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Mixed Plate Friday

Feb10

Vietnamese Sandwich | $10.99
nguoi (pork belly), cha lua (pork bologna), pate, house mayonnaise, cucumber, sweet onion, pickled carrot/daikon, cilantro, soy sauce

I think…I THINK I FOUND MY FAVORITE BANH MI place. Sorry for the caps. What a name for a place huh? It’s called No Name BBQ Sandwich. I highly suggest calling your order in first, they make it fresh and it’s a tiny little place run by a cute little couple so it takes a bit of time.

I was so hungry, I wanted to open it in the car to take a quick bite. Oh how fast does a quick bite turn into THE ENTIRE SANDWICH IN MY BELLY. The bread was so light and crunchy and warm…and I…I just couldn’t resist. It was the perfect sandwich and oh my gosh, they give SO MUCH CILANTRO. IT’S A DREAM COME TRUE. Anyway, I hope you folks will give them a try. No lemongrass chicken here but who cares, try something else, live a little. Trust me.

Udon Salad

An oldie but goodie, I brushed off the cobwebs to make this dish recently. I just love how it looks pre-mixed. Got to use my fancy carrying case too! Super easy recipe, check out my old post here. Refreshing, can’t go wrong!

Carry Along Shrimp

My coworkers talk about this recipe all the time, you can find it at the Electric Kitchen, here. This is my first time cooking it and trying it. Great dish! We threw it in the airfryer for about 10 minutes at 400°F. I think it tastes great, howw would I tweak it? I think I would add a bit less sugar. Delicious though!

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Posh Caribbean Grill – Kapahulu, HI

Feb8

I am always on the search for new cuisines to try. I have been wanting to try Jerk Chicken for the longest time and when Posh Caribbean Grill opened, I knew I had to give them a shot! I’m a broken record but hot damn the prices are high. But was it worth it?

Mango Hennessy Wings | $15.00
fried wings tossed in a mango Hennessey sauce

No, we didn’t eat any of the wings already. This is the order you get. How was it? Well, sweet and not a hint of hennessy taste. It tasted too sweet to me, I wouldn’t get this again.

Braised Stew Oxtail | $30.00
served with rice and peas and seasonal veggies
savory oxtail seasoned to perfection in a brown stew with butter beans

I like oxtail and did feel like it was seasoned well and cooked nicely in the brown stew, the flavors were deep. I do not like their rice and peas, it tasted sweet and had a hint of coconut. Not a fan of that. I did like the seasoned veggies even though you can tell it’s the frozen kind. $30!

Jerk Chicken | $25.00
served with fried rice and cabbage
chicken marinated with traditional caribbean herbs and spices

I was most excited for Jerk Chicken. Bah. It tasted fine, but nothing special. They serve a spicy BBQ sauce on the side, that was actually nice. The fried rice is nice, I liked it much better than the rice and peas. The cabbage was junk, sorry. But I wanted to try all the different sides to know which I liked best. Well it doesn’t matter I guess since I don’t plan to return.

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Yu Chun Korean Restaurant – Ala Moana, HI

Feb6

Looking for a good naengmyun? Look no further, gotta try the OG place! Yu Chun Korean Restaurant, and can you believe it, I have never been here before this visit. The Yelp reviews could certainly deter you. We came early, brought cash and made sure we left tip (lol). The service was super good so the tip would have happened anyway! The food was good! A little on the pricey side for me. I guess I would be good with just buying the supermarket package and making it at home, but no one can make the broth the nice icy slush they do!

Daikon and White Kimchee – they also ask if you want regular kimchee!

Black Noodle in Iced Soup | $16.95 (ala carte price)

Black Noodle with Spicy Sauce | $16.95 (ala carte price)

This one was my dish, it’s like a bibimnaengmyun. It was super good and they actually gave me a small bowl of the regular naengmyun slush broth on the side too. I poured it into my noodles and it tasted great.

Kalbi | $35.95 (!)

We actually ordered the combo set which comes with two black noodle dishes and the meat of your choice. Who wouldn’t choose kalbi? But the set comes out to $54.95. Not bad considering the ala carte prices yeah?

The parking lot is pretty tight and they share it with I think two other businesses. We came right when they opened so we got parking no problem. Would I return? Ehhh…probably not soon. Price tag is a bit steep but the food is good!

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AROMA ITALIA – Diamond Head, HI

Feb1

Was looking for a new Italian place to try and I found AROMA ITALIA on Yelp. The reviews were pretty good and the food pics were amazing. I had to give it a try! They look like a take-out shop but offer dine-in service. It was kind of cool that all the workers had an Italian accent, makes it feel authentic somehow. Hope that’s not offensive. Their parking lot is not it. They are in the same lot as Bogart’s Cafe and boy was that lot was tight and had choke cars no matter what time it was. Good luck to you.

