Kickin Cajun – Keeaumoku, HI

Jun1

Happy June everyone! Does that mean it’s officially summer? This past week was terrible! I think we must have had some strong vog or something because I had a severe case of post nasal drip. My friend was telling me that she saw something on the news about it being the smog blowing over from China. Um…forreal? Does anyone know if this is legit? I find myself having a hard time believing. Anyhow, I’m getting super busy at work again! But in the past the stress has been with a really tight deadline – this one is less time restrictive.

Have you folks tried all the seafood in a bag restaurants? I don’t know how else to address these. My first visit to one was at Crab City and I really liked what they did! I was pretty sad to see them close down. I tried Kickin Kajun last week and while the service was very good, the food just doesn’t beat Crab City. I have a few more to try so I can compare, hopefully I can this summer! I don’t know if this happens all the time but they were out of practically everything! I was able to snag the last lobster so we ordered the lobster/shrimp combination. There isn’t much pictures because…your hands are super gross when you’re digging in! The bag also comes with crawfish, corn, potato, smoked sausage and clams. My only complaint was that the house sauce was a bit bland.

Quick peek inside the bag before we dug in. The lobster was nice! My dining companion let me eat the lobster head…heavenly!!

Side of rice that comes with the combination.

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Pat’s Piggery – Waianae, HI

May31

We had a recent event catered by Pat’s Piggery and it was GOOD (Thanks Linda!). Like super good. I don’t know anything about this mysterious catering company, only that they are located far and raised their own pigs that are used to make their delicious kalua pork. They offer catering with pricing that includes the delivery…which makes it easy for us townies! Let me share with you pictures of the food we had…

Rice

Kalua Pork – was so good!

Lomi Salmon – delicious! Good portion of salmon in there!

Steamed Sweet Potato – perfect!

Winner of the whole show! Their ahi poke as SOOOOOO good. It even has kukui nut in it…which means it’s gonna be awesome and it was. I would highly recommend Pat’s Piggery! The price per head considering the food we got was definitely reasonable too!

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Sushi ii – Keeaumoku, HI

May30

I’ve been hearing some great things about Sushi ii for a while now but haven’t been able to try them out until recently. This restaurant is located in the very busy Samsung Plaza. Samsung Plaza houses Sikdorak, Raging Crab just to name a few…with a very small parking lot to accommodate it all. My terrible secret and dishonor? I parked in Walmart’s parking lot and walked over. Tried to be a bit ninja about it by parking near the back and walking out discretely as advised by my friend/dining companion. Sushi ii is a cozy little sushi bar with stylish decor and incredibly nice people. We sat at the bar and the sushi chefs were very nice to us, it was such a nice experience! Let’s get to the pictures…

Ready for some great sushi and awesome company…:)

Gyu-tan – grilled beef tongue! Delicious with a squeeze of lemon juice…

My friend taught me such a great way to eat sushi! Order the sashimi platter and then a side of rice! It’s like a make your own sushi meal – and you don’t have to eat all the rice it usually comes with! Genius!

Salmon – you can’t go wrong. It was delicious.

Abalone. Wow, I did not think I could ever dislike a piece of seafood. I met my match with this one. The raw abalone was slimy yet crunchy. The slimy taste reminded me…oh I hate to say it…some kind of unpleasant smelly discharge. Hahaha…I had to spit it out. I felt horrible but I just couldn’t stand it.

I really hope I got this right, this was fire squid. The chef told us it was special. It looked great but I was afraid it would be hard and rubbery. Guess what though…it was the softest squid I have ever had. It was delicious! I would definitely order this again if I could.

Hamachi. If hamachi is wrong, I don’t wanna be right. Aces.

I tried to get a shot of some of the other items. Amaebi which is always great. I believe under the lemon are slices of ika. Everything on this platter was so fresh and delicious (minus the abalone…sorry!)

Tako Karaage. This was good, nothing memorable but definitely not bad. Sorry, with all that sashimi – I had to focus on the priorities!

