25Jan / 2014

Typical Breakfast – Shinjuku, Japan

I had two issues in Japan. One, I woke up every morning feeling super dizzy. It lasted all day and I don’t know what it was. I carried my dramamine with me to try to control it but it didn’t work too well. Second, there wasn’t enough time or room in my stomach to eat everything in Japan. The second one is what made me most sad, lol. For breakfast, we weren’t always in the mood for breakfast but ate some anyway! Precious eating time! What we ended up doing was going to small little shops that had computer vending machines taking your orders. Those are the best places. Put your order in, seat yourself, food is delivered, devour and then leave. We need that here.

My breakfast! A curry and udon set.

Linda had the wakame udon. She wanted to clean her system out from all the eating!

Best eggs are in Japan. Please tell me I’m wrong and if you do, you must tell me where the best eggs are.

The food is great. These restaurants are probably thought of as low quality fast food which to me was like high quality for Hawaii! It was so good. We were one of the few diners this particular morning. We were joined by a drunk girl in the corner, passed out in her bowl of noodles. Yes. In. Her. Bowl. The workers don’t do much of anything – I assume they see a lot of people who come in to pass out after drinking…haha!

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24Jan / 2014

Kani Doraku – Shinjuku, Japan

If you’ve been to Japan, you have probably seen the sign for this restaurant. They are located all over Japan and we definitely had to give this place a try while we were there! Kani Doraku is definitely not a cheap restaurant but I believe it’s worth every cent. And worth every cent from Linda. We came here for her birthday and she treated! Thank you so much, it was such a memorable and delicious meal.

You can’t miss this business sign!

Check out their chopstick holder, it’s the details that count!

Their own chopsticks? It’s on now. And it includes a tool to help take the crab meat out! Genius.

Gotta try some hot sake…I’m not an alcohol girl. Hahaha. There are so many great pictures coming, so get ready (over 20)! Continue reading →

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22Jan / 2014

Gyotaku Japanese Restaurant – Honolulu, HI

Gyotaku is a great Japanese restaurant. I know it’s not one of the trendy fancy smancy restaurants, I think locals equate this restaurant with big family dinners or a place for older diners. While this restaurant is definitely great for those groups, I think it’s a great place to dine for anyone! Anytime I feel like having a delicious no frills Japanese meal, you will find me here. They have three locations but I prefer the location on King Street, I’ve had on and off experiences at the other two locations.

Poke Don – one of my favorite dishes! Continue reading →

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20Jan / 2014

Tango Contemporary Cafe – Honolulu, HI

If you know me, it would be no secret that I am a constant yelper. I’ve been a user of yelp for a few years now and I’ve learned how to decipher legit reviews and not so legit reviews. Generally, I agree with a lot of the reviewers but I can’t say I do with this one. Tango Contemporary Cafe is currently averaging a 3.5 star review, I think that’s pretty low! I would give this place 4 stars at minimum! I really hope people who had a bad initial experience gives it another shot!

I don’t know if we were just hungry or what but the bread was so good. Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside and a big ball of butter. There’s nowhere to go wrong.

140120-02 Garlic Herb Grilled Sterling Silver Pork Chop – my friend Kristian had this dish. He LOVED it. He said the pork was cooked perfectly, delicious and tender. Wish I had a better picture to share!

140120-03 Mustard Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb – my dish and it was delicious as always. Oh man, compared to what I just ate for dinner…I am drooling at this picture. Perfectly cooked and seasoned – no complaints!

140120-04 Kona Coffee Ice Cream Cake. Our favorite dessert. When we ordered it, they thought we were sharing one. We had to correct them immediately and get another slice (lol). This dessert is so good. There is a slight bitterness in the cake due to the coffee but it’s offset but the chocolate sauce and fruit on the side. We pretty much cleaned off every plate. 🙂

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19Jan / 2014

Boots & Kimo’s Homestyle Kitchen – Kailua, HI

Total tourist post today. Boots & Kimo’s Homestyle Kitchen has been a Kailua institution for a long time now. I’ve never wanted to brave the crowds for this place. The one time I tried Cinnamon’s Restaurant, it was a bad experience which made me not want to try Boots and Kimo all the more. But all the stars aligned last weekend and I made the trek out to Kailua early in the morning. When I say early, I mean early. I think we left at about 7 in the morning on a Saturday. I got there and scored a spot in the almost empty lot and stepped into the restaurant and straight into a seat (yes!). The restaurant is geared very much towards tourists, the decorations were over the top but it totally feeds into the vacation feel. The service was good, not great but good. The food was good too but overpriced. I am definitely glad I tried this place out but now that I have, I don’t know how soon I will be returning. Let’s get to the pics!