La Bomba Pizzetta (8″) | $16.00
tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, turkey pepperoni, mushrooms, topped with fresh italian burrata, arugula and balsamic glaze

Yum yum. Perfect little pizza to start as an appetizer. It was good. I think this was my first experience with burrata. Not quite sure what the hype is with the cheese is, is it because it’s runny? It tastes like mozz to me, lol.

Linguine Pescatore | $23.00
light marinara sauce, jumbo shrimp, clams, mussels and fresh parsley served over linguine pasta

I think I asked to substitute pink sauce for this dish because I just wanted to try pink sauce! They checked with the kitchen and said yes so here the dish is! It was delicious! But the winner dish of the night was a weekly special…

Pappardelle Alla Crema Di Funghi | $20.00
pappardelle pasta tossed in a creamy mushroom sauce with sauteed chicken

I don’t usually like cream sauces because it can be too rich but it was nice to share the two pasta dishes. This dish was so good. The pasta was perfect, great seasoning. Sad it was only a weekly special but they do allow you to build your own pasta dishes so I bet you could create something similar on your own.

Would I come back? Why yes, I think I would! It’s funny, I always want to try the osso buco at Italian restaurants and they are always out when I want to order it. What can I do?? The search continues.

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Hormone Dedesuke – Ginza, Japan

Dec23

One of the goals in Japan was to try some good A5 Wagyu. We were hungry and just trying to find a restaurant for dinner and stumbled upon Hormone Dedesuke. We weren’t sold on it initially and did a lot of back and forth before we finally went in. I’m glad we did, it turned out great! Pricey but it’s A5 wagyu, what do you expect??

Our waitress was a nice young lady from the Phillippines so her English was great. Whew. They have a wagyu set you can choose but I would opt against it, you don’t get to choose what cuts of meat the kitchen gives you. She basically pointed at the good ones and said don’t expect that if you order the set. So yeah, we went ala carte on our own. One thing I didn’t love, the service charge? Sitting fee? Service charge? This was the only restaurant we encountered that.

Yay for vegetables. The only veggies to be grilled are the corn, asparagus and mushrooms. Yup, you eat the big hunking chunks of cabbage raw. It was fine. It was seasoned with sesame oil and salt and pepper. I liked it.

Beef Tongue (unsure if this was A5 lol, kidding) | ¥1800

The tongue was good. But I don’t think I’ve had bad tongue (that’s what she said).

Flap Meat | ¥2420

Oh yum, first of the A5 courses. Delicious. Yup, you grill it yourself. I laugh cause the sign looks like it says flop meat. LOL.

A5 Sirloin | ¥4800

I gotta say, I would never choose a sirloin over other cuts but I think the sirloin was my favorite cut of the night. It was so good. I mean all the meats were melt in your mouth kine tender but this one just had a special touch.

A5 Rib Roast | ¥4800

Look at the hunk of fat you use to I guess season the grill, mmmm. I liked that they included wasabi, it was a nice topper to cut into the richness of the meat. They give dipping sauces, it’s very similar to Korean BBQ sauces.

Bibimbap | ¥1300

This might sound silly but dang this bibimbap was good. Like, maybe one of my favorites I have ever had of all time. Crazy right. I just loved the seasoning and vegetables they used. It was just…made perfect. I loved it. I’ll dream about it. I had weird cravings during this trip, because TMI, I was PMSing. 🙂 Meal well enjoyed!

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Din Tai Fung – Ginza, Japan

Dec21

Another country, another Din Tai Fung. I can’t help myself and my friend had never tried them before so we just had to right? I think I am slowly getting over my Din Tai Fung obsession, it wasn’t a great experience.

Spicy Pickled Cucumbers | ¥550

Good, not great? Not as pickled as I would have liked.

Pork Chop with Fried Rice | ¥1600

My favorite dish of the meal. I really liked their fried rice, had a good taste of MSG. Hahaha MSG gets a bad rep, I like when I can taste it in fried rice.

Steamed Shrimp and Pork Shiaomai (4 pc) | ¥800

Ehhh, if I compare it to the siumai from home. Thumbs down.

Pork XiaoLongBao (4 pc) | ¥660

My friend says he was disappointed because they weren’t as big or soupy as he expected. I don’t blame him for the disappointment. It was just alright. I think the better deal they had going was their lunch specials. For a pretty good price, you could get a noodle dish and side XLB. We weren’t that hungry since we had breakfast that morning so we only ordered this much. I would come back to order their meal set!

