One faithful Sunday morning, after doing a quick grocery run with Chan, I offered up a drive to Chinatown to get some GRUB. Had a hankering for some beef noodles even in the hot Hawaiian summer heat. We parked in my favorite municipal lot and headed out. Lam’s Kitchen is super busy all the time but guess what, it ain’t busy before 8AM lol. We were the only 1 of 2 diners that morning. They did however have a lot of Chinese folks walking in and out of the shop for their takeout orders.
Chinese Doughnut Stick | $3.00
One of Chan’s favorite dishes and it was nice and crispy here too. We didn’t have jook today but it is nice dipped into the noodle broth too!
Beef Flank & Tendon Mein with Won Ton $18.99
I made Chan order his with won ton so I could just have one or two (mwahaha) and it was so much food, Chan could hardly finish his bowl even after giving me wonton. He got his with the skinny mein noodles.
Beef Flank & Tendon Look Fun | $14.50
Look fun is always good and Lam’s makes it very well. I got all confused in my mind that morning and was feeling like lai fun. I don’t know why I’ve been hankering for lai fun lately and I hardly see restaurants carrying it, let me know if you know of a good lai fun joint. Anyway, lai fun is kind of like udon noodles but a bit skinnier and not as soft. Anyway, this dish was good as always! Can’t beat a classic!
My original name for this recipe is Chinese Bean Curd, Cucumber and Mushroom Salad. Too much of a tongue twister so let’s just call it cucumber salad. I found this recipe on TikTok and I wanted to make it because wood ear mushrooms are Chan’s favorite but it also looked like such a refreshing salad. I had to type up the recipe and best guessed the quantities from the video and guess what? It came out GREAT. It is so delicious! Do I think the peanuts are needed next time? I don’t think so.
Dried Bean Curd Sticks
I found this at Don Quijote, I’m sure you can find this in Chinatown in any store. You have to soak these in water to rehydrate them. There are many different ways according to different websites but I decided to just soak it in cold water in the fridge overnight and that worked great! I rotated the sticks once just to make sure they got equal exposure to the water.
The wood ear mushrooms rehydrated much faster, I soaked them in room temperature water and it took about 30 minutes to get soft. The recipe calls for you to blanch both of them for about 1-2 minutes.
Garlic, Red Bell Pepper, Crushed Peanuts, Roasted Sesame Seeds and Green Onions ready for the hot hot oil…
Hot oil added! Immediately mix the ingredients so the hot oil can distribute to them evenly!
Cucumbers after my quick sugar pickle!
Fresh cilantro washed, drained and ready to go! Cilantro is a must!
Here’s the sauce with all the ingredients dumped in…so good…!
Chinese Bean Curd, Cucumber and Mushroom Salad
Ingredients
3 Japanese cucumbers, washed and cut into 1 inch sticks
3 T Sugar for quick pickling
2 small packets Wood Ear Mushrooms, rehydrated, rinse and drained (from Don Q – takes about 30 minutes in room temp water to rehydrate)
1 package Bean Curd Sticks, cut into 1 inch sticks (soaked in cold water in the fridge overnight)
1 Red Bell Pepper, diced
1 bunch cilantro
1 handful of shelled roasted peanuts
Sauce Ingredients
3 Green Onions, sliced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 T Toasted Sesame Seeds
3 T Crushed Peanuts
3-4 T heated neutral oil
6 T light soy sauce
6 T black vinegar
2 T oyster sauce
2 t salt
2 t chicken bouillon
1 T sugar, to taste
Toss cut cucumber sticks in a bowl with 3-4 T sugar and let sit for 10 minutes. Drain the water. Set aside. Heat a pot full of water, blanch the wood ear mushrooms and bean curd sticks in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Immediately drain, rinse in cold water and drain.
Add red bell pepper, green onions, garlic, sesame seeds, and crushed peanuts into a heat safe bowl. Heat up neutral oil in a pan/wok until smoking, turn off the stove and pour hot oil over the ingredients in the bowl. Immediately stir it to distribute the hot oil to all the ingredients.
Add soy sauce, black vinegar, oyster sauce, salt, chicken bouillon and sugar to the bowl and mix well. Taste and add sugar to your taste.
In a big bowl, add cucumber sticks, bean curd sticks, wood ear mushrooms, roasted peanuts, cilantro and sauce, toss. Can be eaten right away but tastes great after marinating for a few hours!
Note: Doubled sauce recipe when I made it compared to the video, doubling of sauce is reflected in this recipe write-up
Happy August! Oh my, is it already August? This is crazy. I feel like summer just started and here we are again. I love summer traffic so much, I need to appreciate the next few weeks until all the schools start up again! Sniff…
Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery | Assorted Dim Sum Items
Baked Char Siu Manapua | Winnah’s (big competition to U-Choice In) Custard Tart | Just okay (not the flaky pastry crust I like) Char Siu Su | I didn’t even get to try this. Ugh, too much food for the past few weeks so I let it go bad. My chinese self is kicking herself! Custard Bun | Okay, this was GOOD. It’s the pineapple bun with custard inside, so so good. Even better than the dim sum restaurants!
Fresh Peach Burrata Salad
In line with the season, I saw this fresh peach salad on TikTok. It’s fresh peaches, burrata cheese, prosciutto over arugula greens. It’s topped with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. If anyone asks, I can post the recipe. Super easy but the ingredients can get pricey. Chan loves arugula so he liked this salad!
Wea da noodles?