The world famous pancakes with mac nut sauce. How was it?

Umm…ONO. If you know me, I’m not even a fan of sweet stuff and I liked it. No one else wanted to eat it so I had to eat most of it myself. I was fine with that!

Portuguese Sausage, Eggs and Rice. This plate was $10. Sorry, it was good but not worth the money. You get more at McDonalds.

Smoked Hawaiian Sausage, Eggs and Hash Brown. The sausage was all right but pretty salty. Again it was $10, overpriced.

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18Jan / 2014

Lanikai Beach – Kailua, HI

I went to Lanikai Beach for the first time ever about a week ago. It was an amazing visit. So restful and peaceful! I went out to Kailua super early in the morning to try Boots and Kimo and headed over to the beach right afterwards. I snagged a sweet parking spot in the residential area (not illegally!) and walked over to the beach. This is the cleanest beach I have ever been to. The sand is so fine, it felt great! Through the course of the morning, I found that fine sand wasn’t the best in some regards. I think I still have sand in my bag – it’s so hard to clean out! But I would love to come back here again one day. I stayed about 3 hours.

There were very little people on the beach when we arrived. It was great!

The sun trying to peek through. Great day.

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17Jan / 2014

Sweet Home Cafe – Honolulu, HI

This is going to be such a weak post. I hardly took pictures of this meal because I was too busy eating. I got a picture of the food before we put it in and then the dessert…lol. If you haven’t heard of Sweet Home Cafe, you may be living under a rock. Okay just kidding but also not really. This place is still one of the more popular eateries and I can see why. Good food, reasonable prices and an awesome free Taiwanese Shave Ice dessert. How can you go wrong? Well…I guess the external factors can. The long wait time, the limited parking lot…these things can definitely put a damper on your dining experience. I know now to come super early. Like eat before senior citizens kine early to avoid a long wait. I do have to say, I hope everyone gets to try this place at least once. If you can’t wait, try Golden Eagle Chinese Restaurant two doors down. It’s a good Chinese restaurant run by a small family. Support small business! Okay, here comes the pics.

Meat meat meat meat. Or for us, meat meat lamb lamb. I suggest the lamb. If you haven’t been here, you order the soup and meat with the waiter. The rest of the food items are in the refrigerators so it’s like the Genki of hot pot restaurants. Color plates corresponds to the cost. They have a bazillion dipping sauces to choose from and raw green onion and cilantro to accompany your food. Rice costs extra. The small portion is very cheap and fed three of us. In fact, we had rice leftover.

This is like the same picture as before…but now you see all the meat. I apologize for my terrible reporting on this meal.

Now, do you know what this is? If you’re Chinese, you probably do. This is a cold dish in the refrigerator, no cooking required. It just tastes great with some rice, nicely seasoned. The texture is awesome. I usually make people try this before I tell them what it is so I can get their true reaction. Do you wanna know what it is? Do you really want to? Comment if you do and I will give you the answer. If not, just eat em!

After stuffing my face, I finally took another picture. Here is their famous free dessert. It includes shave ice with like a brown sugar syrup. Lots of different flavors of jelly (i.e. mango, lychee). The middle is like a creamy coffee jello thing. The white blobs are like chunks of almond float. They are very accommodating here. If you cannot finish the dessert, they can put it in a take out cup. They also ask if you want the soup after you’re done in case you want to take it home to use again. I don’t know about everyone else, but the soup I use (healthy herb by the way) is always all murky and sludgy after all the cooking so I usually decline. Give them a try! It’s worth the wait.

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16Jan / 2014

Recipe: Baked Spaghetti

I got a request from a reader (thanks yuko!) for my Baked Spaghetti recipe so here I am to share it! Always a pleasure to share recipes. 🙂 My recipe is super specific, down to the brand name but this is what I do to make some gooood baked spaghetti. I’ll share some pictures and the recipe after the cut.

140116-01 This is the stuff! Ooey, gooey and delicious. Join me won’t you?

140116-02 Ground beef ready to go!

Ground beef and minced onions

This is how the dish looks like after the initial baking. This includes the noodles, pasta sauce and cheddar cheese.