Here’s the restaurant being fancy just to be fancy. I should have put my jacket on the same chair as my purse, because they used two big cloth napkins to cover my purse and my jacket. I guess they are trying to protect it from any potential spills? I don’t know. A little extra in my mind, lol.

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2022 Japan – Day 1

Dec19

Hi everyone! I am back! I am soo happy and relieved to report that I did not get sick once during my trip. Sick as in travel sick. I did incredibly well on the plane rides/train rides/bus rides. It might be a mixture of things but I also tried Bonine this time around and since I did well this trip, I guess Bonine will be the thing I take from here on out.

My flight in and out of Japan was through Hawaiian Airlines. They had a killer deal flying in and out of Narita so we had to snatch it up! It was around $687 round trip? Sounds good to me! We decided to do half the trip in Tokyo and half the trip in Osaka, instead of train-ing it, we decided to take a domestic flight. That was an interesting trip. Maybe I’ll do a side post on it.

For our first night, we threw down our stuff and headed to grab some dinner before resting for the night. I was actually looking for Ippudo and this place was closer so we just went for it. It was okay. We got tripped up by the machine because it was all in Japanese and only a few buttons had pictures lol.

Well first off, the char siu is hard as a rock. They slice it up ice cold and just throw it on top of the ramen. Who wants hard pieces of meat? The egg and noodles were good. The broth was…RICH. All in all, I wouldn’t go back again but was nice to start the trip off with some ramen!

Just another example of how Japan does everything better. This is their Starbucks Reserve. Our hotel was in Ginza so we spent the first day of the trip just staying within Ginza. This Starbucks was super close to our hotel. It was a bit confusing for me, you order downstairs and then go upstairs for seating. My drink was prepared upstairs but the sandwich I asked for was served to me on a tray downstairs. Their English wasn’t great haha.

I got the Winter Cinnamon Latte! I just couldn’t resist. I just noticed I paid ¥940 for a cup of coffee. What is blended? Oops! I just went for it.

Look at how cute the coffee is! The design, the whole cinnamon stick. The drink was lovely. Nice and mild, not bitter and just a nice touch of cinnamon.

Just a deli meat sandwich. Very dry. No mayo at all. It was okay, not great.

My friend’s plate! And look! They have the lemon loaf cake in Japan too! Very different. Very dense – it’s not bad but not great. I wouldn’t get it again, just stick to the one in Hawaii. I don’t wanna clog this post up with too many pictures! More posts to come!

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Dell’s Kitchen and Bakery / Mio Pastology – Moilili, HI

Dec5

This post will come is coming in clutch because I am posting a Japanese eatery as I prepare for my trip to JAPAN. In fact, I am announcing a break from posting because I will be on vacation for about 2 weeks. I am SO excited. It’s been much too long but wish me all the luck because I really hope I travel well this time. I even bought silly motion sickness glasses in hopes of helping me. I’ll be hitting up Tokyo and Osaka on this trip and just can’t wait to experience some nice cold weather and just awesome Japanese food and sights!

Follow me on Instagram if you haven’t already! I don’t do a lot of posts but will probably update a lot of story reels during my vacation!

Anyway, this is a double post from Dell’s Kitchen and Bakery and Mio Pastology since they’re located in the same space and we ordered from both!

Garlic Chili Chicken | $11.00
karaage chicken dressed in a chili/garlic dressing

Not my dish, seemed like both diners thought it was just alright. I don’t think they were expected it to look like this. I guess they expected maybe fried chicken with a garlic chili crisp on top? No complaints but no compliments either.

Housemade Turkey Sausage | $7.00
fresh ground turkey, garlic and oregano accompanied with cranberry mustard sauce

They had this on special since it was the day before thanksgiving. My coworker got it and generously shared with us. It tasted good! The oregano is definitely the overwhelming taste and the sauce is a cranberry mixture and a mustard sauce separately. The mustard sauce is STRONG. I mean no point in too much details since it was a seasonal offering.

Shoyu Butter (Soy Garlic + Butter Sauce) Wafu Pasta | $12.00
spaghetti, bacon, mushroom, spinach, nori katsuoboshi flakes

Shirasu Mentai (Soy Garlic Sauce) Wafu Pasta | $14.50
spaghetti, boiled shirasu, mentaiko, green onion, poached egg, katsuobushi flakes, nori

Leave it to me to get the more unique dish. I was eyeing out their natto pasta too but decided to go with this instead. I really enjoyed it. Who doesn’t enjoy eating baby fish? LOL, by the time I mixed it altogether, I couldn’t really tell what ingredient was what. All I know is that it tasted great. The only complaint? It’s a small serving. Or it’s the right serving and I just eat too much.

