The Cheesecake Factory – Waikiki, HI

Aug25

I haven’t been to The Cheesecake Factory in forever. First, I don’t enjoy waiting nearly 1.5 hours to get a table. Second, the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center parking lot feels SO far from the restaurant. I mean the restaurant is literally at the other end and I for the life of me can’t stop getting lost within the shopping center getting back to the car. The parking validation doesn’t do much anymore – you still have to pay money. Still, it’s not a bad rate for parking as long as you don’t have to wait 2 hours to get a table. We did a take-out order and boy…it isn’t much better. You can only put in the order right when they open, no faxing and no online system. No curbside pick-up so I had to circle Waikiki until my co-worker ran back out with the food. Then, I still had to block up traffic to get her in the car! Oh and did I mention Cheesecake Factory is pricey? Yeah, it’s pricey. But you can’t beat the selection – there’s something for everyone! The cheesecake is expensive but tasty. Well, let’s take a look at the dishes we ordered!

Incredible Eggplant Sandwich with fries (not pictured) – $12.95

Lunch Portion Shepherd’s Pie – $12.95

Lunch Portion BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad – $11.95

Bistro Shrimp Pasta – $18.95
Ho the pricey! But delicious and huge portion!

Cuban Sandwich with Salad (not pictured) – $13.50

Chicken Bellagio – $15.95
I can’t comment too much on the other dishes because this is the one I got! Doesn’t it look so good? This is the first time I tried it and I am so glad I did! It includes crispy chicken breast over basil pasta and parmesan cream sauce topped with proscuitto and arugula salad. It all works very well together!

Post Views: 6,103

Updates

Aug24

Work has been nuts. Like nuts. Like Planters got nothing on me. It’s nice being busy because the time just goes so fast but that’s also bad because I feel like I no can finish what I gotta do. Guess what I decided to do folks. I’m going to take another graduate course – these classes take up a lot of time but I think I can do it. It’s a benefit working from working there so I might as well take advantage. I hope that I can keep up with the blogging as I take class! I don’t know how much I’ll be eating out – definitely not as much so I hope you folks don’t mind other types of updates.

School is back in session on Monday! Who’s ready for the traffic? I sure am not. I can’t believe we’re heading into Fall again! But that means we’re getting closer to Christmas – my favorite season! Anyhow, I hope you folks are having a great weekend so far!

Beautiful succulent I received for my birthday! It’s in a handmade ceramic vase – isn’t it pretty? I will try my best to keep it alive…hahaha

Post Views: 2,391

Handmade Cards

Aug23

Thank you so much Jalna for being so awesome and generous. I received handmade cards from her and they are absolutely beautiful! So beautiful that I don’t even want to give them away – so I won’t, hehe. People won’t appreciate the work that was put into it like me! I’m sure you folks already know her link but in case you don’t, here is her blog! Thanks for the awesome cards and for being an awesome person, truly!

What nice handwriting too. My chicken scratch got nothing on her.

Thanks a million!

Post Views: 2,333

Happy Birthday to Me!

Aug20

Yay! Sorry, another post about me and my birthday…lol. But I just wanted to finish up the series! Did I share that one of my brothers shares the exact same day for our birthday. That was nice! Also it’s a bit of pressure that I have to treat him well too…I want to be the one to be spoiled! Haha…j/k. Anyway, I had a pretty good birthday. I spent the morning building a Lego set I bought for my brother…those sets can get complicated! One wrong placement and you’re screwed. Check it out.

Kaboom! Nice ah? It took a while because I had to rebuilt it from scratch. These dang toys even break apart pretty easily so I got even madder. Ha!

Anyway, got together with some family and had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Izakaya Torae Torae. I’ve been there a few times and posted about them before, I’ll link them at the end of the post. For now, let’s take a look at this visit! It was delicious, as always. We dropped our chopsticks about 3 times – so shame ah.

Hamachi Carpaccio – $13.95
Served on a bed of slivered onions with a truffle oil infused sauce. Delicious!

King Salmon ($3.95 per piece) and Sweet Shrimp Nigiri ($5.50 per piece)

Yes, I’m going to show another picture of the salmon nigiri. Delicious! Of course with the shrimp nigiri, you can get the shrimp head deep fried. Yay!

Tan Shio (Grilled Beef Tongue) – $8.95
This is alright, not great though. I wouldn’t order it again from here – you can get it better elsewhere.

Chirashi Don

Hamburger Cheese Steak – $14.95
This is good but in the end, you are paying $14.95 for a hamburger patty with cheese. I don’t think it’s worth it.

Jidori Chicken Karaage – $6.95
I didn’t get to try this but my family seemed to enjoy it!