After the first bake, you sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Baked Spaghetti

32 oz. Meatless spaghetti sauce, any flavor – I use Hunt’s Brand – Garlic and Herb (in the 26 oz. aluminum can) – update: 5/4/14, they sneakily now make the cans in 24 oz. sizes. When the Hunt’s brand canned spaghetti sauce is on sale, it is much cheaper than the glass jars so I just buy two but still measure out 32 oz. for this recipe.
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes with green pepper, celery, and onion – do not drain (I use Hunt’s brand once again)
1 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion, minced
1 box (lb.) spaghetti or angel hair pasta, whichever you prefer – I use Barilla brand spaghetti
1 8 oz. bag shredded mild cheddar cheese
1 8 oz. bag shredded mozzarella cheese (you can add more if you like a lot of cheese for both cheeses, for these pictures, I used only one each…when I’ve made the recipe in other times…I’ve added more mozzarella)

Either one 13 x 9 baking pan or two 8 inch baking pans.
Olive Oil Spray – to grease the pan(s)

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Break the pasta into 3 inch lengths. I usually yield about 3 “sticks” from each stick of spaghetti and then cook according to package directions. I usually remove it about 2-3 minutes before the pasta is cooked. The pasta will continue to cook later in the sauce and eventually in the oven so you don’t want to overcook the pasta. Rinse and drain the pasta, place aside.

Brown onions and ground beef together until the beef is cooked through. Drain excess grease if necessary. Stir in spaghetti sauce and diced tomatoes with the beef mixture and simmer for a few minutes until the sauce has thickened.

Stir in the pasta. Once incorporated, stir in all the cheddar cheese. Stir the mixture until cheese is completely melted.

Grease your baking pan(s) and place your pasta mixture in.

Bake the spaghetti for 15 minutes, take the pan(s) out and sprinkle the mozzarella cheese on top and bake for 15 minutes more or until the cheese has melted to your liking. Enjoy!

Note: Another great thing about this recipe is that it freezes very nicely!

140116-06 You won’t regret making this. Adult and kids enjoy it! Let me know how it goes if you make it!

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15Jan / 2014

Cooking Fresh For You – Honolulu, HI

I’m not going to mention where I work exactly but I think those who work in the same place as me will figure it out with this post. About a year ago, food trucks have been popping up near my work place and I have loved it. It’s great to have other choices for lunch and I like to support small business owners who work hard to run their food trucks. I’ve tried Cooking Fresh For You a few times since they’ve been on-campus. What’s cool is that they were one of the first trucks that popped up and they are still staying strong. I find their plates to be hit or miss, they focus on serving fresh and healthier food plates.

Well, after a long break from them…my desperation for food came through when I had no other choice (sorry!). I definitely did not regret this decision! My plate was delicious! I ordered their chicken with mushroom sauce.

Fresh fruit, mixed greens, three chicken thighs (dark meat is the best!) served on top of brown rice

140115-02 I was surprised that they served chicken thighs but was fine because the meat was so tender. The chicken and sauce were delicious, the brown rice was good. I enjoyed the addition of fresh fruit slices, they were surprisingly juicy and sweet. My only complaint is the salad. Don’t get me wrong, I love salads but the greens they use while high quality are very bitter. I can’t take the bitterness. Their prices are also very good! I think this dish was about 8-9 bucks, I’d go for this dish over L&L any day!

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13Jan / 2014

New Diner’s Drive-In – Honolulu, HI

Have you been to New Diner’s Drive-In? This place is located on North King Street right next to the Post Office. I gotta say, being a Kalihi girl…this is one of the few places I don’t like going to. There’s such a big mix of “interesting” people here. I’ve been approached more than once by these “interesting” folks which has scared me off enough. Well, I needed dinner one night and this was one of the few places open that night…so I had no choice! The people were still as interesting as usual so I grabbed my food as soon as I could and proceeded to grind at home.

140113-01 Here is one of their signature dishes. Fried saimin with BBQ chicken. I can’t deny it, it is delicious! Especially slathered in Sriracha sauce…

140113-02 Here was my dinner! Kimchee fried rice. I gotta say, this was really good! Kimchee fried rice is usually hit or miss in restaurants and I find that a lot of them tend to make kimchee fried rice a bit sweet. They made this fried rice very savory and tasty. Too tasty. That means I could taste butter which was nice but there was a bit too much butter. I still think it tasted great. If I work up the nerve, I may have to return here one day.

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