OTORO. Yes, I did it again. Yes, we did it. We ordered it. What a splurge. And look at how nice they were, they gave us a FREE piece of OTORO. I mean that’s crazy nice. It was delicious. I couldn’t help but compare it to my first otoro experience at Izakaya Torae Torae and I liked it better there. I wonder if it was just the glow from experiencing it first at Torae Torae?

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Cobb Salad

May29

The UH Manoa campus food court serves up a MEAN Cobb Salad. They have a great salad bar…so when I feel like a crapload of toppings with a side of greens…this is where I go. You gotta admit, a cobb salad is really just a masquerade of healthy. I don’t care, I believe it’s a healthy salad and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

I get my dressing on the side and substitute bacon for beet – that counts right? 🙂

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This Is It Bakery & Deli – Kaka’ako, HI

May28

I got to try This Is It Bakery & Deli for the first time the other week and I was happily surprised! I didn’t even try a bagel which is what they’re known for. Hehe, we were out on an errand for work and decided to swing by here for lunch. I got the pastrami sandwich and it was DELISH. As I’m writing this post, I’m craving another! I’ll let the pictures do the talking…by the way, they are located directly across the street from Fisher Hawaii.

$Hot Pastrami Sandwich – $8.65
Sooo good. It comes with a scoop of potato salad, pickle and a little surprise pastry! Mine was a vanilla pound cake, I actually shared it with my co-worker so I can’t comment on the taste.

I know the bread looks all soggy but that’s because it was sitting around for a bit before I could eat it. No matter…bugga was GOOD.

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Elvin’s Bakery – Kalihi, HI

May27

Yay! My favorite cake currently comes from Elvin’s Bakery. They are a mom and pop shop and create some of the best cakes I have ever tried. My favorite? The Mango Mousse cake! I enjoy the round cake the most because that one comes with a soft cookie lining. Unfortunately the bigger sizes don’t come with the lining…but the cake is great nonetheless! We recently had an appreciation celebration for our student employees and ordered a cake from Elvin’s. It was delicious and a hit! Here are some pictures, we got the 1/4 sheet…

We did a calculation comparing this cake with the cakes from Deelite Bakery, the bigger sizes (1/4 sheet and up) are cheaper at Elvin’s. Elvin’s is located in the same shopping center as the old Palama Supermarket, give them a try!

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Marukame Udon – Waikiki, HI

May25

Happy soggy Sunday everyone! What a weekend forecast, did you folks get the text message earlier today? I was freaked out at first because it was the first one I ever received from emergency alerts, I thought it was great though! Hope you are all doing well. We had a bit of craziness at work due to the power outage but everything was back to normal just in time to go to work on Friday.

The famed Marukame Udon! They have been open for quite a while and haven’t slowed since day one. They have even opened a location in downtown. So two great locations with awesome parking options. That was dripping in sarcasm wasn’t it? I took the trek out to Waikiki recently to give them a try! I parked at Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and walked over. It was a short but hot walk…and the place does not have air conditioning! I came back and went to the food court to buy something to get validation for the parking. Here’s a tip for you, you have to spend at least $10 to get the validation. Here’s a second tip, everyone in the food court has terrible customer service. When I went to pay for my parking ticket, it would have cost $10 for parking so it’s good I got something in exchange. Anyway, a real quick update today! I had an…interesting experience.

Regular Ontama Udon – Cold

The noodles were pretty good. Actually they were very firm which I don’t mind at all. The cold noodles hit the spot on this hot day. I thought their udon and sauce was good, but nothing I need to return quickly for. Their seats are always filled but the way this place works, someone is always leaving as you are ready to sit and eat!