Anyway, I got a spicy curry pan from the bakery side (no pic, sorry) and gobbled that up too. The curry pan was good, baked. I think I may prefer baked over the deep fried curry donuts.

Take care everyone!

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Mixed Plate Friday

Dec2

Yo Mama’s Sampler Pack | $13.00
Chocolate, Pumpkin and Ube Mochi

We finally had a craft fair this year! Yay! And Yo Mama’s was a first time vendor I was super excited for. I was able to grab a sampler pack before they sold out. This was very good! Surprisingly I liked the ube one the most, to me it just tastes like butter mochi and I love butter mochi. I thought all three were good!

Mini Musubi Bento | $8.00

I went at 6AM to Mai Musubi and scored! They had some bentos ready so I was able to grab this up! I think it was a pretty good deal! I really enjoyed their tofu croquette, can tell it was homemade. It was nice and savory with umami. Yum!

Boba Milk Tea | $5.75

Original Egg Waffle | $7.50
Add Boba Topping | 50¢

Meet Fresh is a new dessert joint in Ala Moana, it’s on the street level located by Spectrum. We had a long day at the mall and had to wait for something at T-Mobile so we came down here to help with the wait time. I got the egg waffle and added boba topping because I’ve had this weird craving for egg waffles lately. I don’t know why. It was very good! Kind of pricey though.

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Restaurant Suntory – Waikiki, HI

Nov28

Restaurant Suntory was closed for a while for renovations and while I didn’t notice a big difference in our return visit, it’s not like the restaurant ever looked bad to me anyway? I can certainly say the restroom was beautiful with those awesome Japanese toilets. This visit happened just a few days ago and I still feel mortified. Let me explain. I treated my friend for a birthday meal and wanted to order a virgin mai-tai, I was informed by the waitress that they ran out of the virgin mai-tai mix but was able to make it as an alcoholic drink. Was that perhaps a bad foretelling for me? DO NOT READ NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVE AN AVERSION TO VOMIT.

Anyway, I’m not a drinker but I have never had bad reactions before. I HAD A BAD REACTION. I think I only had half the drink and by the middle of the meal, I was incredibly drowsy and tired. I didn’t want to move too much because I felt like I would get dizzy. It was awful. I stopped eating and just sat there wanting to just sleep. I couldn’t sleep at the restaurant of course. Finally the check comes (which felt like forever) and I signed off on it and excused myself to go outside. Well guess what, I started throwing up as I walked out. I tried my best to cover my mouth but I know things got out (sorry for the TMI) and I ran into the bathroom and it was awful. I also got it in the stall but wiped it down as much as I could. I felt awful both physically and mentally. But I didn’t have the energy or strength to feel bad, I wiped myself off as much as I could (yeah, it got all over my clothes too) and sat outside to wait for my friend. I don’t know how obvious it was but when my friend went to get a parking validation and I sat waiting for him outside, the manager came out and gave me a cold towel and asked if I was okay. He quickly left but what a sweet gesture. It was one of those disposable wet towels they give you at your meals but that was so nice. I will remember that and felt so bad because I am sure they had to clean up after me. Mortified. Anyway, the waitress shared they only validate for an hour but if we are kamaaina we can go downstairs to the service counter to get additional validation. My friend couldn’t find the counter she spoke up so we just left. I wanted to GET HOME. Anyway, I’ll share the pictures of the food and now officially know that I will never drink rum ever again.

Salmon Sashimi | $20.00

A nice appetizer to share. Nice cuts of salmon!

Salmon Salad | $18.00

I decided to get a salmon salad and mini rice bowl as my meal. This salad is very similar to the one they serve at Katsumidori. It’s very good, I loved it. I didn’t love regurgitating it all night but it was a good salad.

Deep Fried Shrimp Cake | $14.00

This was good. My friend was giggling at the placement of the pepper and the balls, grow up. Hahahaha nah. I didn’t get to try it fresh that night but tasted pretty good heated up the next day.

Mini Rice Bowl with Grilled Eel “Kabayaki” | $15.00

My main dish. Once again, I couldn’t eat it that night so I had it reheated. Was good. I don’t know, I can’t tell the difference between “good” eel and just the kine you buy in the supermarket, you know?

U.S. Prime Filet Steak with Sesame Sauce | $42.00

My friend’s dish, he enjoyed it. I don’t wanna talk about it. Hahaha but it’s nice because it comes out already sliced so it’s easy to eat. Doesn’t come with rice or anything, kind of silly to me. You gonna pay $42 for this, should come with rice and miso soup at least? That’s what’s lacking at Suntory, good teishoku sets.

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