31May / 2023

Chengdu Taste – Honolulu, HI

One of our go-to restaurants. What can I say? I enjoy Chinese food and I enjoy spice. I don’t have much else to say about Chengdu Taste so just look at the pictures. 🙂

Bobo Chicken (with Red Chili and Mixed Vegetable Skewers) | $24.99

This dish is served cold and it comes with a nice selection of vegetables, tofu and quail eggs. We enjoy it!

Chengdu Style Fried Rice | $14.99

Must order. Each. Time.

Flavored Spicy Beef Noodle | $15.99

Felt like a noodle-y night. It was good, not great. Would I order it again? Hmm, probably not. I would want to try another noodle dish.

Dry Stir Fried Pig’s Intestines | $20.99

Another favorite dish to order. I love that the intestines are cooked crisp. Must take a long time to cook!

Crispy Shrimp with Salted Egg Yolk | $28.99

This is a new dish. I had a craving for salted egg yolk. I don’t know why. But they serve this dish up with rice blocks coated in it too! It was good but I don’t think I would order it again, was just to satisfy a craving, kinda pricey too.

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24May / 2023

SEIRYUMON – Ikspiari Mall, Japan

We were starved before we hit up Tokyo Disney so we decided to eat at the Ikspiari Mall before going into the park. Love this mall! We decided to check out SEIRYUMON because we were craving some Taiwanese/Chinese food. It’s going to be a long post but I really enjoyed this meal even if it was tourist trappy.

Egg Drop Soup

Dried Tofu Salad
I know this looks like noodles but it was tofu! It was good!

Dimsum
Bleh

Rice (lol)

Stir-fried Shrimp & Egg with Chili Sauce Lunch Set | ¥1430

This was my lunch set, pretty good price ah? Plenty food! And it’s shrimp! It totally hit the spot, just felt like something tomato-y with rice. Loved it. Well the dimsum was blah but everything else was good!

Another version of dim sum

Crispy Fried Chicken with Sweet & Chili Sauce

Fried Rice with Meat & Seafood | ¥1540

Not my dish, but this was also a set meal. I think the chicken was part of it? I don’t remember, it wasn’t my meal. 🙁

Taiwanese Stir-fried Pea Sprout | ¥1100

I was in dire need of vegetables and always wanted to try pea sprouts. Oh my gosh, hands down my favorite dish of the meal. I would definitely order this again!!

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03May / 2023

Lam’s Kitchen- Chinatown, HI

Took a little jaunt over to Chinatown on a Sunday morning to eat a hearty breakfast and walk around the nicely scented (ha!) streets of Chinatown. Being in Chinatown and running into relatives? The odds are pretty big to me but I guess not big enough. I saw two relatives within 5 minutes of each other. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of good fresh seafood. But it was still nice to eat at Lam’s Kitchen! Very efficient place and having online ordering must be making them bank!!

Steamed Won Ton

Oh yum, I love won ton. This isn’t technically listed on the menu so I forget the price already. We just asked for a side order of wonton with no soup. This is what comes out, yum yum yum. They serve it on a bed of greens too!

Beef Flank & Tendon Look Fun | $12.99

Very nice steaming bowl of comfort food. Delicious. This place has AC but I was sweating. I think it was also all the hot sauce I used. The parking is non-existant but if you have a buddy, maybe you can illegally sit on the side and wait while they run in! At least they have online ordering. 🙂

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26Apr / 2023

Uncle’s Chicken – Kalihi, HI

When Uncle’s Chicken opened up a while ago, I really wanted to try it. I was intrigued by the whole fried chicken (well it’s a cornish game hen). My initial craving went away so I didn’t try it until last week. They have a supposed website to order online but it didn’t work the entire day so forget that.

Crispy Fried Whole Chicken | $15.95

How was it? Okay. The sauce that comes with it…it’s like a tangy creamy sauce. I’m not raving about this but I didn’t dislike it too you know?

Shrimp Sandwich | $9.25

Another thing we were excited to try. Maybe V would be excited to try it too but ehhh, no need. I tried it so you don’t have to. It’s texture is like fish paste so it’s not like you get any distinct shrimp flavor nor are there any nice morsels of shrimp in there. No can tell what you even eating.