Inside joke with V. I made this really refreshing soba salad the other week to eat with Chan. It includes yuzu kosho dressing mixed with perilla oil and is topped with fresh cilantro. So good and refreshing, get noodles in there some place. Simple recipe, maybe I’ll post it one day. 🙂
It’s summer time so you know it’s time to do some BBQ’s! I wanted to try something a little different so I made vietnamese grilled pork skewers! Never tried making skewers like this before…and using fresh lemongrass before but it was a hit! Perfect food to go with some alcohol too. I had to buy a big pork shoulder chunk and slice it thin manually, that was the worst part of this dish. Other than that, it was good!
Salted Turnip
I found this at Don Quijote the other day and got super excited, really happy to see them branching out and getting more obscure Chinese ingredients. I don’t think I have ever bought this before but I think I was taught how to make a pork hash patty long time ago with it from my mom. Here’s to me cooking to my roots!
Look! This is the first time I ever guessed Wordle on the first try! This was my go-to first word everyday. Now that it’s been used, I am so lost without my first word guess! Gotta keep up with my streak!
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.
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!
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!
How do you folks get your recipes nowadays? I have a whole bunch of cookbooks but I never touch them, I rely on social media and YouTube. Been on a Chinese kick, just wanting to cook up comforting Chinese dishes. I found this video on YouTube and it looked so good and it’s actually quite simple to make! I made adjustments from the original (I always do). Check it out!
Chinese Braised Tofu
Ingredients 2 blocks of firm tofu, sliced into 1/2 inch rectangles – drained and patted dry (extra firm okay too) 6 spring onions – white sliced thin and at an angle, greens sliced into 2 inch sections (reserve greens on the side) 5-6 garlic cloves, minced 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp chicken bouillon 1 tsp sugar 2 Tbsp light soy sauce 1 Tbsp oyster sauce 1 Tbsp cornstarch 1 C water
1 Tbsp neutral oil for panfrying tofu
For sauce, mix in green onion whites, garlic, black pepper, chicken bouillon, sugar, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, cornstarch and water. Mix well. Set aside.
Pan fry tofu slices – brown on both sides. I had to do this in two batches since my pan wouldn’t fit two blocks of tofu in a single layer.
Add sauce mixture and cook until sauce thickens. Add green parts of the green onions and cook for an additional minute.
Notes: Perfect dish to serve over rice – a bit salty. I would probably add a maybe 1.5 T of soy sauce next time. Take this with a grain of salt (heh), I’ve been into blander food lately.
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!
One Plus One Drive Inn is a small eatery tucked away by Longs Moilili – not in the most savory area but they are consistent and serve up good food for a good price. We recently ordered a party pack there for an office lunch. Here is their Party Pack C which costs $398 (feeds 28-32).
Medium Pan House Noodle
Good, not great. A bit bland, I definitely needed my hot sauce.
Medium Pan Mochiko Chicken
Good!
Medium Pan BBQ Chicken
Always good, and don’t all drive inn’s have the same recipe for this lol
Medium Pan Teriyaki Steak
Not my thing but I’m sure this was good
40 pieces Fried Shrimp
Really good. The shrimp is cut flat and breaded so nicely. It was light and crispy. They give you a big tub of tartar sauce for this.
Small Pan Macaroni Salad
Basic
Medium Pan Oriental Chicken Salad
This salad looks great but my complaint is that it’s stuffed into this little pan. Wish they would give you this portion but just place it in a bigger pan – it was very very hard for folks to eat from this since the lettuce is buried below. Good otherwise!
Kevin’s Kitchen is the newest Chinese restaurant in town and it’s very popular! They are in the same lot as Times Supermarket on Beretania – right next to Epi-Ya Boulangerie & Patisserie. They specialize in Cantonese/Hong Kong food and are known for their roast meats. Roast Duck? I’m there. There are some really high reviews on Yelp so I had to come! They are a sit-down Chinese restaurant but also offer take-out plates in the back of the restaurant. Just walk into the restaurant and let the staff know that you are there for take-out and they will direct you towards to end where there is a cashier and the roast meat chopping station. They have some great lunch bento specials for a great price – that’s what I’m here for!
First things first, the staff are all pretty calm and nice right now. Even though the restaurant is crazy busy – I didn’t sense any anger, hear any bad mouthing in Chinese, etc. It was a bit chaotic but they didn’t seem frazzled. The restaurant is full of people but a good mix of Chinese people and local folks. The lunch specials are only until 2PM and though their online menu says there is a mini and large size – their menu on display does not show any sizes so it’s basically all the large prices. What am I doing? Let’s get to the food!
One Choice Bento (Roast Duck) | $13.00
$13 bucks for all this roast duck is a freaking commodity. Someone said this was the juiciest and tastiest roast duck they’ve had and well, they’re not wrong. This was really good roast duck. I appreciate the choy sum, abundance of rice with the succulent roast duck. It tastes as good as it looks. Highly recommend!
Char Siu / Roast Pork Bento (Large) | $13.00
I had to sample each roast meat to give a full opinion. I really really enjoy the char siu, the meat was nice and tender that was sweet but not too sweet. I would recommend this. Roast pork is more of Chan’s thing and he mentioned that it was good but not as good as Mei Mei since the skin isn’t as crispy. Caveat is that we did have this not fresh – though I did air-fry the pork to eat. You be the judge!
Roast Duck / Shoyu Chicken Bento (Large) | $15.00
All roast meat plates that come with duck is 2 dollars more, makes total sense to me and I don’t mind it. The shoyu chicken was good, nothing mind blowing but it’s what you expect from Chinese shoyu chicken! Nice anise shoyu flavor, tender pieces of chicken.
If I came back, I would get the char siu and roast duck combo for sure, winnahs!!!