King Salmon Sashimi – $13.95
Pricey, I know! It was a total splurge but I was very appreciative! Very delicious. It’s a better deal to get the sashimi over the nigiri.

Dashimaki Tamago – $9.00
I took a leap and asked for this! It’s off the menu and I don’t think they make it every time. Luckily we went pretty early so the restaurant wasn’t too busy yet…so they agreed to make it! You wait a bit longer but I was excited! It’s a nicely cooked tamago which is filled with chunks of unagi and cheese. The cheese threw me off a bit. This dish was good but having it once was enough for me. I like a simpler tamago – sans cheese.

Izakaya Torae Torae Post 1
Izakaya Torae Torae Post 2

Post Views: 3,810

Birthday Eve – 2014

Aug19

My birthday was this past weekend and it was wonderful. I was lucky that it fell in the weekend and got to spend some great time with friends and family and of course grind on some great food. Today, I’m going to share some pictures from my birthday eve day. Please enjoy!

Road to Makapu’u

We made it to the top! What a gorgeous view.

After our hike at the Makapu’u Lighthouse Trail, I had dinner with my friend Kristian. He was generous enough to treat me to a dinner at Le Bistro. I’ve had a few experiences there before and it was all very nice. He made a reservation a week beforehand so we were all set. How did it go? Well…it started off incredibly rocky. We got seated right away, given menus and water cups filled. We spent a few minutes reviewing the menu and were ready to order pretty quick. Then came the waiting. I watched as waiters ran back and forth to several tables around the restaurant while we were being ignored. I knew what time we had arrived and guess what? They left us waiting for 30 damn minutes before a waiter came and greeted us. And what’s worse…he didn’t mention or apologize for the wait at all. I was livid. I mean he really showed up right at the moment I considered walking out with no regrets.

Well, right after we got greeted – service was much better. It took a while for me to uncross my arms and get the bitch look off my face…it must have loosened up 3/4 into his sharing of the daily specials. So anyway, we put our orders in and the food came out reasonably quick afterwards. Here are the pictures.

Mojito for me. It wasn’t great, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Bread with butter. The bread was mini baguettes sliced thin. The bread was okay, it wasn’t crispy and it was at room temperature.

Fricasse Of Shellfish – made up of mussels and clams. Delicious! The sauce was buttery goodness – we got a refill of bread that we quickly used to soak it up. The mussels tasted great, Genki Sushi got nothing on them…lol.

Quartet of Beef

Filet Mignon and Garlic Mashed Potatoes from the Quartet of Beef
Delicious! I got my meat dishes medium rare.

Burger with Foie Gras
Totally un-PC dish but delicious nonetheless.

Ribeye from the Quartet of Beef
Delicious! It comes with a cube of cooked daikon (a bit random) and a fingerling potato (mine was completely burnt)

Short Ribs from the Quartet of Beef
This dish was alright – nothing special. The beef was cooked for a long while but not enough where it was soft and tender…a bit tough.

Surf and Turf Special

Halibut with Lobster – drool….

Miyazaki Tenderloin from Japan
The waiter said it melts in your mouth – and it does! Also melts the money in your wallet…lol. It was so good though!

Spumoni Ice Cream Cake

Complimentary Creme Brulee for the birthday girl (me!)
To get this dessert, you better have no shame cause they gonna sing to you in front of the entire restaurant. I’m Chinese so no worries, free dessert! It was good! The strawberries were sour! My face is scrunching up just thinking about it.

So the service and food after the rocky start did make the meal enjoyable to a point. The lighting got super dark afterwards so I apologize for the bad quality pictures. I have had their lamb in the past and those are my absolute favorite. I wanted to try something new this time and whlie it was pretty good, I would go back to the lamb next time!

Post Views: 4,063

Miniature Japan

Aug13

I have a total thing for miniatures. Not in a weird way, but I really enjoy realistic looking miniatures of stuff. Like miniature furniture, food, etc. I’m pretty picky about it too, it can’t be too cartoonish or anything. I don’t know where this came from and while I am not a big collector of them, I can definitely appreciate the work that goes into them! I love when there are handmade items but I guess the appreciation isn’t there from the public since miniatures can be mass produced. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at miniatures but it takes so much time, tools and skill. I guess I’ll just admire them from afar. So what does Japan have to do with this? Firstly, Japan makes some of the BEST miniatures! Secondly, I was browsing through some of my Japan pictures and found these! We were in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and I started snapping pictures with the miniature filter on my camera and the pictures look so cool! Check them out. 🙂

Looks unreal yeah? I love it! Have a good one guys!