Fish Cake Tempura and Shrimp Tempura

Here’s my funny story about this visit. Well you get in line, you let the cook know which style udon you want. They prepare it up really quick and hand it over to you, you then walk over to the hot tempura bar and musubi bar before you hit the cashier. The tempura are all set out with tongs ready to be selected. I wasn’t really paying attention to everyone ahead of me so as I reach the musubi bar, I start to grab my own musubi by hand. I got a stern scolding from the lady behind the bar about having to use the tongs. The tongs were tucked away on the side…for you to grab your individually wrapped musubi. Yes, I was trying to grab for my own plastic wrapped musubi and was told to use tongs. It was a bit ridiculous if you ask me – isn’t that what the plastic wrap is for? I didn’t take pictures of the musubi but the salmon onigiri was not great. The salmon was incredibly salty which overpowered the whole musubi…or was it cause I was salty from the experience? Hehe, in any case…I’m glad I got to try this place but I am definitely not itching to return soon.

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Agu Ramen – Honolulu, HI

May21

Yes, another Agu Ramen post! Sorry, I do really like what they serve! Here’s a link to my previous post that refers to the even more previous posts before this one. This visit was a bit different, I was in the mood for some cold noodles because of the hot weather. Oh, it was DELICIOUS.

Shio Jidori – $11.75
Not my dish, my friend got this. She likes it a lot because of the light chicken broth. As I’ve shared before, their kotteri is much too oily.

Kicked Up Fries – $5.75

Chili Cream dipping sauce for the fries. Meh for the entire dish. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Hiyashi Ramen – $10.75

Oh my god. This dish totally hit the spot. You know what makes or breaks a hiyashi ramen? The dressing. They have a great dressing here. I was so in love that I made my own. Um, it didn’t come close to this one. No shame, I’ll still share the pic.

Whoop there it is. Yeah it wasn’t great. I also started putting any kine toppings like my super fast pickled daikon. The crab sticks were junk. The dressing was store bought and no good. Ah…I can always remember the hiyashi ramen I had at Agu to be happy.

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Treats from Japan

May20

My coworker just returned from a Japan trip recently and he graciously shared some snacks with us! I just wanted to show you a quick update of them.

I don’t know how many of you folks can read Japanese but this is wasabi Kit Kat! Interesting right? Now you see the wasabi plants all over the cover huh? How’d it taste? I couldn’t taste the wasabi like at all. I was even trying to see if there would be notes of it after I finished chewing, nothing! A bit disappointing, I wanted it to clear my sinuses…lol.

Tokyo Banana. I heard a lot about this treat and it seems to be a popular omiyage. I’m a fan of banana but not too much a fan of this treat. I could tell they were trying to create a cake that tasted a lot like the real thing…not a fan. Give me some good old banana bread anyday.

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Sweet Home Cafe – Moilili, HI

May19

Sweet Home Cafe needs no introduction, I even have a previous post about them. You should check out their Yelp page, there are currently some mixed reviews. It’s very interesting and I hope they can take any negative reviews and turn it into positives for themselves (barring the fake ones of course). I had a visit about a week ago and it was pretty much a common visit. I was mainly surprised that I didn’t have to wait at all for a seat on a Saturday night and then when I was served dessert before we were done eating and nowhere near the time limit.

We got the House Special this time. For those who wonder what it tastes like, it’s a lot like a Pho broth.

Our stuff dumped in! The broth isn’t bad but healthy herb is still my favorite.

Raw beef

You see the yellow rounds floating in the soup? I tried it during my last visit and it has become a favorite. I think it’s called Egg Tofu – so good. It’s a really soft egg thing…you can’t taste the tofu at all. It almost tastes a bit like chawan mushi in texture…delish.

My dipping sauce! One of many, I never waste though. I don’t wanna go against Auntie, I just return to grab more when I need more. I also use a choke-load of cilantro. Fresh cilantro for the win.

The infamous dessert that was served to me while my mouth was full trying to finish my dinner. This is the exact kind of dessert you cannot be served early, it’s shave ice! We had to rush to finish dinner and eat this…it was rude in my eyes. This was Kristian’s first visit so he was not pleased either.

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maybeitsjenny

Hawaii based food blog with foodie travels!