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19Apr / 2023

SXY Szechuan – Ala Moana, HI

It is very hard for me to take a restaurant seriously with a name like SXY Szechuan. Also, how do you even pronounce it? Do I just say sexy szechuan? If you read my blog, you know I have a thing for spicy foods. I love Chengdu Taste with all my heart but we pass by SXY all the time and we decided it was finally time to try it. How was it? Good, but not better than Chengdu. Wouldn’t mind returning to try other dishes but Chengdu still reigns supreme in my heart.

Stir-fried Green Beans | $15.99
with szechuan flavor

Nice dish, nicely seasoned. Love the crispy garlic on top! The reason it tastes so good is probably because they deep fry the beans in oil.

Griddle Pork Intestines | $23.99
with vegetable mix

Super cute presentation. A mini wok! I almost wish they served it with like a mini spatula but we got just a spoon. It also comes with a tealight candle at the bottom keeping the dish warm. There is a similar dish to this at Chengdu and I think it’s better at Chengdu. I guess I like that Chengdu cuts the intestines a bit thicker and I like the meatyness. They cut it thinner here but you may like that because it’s crispier that way! Good flavor. Spiciest dish of the night even though we asked for the same spice level through all.

Spicy Fried Chicken Wings | $17.99

Good dish. Not spicy. Tons of garlic. You can’t lose!

Stir-fried Jiangxi Noodles | $16.99

Boo, junkest dish of the night. Absolutely no flavor, and not at all spicy, forreal. It was so disappointing and this is coming from someone who loves noodles. I would have asked for hot sauce on the side but I didn’t. Blah!

Spicy Pork Dumpling | $12.99

You can order either won tons or dumplings, I wanted something a bit more substantial so I went with the dumpling. It was good!

Lychee Beer | $5.00

Ha! If you know me, you know I don’t drink (don’t make me bring up Suntory) but I was curious about a lychee beer. Well it was super good. Why? Because it just tastes like lychee soda. I could probably down a 6 pack of this. I heard you can find this at Hmart or Don Q so no need spend $5 for one can here.

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14Apr / 2023

Mixed Plate Friday

For those who know, know! Gateway Cafe is located in the Gateway Student Housing for UH students but their cafeteria is open to the public! For $12.25 at lunch – you can get a pretty good buffet! They put up daily menus every week so you can take a look and see if you are interested. Here’s a sampling of a recent lunch I had. The pasta is hit or miss but on this day, it was a hit! The pink vodka sauce is chef’s kiss. I can’t forget to eat my hot dog. They also advertise their in-house baked bread but I am pretty irked that the last few times I’ve gone…no bread!!! I would pay just to eat that bread. Give me the bread!

Jajangmyeon | $12.95

Is it time for me to compare the different black bean noodle restaurants in Hawaii? This dish is from Dowon Chinese Restaurant, it was alright. To me the sauce was a bit watered down and kind of sweet. A bit odd. I guess I gotta try On Dong again to compare. Also, I don’t know if they give it for dine in but when you order take out, they don’t give you the raw onions and black bean paste as a side. Boo.

Pan Fried Dumplings | $5.00

This is a funny story. I am usually the runner for food pick-ups in Chinatown. This time, my coworker helped do the run and boy did she get a sweat. I ordered pan fried dumplings from Heaven Chinese Noodle and BBQ Cafe. This place is a super hole in the wall Chinese place at the Chinese Cultural Plaza. And when you find it, it’s hit or miss if you are able to communicate with the staff. I gave an easy enough order, pan fried dumplings for $5.00. They go and ask my coworker how many dumplings. Like what??? How many pieces. So she’s texting me asking and I’m like…whatever comes in that order? I was so confused. I think they eventually said it’s 5 pieces, okay that works great. She got super flustered because they weren’t that friendly too lol.

Anyway, the dumplings were really good and they ended up giving I think 7 dumplings so thank you. I really enjoy their food, very home cooking kine and their prices are good! If you’re curious where they are, they are right next to Royal Kitchen.

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12Apr / 2023

Recipe: Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce

I eat broccoli all the time and after a while, I get tired of the same old roasted broccoli. I saw this recipe on TikTok and wanted to try it because I always love how the vegetables are made in Chinese restaurants but I never made them myself before. I love this, it’s super savory and flavorful and chock full of garlic. I adjusted this recipe for my own needs since I buy the big bag of broccoli from Sam’s/Costco. I also probably add way more garlic.

Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce

Ingredients:

2-3 lb Broccoli (I get the ready to use bags from Costco/Sam’s Club)

2 T neutral oil

2 t salt (for boiling broccoli)

3 T minced garlic (I used a whole head of garlic lol)

6 T oyster sauce

3 T shaoxing wine

¾ C Water

Cornstarch slurry: 3 t + 3 t water

Directions:

Steam the broccoli to your liking. I boil it in a big pot of salted water for about 2-3 minutes, I don’t want the broccoli too soft. Drain broccoli from water and set aside.

Heat up oil and garlic until fragrant in a pan, no need to brown the garlic. Add the oyster sauce, shaoxing wine and water and bring to a boil. Add cornstarch slurry and stir immediately, take pan off the heat. Pour the sauce over the steamed broccoli, mix and serve!

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07Apr / 2023

Mixed Plate Friday

Bobo Chicken with Red Chili and Mixed Vegetable Skewers | $24.99

Just wanted to share a new dish I tried at Chengdu Taste, not new for their menu just new for me. It was pretty good. It’s a pure spectacle to see each piece of meat or vegetable on a skewer. It comes with plenty of that “soup” but unless you like burn a hole in your tummy, I wouldn’t eat it over rice. I tried, I couldn’t hack it. Good dish though! Got a good mixture of vegetables, chicken and quail eggs.

Poke Nachos | $17.95

Aloha Cones started offering up Poke Nachos so I treated my brothers to lunch there. Gotta support local but also look at the price. LOL, I’m a broken record about price. What I will say is…they give a good portion and I am pretty sure they fry the chips fresh when you order it. They really enjoyed the dish and I guess this is the running price for poke now so I guess I would recommend!

Guava & Cream Pie ($2.19 for 1 | $3.19 for 2)

Hawaii McDonald’s has a limited time Guava & Cream Pie and it was all over social media so of course I had to try. The day I wanted to try it, all the locations close to me were sold out. I think they make a batch for the day and when they’re out, they’re out. So I went to a location and sent my brother in to buy it. I’ve had bad luck with online ordering sometimes and I didn’t want to order it online and then get there and get told no more. Well instructions were misunderstood and he picked up 4 pies instead of the 2 I wanted. Ha! Anyway, so how was it? Pretty good. Like a guava cheesecake! And I may be in the minority on this but I actually like baked pies, more so than fried pies.

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31Mar / 2023

Mixed Plate Friday

Just a super cute gift I got from my coworker for Girl’s Day! Isn’t this so cute and thoughtful??

Bi Bim Kook Soo | $14.49

I got this from Yummy Korean BBQ – the Moanalua Shopping Center location. To me it was pretty good! Everything was seasoned perfect so I enjoyed this a lot! One of the better take-out bibimkooksoo dishes I’ve had in a while!

Air-fried Roast Pork

Did you know you could make chinese style roast pork in an air fryer? I didn’t. Okay, well I’ve never made chinese roast pork ever in my life but take a look at this! Look at the skin and how crispy it is! I don’t have a recipe lol but it was delicious!

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27Feb / 2023

Yung Yee Kee Dim Sum – Ala Moana, HI

If you can’t make it out to Chinatown, I found you a good alternative in the Ala Moana area. Forget going to Jade Seafood, check out Yung Yee Kee! We came right at opening time on a Sunday and there was absolutely no wait. We ate yummy dim sum to full satisfaction and was off on our merry way. I thought the flavors were good and comparable to Chinatown so do it!!!

Chicken Feet with Black Bean | $6.50

I know, I know. Not many of you like chicken feet, I get it. I grew up eating this which is why I am able to eat it. Juicy and flavorful, I would recommend this dish if you like chicken feet!

Pork Hash with Shrimp (Siu Mai) | $6.50

Yum, a classic and always a favorite of mine. Nothing memorable but nothing bad which is good. I would get it again because I just like siu mai.

Seafood Bundle | $7.50

One of my favorite dim sum dishes, it usually includes a piece of fish, shrimp, scallop and a whole shiitake mushroom wrapped in tofu skin (yuba).

Signature Steamed Beef Tripe | $7.50

Another dish not everyone can eat. This was nicely seasoned but had a strong white pepper taste. Good but no wow factor.

Shrimp & Chives Dumplings | $7.50

I like to get this in dim sum restaurants but I like when they pan fry it and steam too. This one is more dry on the outside, tasted good but I guess I like it more like potsticker style.