Post Views: 3,702

Shrimp and Stuff

Aug12

Stuff. Lots of stuff has happened this past week. The hurricanes came and gone without much damage to Oahu, thankfully. We also got a day off from it which was great. I kind of spent the day sleeping. I got back to work today and just had a major stress out. So much work I had to catch up on! Then at lunch, I find out Robin Williams passed away. It was such a shock, it still hasn’t sunk in. He was too young to go, it’s all so sad. He’s definitely an actor I took for granted. He brought me so much laughter growing up and his serious roles were great too…it’s a big loss for Hollywood for sure.

Then I get to my car after work and it’s another scratch. Seriously guys. This is gonna sound real petty after talking about a passing, but I just no get how my car can get scratched 5 times in less than 6 months in the same parking lot. If I get to work early enough and park in my usual spot, I know my car will be good. Well, I can’t always get that spot and I can’t guarantee I don’t have to go to meetings during the day to save my spot. I just no get it. When I get in and out of my car, I am so damn careful about opening my door. I even put my hand on my door’s edge so I squish my hand rather than hit someone’s car. It seems like the people I park with just like flinging their car doors onto mine. Terrible. Anyway, the past few scratches have been on this replaceable molding on my car. Today…today was a scratch on my car’s body. Damn – I just give up already.

It’s times like this where I need to find my positive place. I need to have something that can make me appreciate the bigger things in life…the better things in life. Or be thankful for what I have. Shucks. Sorry for the rant guys. I hope you are all doing well.

Well, as the title promised, this post would be shrimp and stuff. The stuff is done so on to the shrimp! Just a quick post on a recent trip to Romy’s. We went during a weekend and the line was very very long. Of course. But what surprised me was how fast the food was cooked after ordering, usually it’s a long line to order and then a long wait. Yay! Big prawns are to die for. Sorry Darren (friend and reader).

Number 5 Prawns Plate – $19.95 (yikes!)
Oh boy, I never realize I paid 20 bucks for this. They really keep raising the price. Was it worth it? Heck yah. This is probably my favorite seafood. The head is the best part, absolutely. I get it with butter garlic sauce, so good yet so bad for you. Go big or go home!

Number 1 Shrimp Plate – $13.75
Much better price and they give you a good amount of shrimp too. You can get the number 1 with prawns too but it’s the small prawns – not the jumbo ones like number 5. They still have their stamp card! It’s just scary how much you have to spend to get that one free plate…

Post Views: 5,968

Win-Spuntino – Waialae, HI

Aug10

Win-Spuntino is a brand spanking new restaurant that opened up in the Market City Shopping Center. They are located right by Foodland, above the Thai restaurant. I know what you’re thinking, there’s a two story place there? Yes, there is. Anyhow, this restaurant got an interesting start. The owner of the cell phone shop that was located by Anytime Cafe had to move locations and found they had too much room in the new space so they decided to open the cell phone place along with an Italian restaurant. Interesting starts aside, they serve up some pretty good food! I’ve been waiting for a good priced, good tasting, take-out Italian eatery for a while now. I have a lot of pictures to share in this post because it was an office order. My biggest piece of advice, forgo the sandwiches and garlic bread and go straight for the pasta. That’s the good stuff. Let’s get started shall we? Oh! By the way, I found out that the old Fun Factory space will become a Walgreens. As if that parking lot couldn’t get more congested and junk right? Okay, now on with the pictures and review!

Small Eggplant Parmigiana Sandwich and Salad Combo – $7.75
We had a decent sized order, this is a great deal. Six inch sub along with a small salad – they were nice enough to pack the salad separately to avoid the dressing running into the bread. How was this sandwich? My coworkers didn’t enjoy it. They found that the eggplant wasn’t cooked long enough so the eggplant was a bit too firm/crunchy for their taste. They enjoy their eggplant a bit more cooked/mushy, FYI.

Small Meatball Sandwich and Salad Combo – $7.75
It was all right, nothing special.

Small Chicken Parmigiana Sandwich and Salad Combo – $7.75
It’s okay, would taste better fresh (it was eaten a bit later). Also, they put raw romaine in all their sandwiches. That’s a bit weird and not necessary.

Small Italian Sausage Sandwich and Salad Combo – $7.75
Oh blah. I was really looking forward to this sandwich because…look at the sausage! How awesome does that look? Big chunks of whole sliced sausage. Well I saved this one for dinner since I had pasta for lunch. The bread is terrible. Does not hold up well. The sausage? There was a weird taste to it. Not like spoiled or anything, I just didn’t like this sausage and I like all kinds of sausage. Okay let’s move on with the commentary…

The following salad pictures are the salads that come with the small sandwich combos. Big salads I say!

