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Adela’s Country Eatery – Kaneohe, HI

Jul30

Chan and I were in Kaneohe and decided to grab some lunch from Adela’s Country Eatery – I’ve heard about this place for many years but never got to try it. They make their noodles fresh and have different varieties like ulu/breadfruit, kalamungi/moringa, kalo/taro, ube/okinawan sweet potato, etc.! It was a super hot day and I really didn’t know what to expect. I put our order in with the incredibly sweet woman at the front, she then asked me for my phone number so she could call me when the order was ready. Hmm…I usually stick around for take-out orders but their space is very small. It was so hot that we returned to the car to sit in the AC. I decided to look them up and then read that since every dish is cooked fresh to order, it takes 40-50 minutes. Aiya! No wonder there were so many phone orders, we know better for future! All in all, I think our order took about 40 minutes.

Ube (Noodles) Special | $27.98
with lechon (pork belly) & local stirfry style

Chan loves lechon so this dish was definitely winners. The pork belly is deep fried and served up with a thickened vinegar sauce. The noodles are also nicely seasoned but this is definitely a very rich dish.

Garlic Ulu (Noodles) Portabello | $25.98
with portabello mushroom

We got the two pastas to share but this is the one I wanted mostly. The noodles just taste like regular noodles, I don’t know what I was expecting but man the noodles were so buttery and garlicky. They were seasoned so well (a lot like the garlic noodles at Paradise Poke)! The mushrooms were surprisingly bland – definitely need to get noodles in the same bite as the mushrooms to get the full garlic butter taste.

Would I try this place again? I think so, Chan enjoyed it too! I would probably try another pasta dish. My friend told me that their braised short ribs on the moringa noodles are good. I guess this just means I have to return! This time I just know to order it through the phone an hour ahead of time. Pricey but gotta support local small business. Also, their parking lot is a crap show. You have been warned lol.

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Morton’s The Steakhouse – Honolulu, HI

Jul28

The first time I went to Morton’s Steakhouse was YEARS ago…and it was a bad experience. I think we had a special coupon deal for some kind of set meal and the service was just not it. It soured the restaurant for me for years to come. Well, this past week, Chan’s friend from Japan came to visit so we decided to meet up with her here. They are still around so they gotta be good right? Let’s see if they come right on the service this time. They have an elevator that takes you straight up to their restaurant. It’s really odd because while they are on the second floor, there are absolutely no windows. Figure there must be somewhat of a nice view of Ala Moana beach but I guess they didn’t want it.

Orchard Season | $10.00
apple, pineapple, cranberry, lemon, fever-tree ginger ale

You know how I roll, alcohol free! This was delicious, tastes as crisp as it sounds. This name evokes an autumnal feeling – I really liked it!

The State St. | $20.00
woodford reserve bourbon, carpano antica formula vermouth & cherry bitters filtered through jack daniel’s barrel char…wagyu “bacon” candy

Chan’s fancy drink. The description alone is worth the $20 lol. He let me take a sip and boy was it smooth going down. It’s a good drink!

Complimentary Bread

Usually, I like to scarf down bread but I kept my composure this time. I ate only one slice and saved my appetite for the dinner. The bread was nice and warm and soft with very soft butter on the side. Yum!

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail | $26.00
house-made cocktail sauce, horseradish

Where do I find these bombucha size shrimp myself? So meaty and firm (heh) – it was delicious! Perfect cocktail sauce too, really enjoyed this! But I also enjoy the ones from Costco/Sam’s Club lol.

Chef’s Selection of Fresh Oysters | $25.00
half dozen on the 1/2 shell, house-made cocktail sauce, mignonette

I love a good fresh raw oyster – it tastes clean but also like the ocean. This was good! I enjoyed it!

Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes | $15.00
Make it loaded | $4.00

There’s a lot going on with these mashed potatoes, it’s liked a loaded baked potato casserole. It tastes exactly like it sounds and the “bacon” they use are like huge chunks of thick cut bacon!

