Tag Archive | Chinese Food

Khan Skewer Restaurant – Moilili, HI

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!

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Recipe: Chinese Braised Tofu

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.

Recipe Credit: Linda Guo’s Kitchen

YuXiang Korean Chinese Cuisine – Las Vegas, NV

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!

Noodle Pull!

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One Plus One Drive Inn – Moilili, HI

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 – Honolulu, HI

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!!!

Mixed Plate Friday

No visit to Vegas is complete without a visit to Ikea (and Trader Joe’s)!

Swedish Meatballs (ftw!)

Breakfast Plate with Pancakes
served with eggs, potatoes and bacon and swedish pancakes and lingonberry jam

Did you know they had breakfast plates? I didn’t! Their pancakes are more like crepes. The jam is also located at the ordering counter and they don’t give it to you automatically so you gotta ask! This was Chan’s breakfast, he liked it fine.

Here’s a picture of a random Chinese take-out I did while playing nurse at the hotel. Thank god we got a hotel that came with a full kitchen and washer and dryer. The kitchen came in very handy. The food was alright, do you see the top right? That’s honey walnut shrimp. It’s like sitting in a mayo soup, it was quite odd. The food was not bad, not great either.

Shang Artisan Noodle – Las Vegas, NV

Shang Artisan Noodle is one of the restaurants we gotta go to every time we’re in Vegas. The location in the Durango Casino and Resort is the easiest for us since it’s slower and we can gamble afterwards. Durango is probably my favorite casino right now, it’s nice and bright and doesn’t feel too smokey.

Spicy Wonton | $11.85
pork wontons with spicy soy sauce, green onion

Always a great dish. They usually take longer to make this than your noodles, just as a warning.

Shang Beef Noodles (Spicy) | $17.82
beef & chicken broth (brown), braised beef brisket, veggies, green onion

Shang Beef Noodles (Mild) | $17.82

Okay, so I wanted to make big body and order spicy like Chan and started regretting when I was ordering lol. The waitress was very nice and said she can give me the spicy sauce on the side so I can add as much as I want. That’s very nice of her!

LOOK AT THAT. I don’t know if you can tell how big and deep this bowl was but this was like quarter cup of straight chili oil. That’s crazy. I did not use that all lol. I think I will stick to mild next time.

NOODLE PULL!

Recipe: Healthy Rotisserie Chicken Cabbage Salad

I saw this recipe on TikTok and it didn’t really have like a full blog recipe for it so I won’t be able to post any credit links. I really wanted to try it because it seemed easy enough and I love using rotisserie chicken breast in salads!

Recipes always sound easier than they are. A lot of chopping and prep work goes into this dish. Chan and I enjoyed it! Nice low carb option for you that is healthy and easy to make!

Rotisserie Chicken Cabbage Salad

Salad Ingredients:

  • 2 C shredded chicken breast (Sam’s or Costco Rotisserie Chicken Breast, all of it)
  • 1 large cabbaged, shredded
  • 2 medium carrots, julienned
  • 5 mini cucumbers, sliced thick matchsticks
  • 1 medium white onion, sliced
  • Pumpkin seeds (or any nuts you prefer), optional topping

Dressing Ingredients:

  • 6 T oyster sauce
  • 4 T soy sauce
  • 1 large lemon, juiced
  • 2 T honey
  • 6-8 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1-2 t grated/minced ginger
  • 2 T sesame oil
  • 4 stalks green onions, sliced

Instructions

  1. Combine dressing ingredients, okay to make ahead. Best overnight!
  2. Combine all salad ingredients except the chicken into a big bowl, top with chicken breast and pour salad dressing over the ingredients (this way the chicken breast soaks up all the dressing goodness first!). Top with nuts if you prefer and serve!

Mixed Plate Friday

OG sign from Kaimuki

Anyone remember this sign? This picture must be like 2 decades old but I was always so amused by this sign. Pidgen but straight and to the point. Just no do em k?