Pea Salad – it wasn’t mine but it doesn’t look too appetizing to me…peas look a bit mushy as well

Pasta Salad – yes, it’s served on a bed of romaine lettuce. All their salads are…lol

Tomato and Mozzarella – this was my salad. I was all excited for it thinking it would be a lot like a caprese. Hmm…didn’t work that way. The tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese are marinated in a very light balsamic vinegar dressing. The cheese was a bit firmer than I expected and very flavorless – I didn’t enjoy this salad.

Curry Chicken Salad – this is probably the winner of all the salads. If you like a mild curry, you will like this. You must also like raisins. Wish I got this!

Garlic Bread – $3.00
Blah. Not worth it for 3 bucks. You might as well go to Foodland and grab your own loaf to bake up…I have a big issue with their bread in general

Chicken Alfredo and Mushrooms – $9.50

Shrimp Scampi – $11.25
Oh my gosh. I knew what I was getting into when I ordered this. All kinds of good and dangerousness for my body. Shrimp scampi soaking in butter and garlic. They are so generous with shrimp and the sauce was delicious. It was SO good. I would definitely order this again.

Chicken Marsala – $9.50

Chicken Sorrentino – $10.25
Chicken, Eggplant, Cheese, Mushrooms, Butter and Marsala Sauce

Chicken, Bacon and Shrimp Casino – $12.00 (Daily Special)

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce – $7.75
How can you lose with this much pasta and meat for 8 bucks?? This usually comes with Linguini. Their pasta dishes come with linguine by default but spaghetti is also available!

Linguine Meatball – $8.75 (with spaghetti instead)
My coworker kept this dish for dinner (putting it in the fridge of course) and didn’t think the spaghetti held up real well. I wouldn’t mind trying it with linguine.

Anyhow, the pasta dishes were great! They give incredible portions for crazy great prices. I don’t know how they are going to stay in business with these portions and prices. Even though I say this, I will still be disappointed if any of this changes! They are doing great for now, I hope they keep it up!

Post Views: 2,353

New 711 Goodies

Aug7

Okay, I went to Target last night and well it was pretty empty by the time I got there. We got there around 8:15 pm and there was parking right off the bat. How was the store? Pretty good! Felt like a typical shopping night. However, once you got to the food shelves, a lot of them were wiped clean! Especially the bread. I was able to pick up most of what I needed (no batteries left) and after my brother broke a glass lantern holder by mistake, I got out of there. We apologized and reported it but I felt so bad by then that I didn’t want to stay. Their water was all gone too! I heard you can head to the water bottlers directly to grab some water for those who still don’t have any. I’ll remain positive and hope for the best – I really hope it weakens and there will be minimal damage.

I also decided to go to Costco after Target for gas. It was 9:15 pm and the line was still out to the road. The line moved pretty fast considering how congested it originally was. Glad I got my gas last night, I was actually running low anyhow. Take care everyone and stay safe out there.

Anyway, onto today’s post! 711 is stepping up their gourmet game! I’ve noticed quite a few new items lately and decided to give a few a try. Here they are!

Curry Doria! Isn’t that awesome?? I got this from the cold case and followed instructions to heat it up in the microwave. The instructions lied! I even put it in an extra 30 seconds and it was still cold on the inside. The top was completely hot and melted so I thought the whole thing was heated through. How was it? Other than the hard cold rice, not bad! A tad too salty for me but I am definitely glad I tried it!

Spicy Ahi and Seafood Poke Bowl. Translation – a few chunks of ahi and a lot of imitation crab in the spicy ahi sauce. The price is good so I didn’t mind! How was it? Bleh. Not good. The spicy ahi and seafood mixture didn’t taste that great, I prefer a stronger sesame oil taste. The rice? Super mushy and sweet. I think they were going the Tanioka’s route in terms of a sweet rice but they didn’t execute it well. I would not get this again.

Post Views: 2,547

Sushi King – Moilili, Hawaii

Aug5

Oh my gosh. People really got whipped into a frenzy over the storms huh? I think I am being a bit too nonchalant about all this. In fact, I need to go to Target for a general shopping trip and am afraid of what I will encounter. I shall report back if it was chaos. I hope you folks are all ready for the storms…and that everyone stays safe. Hopefully when it hits land, it will be much weaker. I’ll try to schedule out my posts as soon as I can to have it all ready. Hope you folks had a good start to the week. I was super tired this morning but coffee really perked me up. I’ve become one of those people. A person that NEEDS coffee. I heard a cup of coffee is good for you. I just need to cut back on the sugar…

Anyway! Just a quick update of a recent late night dinner at Sushi King. They have late night specials that start at 10:30 pm. This is the dish my cousin had for her return night dinner. The Chirashi Special is $15.95. Do I think it’s worth it? Sure, it might be but I think I would prefer getting my sashimi/nigiri fix at other places…

Post Views: 1,762

maybeitsjenny

Hawaii based food blog with foodie travels!