Creamed Spinach | $15.00

Basic standard cream spinach – classic, nothing to write home about.

Thick Cut Onion Rings | $15.00

Chan has been craving onion rings and here we go! This definitely fulfilled that craving. Good breading on the onion rings and fried just right.

Parmesan & Truffle Matchstick Fries | $14.00

These fries were so good! I’m thinking I should add matchstick to my favorite cuts of fries list.

36 oz. Tomahawk Ribeye | $145.00

Expensive! But no worries, this steak was shared by three people very happily. They almost ate it all! Yum!

Filet Mignon (6 oz) & Lobster Tail | $71.00
center-cut filet & cold-water tail

This was my entree, figured that since all the steaks were around this price anyway – why not get a good piece of meat and a lobster tail! I shared my lobster with Chan. So for these cuts of steak, I asked for it to be cooked rare. Did they pass the test? No. The steak was basically medium but I just kept it, I hate to send food back – especially steak. It was technically edible but boy was the meat tough to cut and chew. Ruth’s Chris definitely beats them in the quality of the meat and cooking temperature. The lobster was good!

Morton’s Legendary Hot Chocolate Cake | $17.00

So how did they fare with service this time? Incredible. Our waiter was perfect, always checking in on us, making appropriate jokes and serving up some good customer service! He knew that we were meeting up with friends from Japan so he decided to surprise us with this dessert for free! He even gave each of us a scoop of vanilla ice cream with this cake. We weren’t going to order dessert since we were all stuffed but who can resist a free dessert? And I must tell you, this is the best lava cake I have ever had in a restaurant. Super ooey gooey inside but the cake is nice and hot and crispy but soft. Hard to explain, you just gotta try it yourself!

Would I come back? I was disappointed by my steak but maybe I would try a rib-eye next time? Otherwise, it was a good night!

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I-NABA – Honolulu, HI

Jul23

Every time I come to I-naba, it makes me ask why I don’t come more often. I love soba noodles and tempura which they do SO SO well. We came on a hot summer day for lunch and made sure to get here early because I know this is a popular restaurant. Good thing we did because we were second in line and the line grew and grew behind us. When we checked in, she asked if we had a reservation and we said no and she almost looked miffed about that. I don’t know what that was all about but she seated us in the regular seating area anyway. Weird.

It’s basically a retirement crowd here but they certainly acted like they were in a rush to go back to work. Many of them were barking out their orders as the wait staff were putting out cups of water and the edamame. It was a little irritating because I wish they would take orders in the order of people who were seated and not just anyone who would yell their order at them. Nonetheless, we got our order in and the food came out in a timely manner. I was a bit thrown off because my original dish was not available – sigh. So I had to do a quick change since I didn’t want to lose our ordering spot and totally omitted the tempura. Blah! Oh well, I guess that means I gotta come back sooner rather than later.

Tempura Soba | $30.00
2 shrimps, 1 white fish, veggie tempura and zaru (pictured) or kake soba

Bara Chirashi Bowl & Soba | $34.00
chopped some kinds (lol) of sashimi served over sushi rice. also comes with regular size zaru (pictured) or kake soba.

Some kinds of sashimi is a bit vague but I was very pleased with the quality of the some fish in my chirashi bowl. It was delicious! Love the pop of the ikura. My original order was for the hana soba which would have come with tempura. Dangit! I guess I could have ordered tempura on the side but this was way more than enough food!

Yummy and so easy to eat at home. But doesn’t everything always taste better when it’s cooked for you? What a great meal! I can’t wait to return!

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Hokkaido Ramen Santouka – Honolulu, HI

Jul21

This might sound like an exaggeration but I don’t think I’ve been to Hokkaido Ramen Santouka for over a decade. I know for sure I haven’t been there since the pandemic and we’re already 5 years from that. Santouka never went down in quality but when I used to go, they were super super busy. I guess at a certain point, I didn’t feel like it was worth the wait and also tend to visit restaurants I can make online reservations at. Well, I’ve been hankering for some good ramen lately and decided to go on a weekday lunch break and take my chances. There were people dining in the restaurant but we got seated right away!