Chinese Chicken Wing Seasoning

Don’t even ask me where I bought this. I forget already but I always saw this on random videos online and it always made the chicken wings look so delicious so I decided to try it. Well all the instructions are in Chinese and Google Translate wasn’t very helpful so I really just improvised. I think I added too much water to the marinade but I let it sit overnight and then baked it in the oven. The taste wasn’t bad! My brother loved it so it’s big kid approved. Would I make it again? Sure! Wish they had English directions haha.

Recipe: Chinese Stuffed Peppers

Another adventure in Chinese cooking with Jenny! Hmm, I must have been too tired to keep track of where I got this recipe. But honestly, I kind of just experimented with different recipes all in one. I was first inspired by Jalna’s post but then got inspired to do the Chinese version (add black beans lol). It came out pretty good for my first try! I would definitely make this again!

Used the bag of mini sweet bell peppers from Sam’s Club, the whole bag.

Ground pork and shrimp mixture. Wondered if I should have maybe minced the shrimp less, made the pieces chunkier.

What a pain in the butt to stuff all these peppers, was worth it though.

Sautéing on both sides…

Chinese Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

You’ll need:

  • 8 large shrimp, shelled, deveined and minced
  • 1 lb. ground pork
  • 10 water chestnuts, minced
  • 4 scallions (half of the greens for the sauce, rest of greens and whites for the stuffing)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 4 teaspoons Shaoxing wine
  • Fresh ground white pepper
  • Bag of mini sweet bell peppers (From Sam’s Club)
  • 1 tablespoon oil (for sauté)

For the sauce:

  • For sauté of sauce:
    • 2 T oil 
    • 6 clove garlic (minced)
    • 3 tablespoon whole fermented Black Beans, washed and smashed
    • 2 teaspoon Shaoxing wine
  • Okay to mix ahead of time:
    • 2 cup chicken stock
    • ½ teaspoon salt
    • ½ teaspoon sugar
    • 2 teaspoon soy sauce
    • 2 teaspoon oyster sauce
    • 2 tablespoon cornstarch (mixed into a slurry with 1 tablespoon water)

Instructions

  1. Use a cleaver or knife to finely mince the shrimp into a very fine paste. This process entails chopping and folding the shrimp paste over and onto itself, and continuing to chop. Transfer the shrimp paste to a bowl.
  2. Chop the scallions. Set aside half of the green portion for the sauce. Add the rest of the chopped scallion to the shrimp, along with 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch, 2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine, and white pepper to taste. Use a fork to beat/whip the shrimp until it is smooth and all the ingredients are well-combined.
  3. Pop the stems off the bell peppers and follow the lines of each pepper to cut into 3-5 segments. Remove the seeds. If using long hot green peppers, just cut them in half lengthwise and remove the seeds.
  4. Stuff each pepper segment with the shrimp mixture until the filling is even with the edges of the peppers. You can also trim the ends of the peppers to ensure they are flush and at the same level of the filling. This will make the peppers easier to cook.
  5. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a wok or skillet over medium high heat and place the peppers in the oil, stuffing side down. Cook until they are browned, about 2 minutes. Turn the peppers over to sear the bottoms for another 2 minutes, turning the heat down if they start to get too dark. If using the long hot green peppers or another variety of thin-fleshed pepper, simply transfer them to the serving plate.
  6. If using bell peppers, which have thicker flesh and take longer to cook, add 2 tablespoons of water to the pan, cover, and steam for another 2 minutes, or until the peppers are just tender. Set aside on a serving plate.
  7. It’s time to make the sauce, which only takes a couple minutes. Heat the wok over medium heat and add the oil, garlic and fermented black beans. Stir-fry for a few seconds and add the shaoxing wine. When the wine is bubbly, add the rest of the sauce ingredients (except the cornstarch slurry) and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, add the cornstarch slurry gradually until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon. Stir in the reserved scallions and spoon the sauce over the peppers to serve.

Note to self:

  • Shrimp was not needed and did not seem to add any taste different or texture difference
  • I was a bit iffy about the the 6 minute cook time, it’s a pretty thick pork stuffing. But it worked out well for me because I was not eating it fresh anyway, it would be reheated for meals later. It was perfectly cooked when I reheated and the peppers retained their structure, did not get too mushy.

Recipe Inspiration/Credit: The Woks of Life