

Miyakonjo Bento & Catering Seafood Katsu Combo Plate | $11.45
choice of 1 pc fried Hoki or Aji (Mackerel) with 2 pc Oyster katsu and 1 pc soy milk cream croquette. Comes with fresh tossed salad and furikake rice. Sauce and dressings are on the side.

We had a staff training retreat last week and decided to check out Miyakonjo, I never heard of them before and boy are they located deep in the Kalihi industrial area but what a find. Super great deal on their plates and bentos and it was super good. The salad comes with a small container of goma dressing. I got spicy house made tartar sauce for my katsu and it was delicious! I got the hoki as my fish – every piece was perfectly fried and I finished it all lol. Very good!

Baked You a Smile Hawaii | Kulolo Filled ChiChi Dango

My wonderful friend picked up this mochi from a pop-up market and we both have been wanting to try this place for a while. I’ve been super curious about how this would taste and wow, it is super soft and delicious. Only drawback is that you have to eat this fresh. The mochi stays super soft when refrigerated but the kulolo becomes rock hard. So good! Would recommend! Also, follow them on IG because they are at different locations from week to week!

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Zippy’s – Mililani, HI

Aug6

Chan and I met up with some friends at Zippy’s Mililani and it was super nice. Mililani is such a nice neighborhood and the restaurant side was clean and very chill. We were allowed to dine in and stay back to chat without much bother. This is going to be a super short post!

Chili & Cheese Fries | $6.75
golden brown fries topped with our famous chili and shredded cheddar cheese

Appetizer that Chan and I shared. Look, you can never lose with chili, cheese and fries. The cheese came out like this but no worries, it melted as we ate it! Was really good.

Saturday Special Mushroom Chicken

Okay so I didn’t look at the menu closely but in my mind, I expected either chicken katsu or chicken cutlet sliced up and served smothered in mushroom gravy. Heh, this wasn’t it. It was just a hearty chicken and mushroom stew. It tasted fine but I was just a bit disappointed because it wasn’t what I expected. I know better for future!

Zip Min

This is so odd. I am trying to find this item on their website or menus and it’s not available. You can’t order this for take-out? How odd. Anyway, this was Chan’s dish! He said it’s pricey and not really worth it, not as good as he remembers.

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