Toroniku Shio Ramen | $16.80

Toroniku Karamiso Ramen (Small) | $16.30

B Lunch Set (3 pc Gyoza & Salmon Ikura Rice Bowl) | $6.99

I loved that they have a lunch set! And I also love that you can size down or up your ramen bowl – so I downsized my ramen to get the set (yes, I bodied it all). It was SOOO good. The ramen was perfect cooked and seasoned. The gyoza tasted house-made and was grilled perfectly crispy and the rice? Oh the rice, high quality white rice with perfectly seasoned fresh salmon and ikura. It was just a perfect set. I mean, I am sitting here thinking about my next trip already. Gotta drag Chan here lol. So good!

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Mixed Plate Friday

Jul18

Le’s Banh Mi | Saigon Special | $11.50
Add Roast Pork | $2.00

I know you folks must think I am a paid sponsor for Le’s but I promise I am not. It’s just the best banh mi you will ever have on island okay. They make the bread fresh themselves and it’s not too thick and just the right amount of soft and crunchy. You’re not going to cut up your mouth eating this.

Will you look at that? The innards are glorious, GLORIOUS.

Kevin’s Kitchen Char Siu (1 lb.) | $16.95

Kevin’s Kitchen 1/2 Roast Duck | $20.00

I’ve talked about Kevin’s Kitchen in a previous post but came back here to grab some dishes to complete our home father’s day meal. Just wanted to show you how much char siu comes in one pound – a pretty good amount! And half roast duck, that’s a lot of duck too! Well worth it to me. And yummy!

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Café Kaila – Kaimuki, HI

Jul16

Would Café Kaila be considered more Kaimuki or Kapahulu? Sometimes, it’s hard to city-fy these restaurants! Café Kaila is located in Market City Shopping Center and has been a super popular breakfast and brunch place for many years. Can you believe I have never tried them before? Why? Well, everytime I walk by, there’s a long line of people waiting outside! But I had a leisure lunch with a friend this day and decided to swing by at 11AM on a weekday to see how it was. There were a few people outside but I signed in and got seated within 5 minutes. We were only a two-top so that may have helped us!

Breakfast Quesadilla | $16.00
A choice of spinach or flour tortilla grilled with jack and cheddar cheese, scrambled eggs and your choice of breakfast meat or mixed veggies, served with our famous homemade salsa.

This was my friend’s dish, shoot, I forgot to ask if she enjoyed it. I think she liked it!

Meat Loaf Loco Moco | $20.00
Two slices of our homemade meatloaf with two eggs any style, covered in our mushroom onion gravy, served on a bed of rice with a green onion garnish and your choice of toast.

Meat in the form of a loaf? Okay I’m in. Never had a meat loaf loco moco but it sounded so good. Got my white toast which is pre-buttered and enjoyed my entree. It was very good. The meatloaf is very soft and smothered in gravy. You can’t go with this dish.

All in all, I was super glad to have tried it. Am I dying to go back soon? Probably not. I’m not usually a brunch person but it was super nice to try! While they are always busy, they turn around the tables very quick so don’t let the line deter you!

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Khan Skewer Restaurant – Moilili, HI

Jul14

My middle bro graduated high school and Chan generously treated him to a celebration dinner! He said he has always wanted to try Khan Skewer Restaurant so off we go! Khan is located on Isenberg in the old Agu Ramen spot. I haven’t tried a Mongolian skewer place before so I wasn’t sure what to expect…

Every table top has this wooden block with a sheet pan on top, there is like a small little tea light they light inside. I supposed it’s to help the food keep warm but we ate it up so fast, never need!

Meat and Meat and Meat

This post won’t be super detailed because they bring out the skewers FAST. You can either order 3 skewers or 5 skewers at a time.

More meat lol

Salad, jk more MEAT

Whatever they season their meats with is divine. I know it’s a mixture of cumin and other stuff but wow, we all enjoyed it a lot. Chan wants to learn the seasoning to grill up meat like this!

Homemade Green Onion Pancake | $6.99

Blah, not so good. I wouldn’t order this next time.

Deep Fried Calamari | $10.99

Fried super crispy but eh I don’t need this dish. Get other good stuff to eat!!

Pork Belly w/Enoki Mushroom | $4.99 per skewer

Not as good and I thought it would be! Maybe it’s just me but the mushrooms didn’t taste so fresh you know? Anyway, I wouldn’t order this again.

Griddle-fried Spicy Shrimp | $28.99

Man. This was hands down one of the best dishes of the night, if not the best. There were various chunks of like potato and veggies underneath the shrimp too. And of course the shrimp itself was so good! Could definitely slam down a big bowl of white rice with this dish. Oh, they charge separately for rice. $2.99 per bowl.

Honeydew Snow Fluffy Ice Milk | Free!

What a nice icy treat! You get the first order free with your meal. If you want any more orders, it’s $8.99 each. I don’t usually like this kind of milky honeydew treat but this was good! Being free helped lol. We enjoyed this restaurant a lot and would definitely return!

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Moobongri Soup & Yakiniku – McCully, HI

Jul7

Moobongri Soup & Yakiniku is located in the old McCully Buffet location aka the old Camellia Buffet location. Moobongri is a popular restaurant that specializes in soondae, which is a Korean blood sausage dish. This restaurant is fairly new, we came early for lunch on a weekday so we wouldn’t catch a crowd. They did a great job renovating this place, everything was so clean and new looking. The Korean waitresses were very nice which is a bit of a departure for me but I’ll take it lol. As we lunched, more folks came in and the majority of them were Korean so that’s a good sign. They have a pretty big private parking lot which I was able to self-park, not sure what the parking is like at night but lunch time is chill. Let’s get to the food!

Various Seasonings

Their menu has an expansive soup section – I love that they have all these seasonings for your soup at your table! I didn’t have to use any this time but would definitely use them if I didn’t get such a flavorful soup!

Broccoli Banchan

Great side dish, it’s steamed broccoli with goma dressing. How simple is that? Since I have to stuff myself full of more vegetables, I totally bought myself broccoli and the dressing to make at home too. Quick blanch of the broccoli to retain the crunch and just a bit of dressing. Perfect summer cooling dish.

Daikon Kimchee

Nice banchan! You can tell this daikon has been properly fermented. I don’t like it when it’s too fresh or too sour, this was just right!

Kimchee

Can tell this was house made and it was good! Looks sour but it wasn’t too sour at all! I enjoyed it!

Poke

Don’t usually see poke as a banchan but I was very happy to see it. I’m thinking this might be kajiki but I like kajiki so it was good! Seasoning was like a simple sesame oil and salt with red chili flakes. So good. They even offered to refill this which I absolutely said yes to and finished both plates myself lol.

Kimchee Pancake | $13.95

Good pancake! They actually mistakenly gave us Seafood Pancake at first but I had to correct them since my fellow diner did not want the seafood pancake. They weren’t mad and took it back and brought us the new one after. It was delicious!

LA Kalbi & Cold Noodle Lunch Combo Special | $24.95

Not my dish but it was enjoyed heartily! I think they are generous with their portions and even the slices of the meat in the naengmyun was pretty “tick”. And of course they offered to cut up the noodles for her when they served it.

Spicy Soondae Sooup | $17.95

Yes, you read that right. Spicy. I am the spice queen after all *ahem*. When Chan saw the pics, he was saying the soup is only half full. He is correct but actually this bowl was quite big (bigger than the usual bowls they serve soups out of) so it was a lot! And it’s chock full of blood sausage and offal that most folks probably wouldn’t like.

Well, more for me! I like it! It was so delicious! I had enough leftover to eat it for dinner too. Delicious. We both really enjoyed it and plan to return soon!!

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YuXiang Korean Chinese Cuisine – Las Vegas, NV

Jul2

I couldn’t leave Las Vegas without my proper Korean fix and here is where I chose! YuXiang Korean Chinese Cuisine – this was after Chan got over his little bout and boy was I ready to go for it! Well we ordered too much food, as usual (lol). What I really like about this place was that they offer “mini” sizes of food – you know I can’t be distracted from my black bean noodles!

Complimentary Banchan

Mini Tangsuyuk (Sweet and Sour Pork) | $12.99

Perfect size to share between two people while you slurp those yummy noodles!

Mini Yan Jang Pi | $27.99

What is Yan Jang Pi? Here’s a quick description I found online: Yang Jang Pi is a chinese influenced dish very popular in Korea, often served as an appetizer. It is a great dish for parties, because it has a mix of everything – fresh vegetables, seafood, sitr-fry beef or pork with noodles, mushrooms and not only! Everything is served in thin slices creating a rainbow-coloured dish, topped with a spicy mustard sauce where yellow wasabi is the main ingredient.

I’ve had this once before in Hawaii and I love it. It’s definitely a dish to be shared and we really shouldn’t have ordered it because we had so much food but I really wanted to try it. This is also considered a mini! Nothing about this looks mini to me and I’m scared to ask what a regular would look like. It was so delicious but we couldn’t finish it of course.

Jjamppong

Chan’s spicy seafood noodles. Look at how red that is! He was really taking a leap eating this after just getting better but he can handle spice better than anyone I know! Chan super enjoyed it, he plans to return here when we go back to Vegas!

Seafood Ganjjajjang

Ah….I love jjajjangmyun and this was heaven. I like to get the ganjjajjang because it’s less saucy (I’m plenty saucy). This was so good. I had to eat it all, sorry. They also offer a mini size so I’ll get that one next time! This restaurant was very clean and the food came out quickly. The Korean waitresses were very nice so it was a well rounded experience. Wish we had this restaurant here and can’t wait to return!

Noodle Pull!

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Kaiseki Sanga – Las Vegas, NV

Jun30

Kaiseki Sanga is a omakase restaurant that Chan was really excited to try. Unfortunately, this was at the peak of Chan’s food poisoning spell. This restaurant is one that requires a deposit to make the reservation and there is a fee if you don’t cancel with at least 24 hours notice. So…we had a big dilemma. What ended up happening was Chan’s friend and I decided to go dinner to avoid the fees and explained to them about our third diner being out. The restaurant was very nice and understanding about it but wished that we had given them an earlier heads up and just requested that we go for the alcohol pairing and didn’t charge the no-show fee. I don’t drink alcohol but Chan’s friend could definitely do it up, he enjoyed every thoughtful sake pairing they had! The cost of the kaiseki was $250 per person.

The night’s spread before the meal started – yes, you already know this meal will be pricey…

Amuse
Amadai (Tilefish), Hokkaido Uni, Tofu Skin

Appetizer
Sakura Mochi with Ma Tai / Kani Chawanmushi / Hataru Squid / Hotate / Cuttlefish with Miso

Soup
Cherry Salmon, Goma Tofu, Edamame

Sashimi
Aka Ebi with Caviar, Chu Toro, Hirame

Grill
Sawara, Bamboo Shoots

Turf
Wagyu, Iberico Pork

Akami

Ma Aji

Wagyu

Anago

Otoro

Negitoro with Uni

Red Miso Soup

Dessert
Strawberry Ice Cream and Warabi Mochi

Matcha Tea

All in all, it was a wonderful meal. I did however miss Chan too much to enjoy it, really wished he could be with us to enjoy it. It is a bit pricey but I guess you are paying for the high quality imports from Japan. It’s a very small restaurant, just enough seats at the main bar to serve maybe 10 people or less? I can see why they have to be serious about no-shows. Would love to experience this place with Chan one day in the future!

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