15Sep / 2014

Chukaya Sea Dragon Table – Ala Moana, HI

I’ve been wanting to try Chukaya Sea Dragon Table ever since they opened up a while back because I was curious how Japanese style Chinese food would taste like. The start was interesting. First off, you have to find your own parking so I parked in the sketch are behind a well known druggy park. We got to the restaurant and decided to check out some shops on the side before heading in. The restaurant opens at 5pm and we got in at about 6pm. Well, we tried to get in at 6pm. The restaurant was fully lit and employees were inside waiting for customers to come in. So basically, they hadn’t unlocked their door yet and we were their first official customers. I couldn’t believe it and I bet if a customer tried to open the locked door and couldn’t, they would just walk on by.

My friend and I were pretty excited about a few dishes we saw on Yelp but as we browsed through the menu, many of them were crossed off. We were informed that they are going through a re-design and would be changing up the menu. We were disappointed but stayed around anyway. One of the main dishes I wanted was their Dragon Ball soup which is something they discontinued. The waitress was nice enough to ask the kitchen about it and they were willing to make it! Check out our meal…

Jajamen
So, I am used to the Korean version of this dish and this was a lot different. They used more of a Chinese red bean sauce which I liked as well! The noodles were great, chewy and firm. I enjoyed it!

Spicy Eggplant
I’m not a huge fan of eggplant but my love for it has been growing lately. I guess what they say is true, as you get older – you start liking things you didn’t like before. I like when eggplant is prepared like this – braised. This was delicious!

Dragon Balls
The famous dragon balls! Which they no longer carry. If you folks know what cha gor (tea roll) is, this is very similar. The plain mochi covers a savory filling. In this case, their filling is like a spare-rib/pork hash filling. It was pretty good but nothing I would order again (not that I can anyway). I think I just compared it too much to the ones I grew up with and nothing beats home cooking!

As we were walking back to our car, I saw the J-Shop that Jalna posted about! I had to check it out and saw this big hunk of meat for $1000! Insane. Only Japanese restaurants can afford this kine of thing huh? How much do they have to charge to make their money back?? That marbling though, looks amazing. But $1000…craziness to me!

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29Jul / 2014

Fook Lam – Chinatown, HI

Fook Lam was a 50/50 chance. Why? Any Chinese restaurant that has good ratings on Yelp could be a restaurant that pleases the crowds and not necessarily the Chinese folk. I’ve gotten plenty flack from my friend who insists I take her to authentic Chinese restaurants so the pressure is on. She won’t let me forget a certain Chinese restaurant we went to…which I never claimed was authentic Chinese. Aiya, the pressures of being Chinese. Anyway, I finally got to try Fook Lam out a few weeks ago and I liked it. It’s located in the Chinese Cultural Plaza on the first floor facing River Street. The restaurant is clean and they get plenty good eats. The waitresses are fast and efficient and parking is validated. I haven’t been to Cultural Plaza since kid times so I didn’t realize how nice their parking lot is. I mean compared to the other places I have parked, their parking spaces are spacious! Let’s check out the food shall we?

Shrimp and Chive Dumpling – I prefer the pan fried one to the steamed one

Black Bean Spare Ribs – delish!

Shrimp Dumpling – good!

Seafood Roll – good as always. Always winnas.

Baked Custard Bun – These were fresh out of the oven and heavenly. One of my most favorite sweets…ever.

Siu Mai – I know pork hash isn’t loved by all…but I have always loved it. One of the dining companions commented that the skin on these dim sum dishes were great. Not hard and thick (don’t say it!) – just the right amount of softness.

Deep Fried Shrimp Balls – not bad, not great. I think you pay for the looks…hehe.

Short Ribs Look Fun – I saw this picture repeatedly on Yelp and just had to try it. Eh, it was alright. It wasn’t spectacular. It was just look fun mixed in with spareribs. Nothing special, glad I tried it but I won’t be ordering it again.

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01Apr / 2014

Char Hung Sut – Chinatown, HI

Char Hung Sut is located in a super safe neighborhood and serves up awesome food. April Fools! Okay only about the super safe neighborhood part. You gotta admit, Char Hung Sut’s location is in a less than desirable location but the food makes it well worth the trip. Can you believe I have never tried it until about a month ago? I’m definitely a fool for that. Everything I have had here has proven to be awesome. It’s also helpful that I go super early before work so I can just park on the street and jump in…free meter parking! I was amazed by the person who helped me. I think he’s the owner’s grandson. I ordered all kinds of stuff in random numbers and he magically added them all up on a piece of paper manually…then added tax all in his head. I was amazed. Then again, I’m terrible at math so anything would amaze me. He had talent!

Love the packaging. It’s becoming like a theme huh?

Taro Cake. Look at how thick this was! Definitely not the kind of taro cake I’m used to, but I’m not complaining. I thought it was interesting that they had a black bean sauce in it.

Look at all these nummies; pork hash, half moon and yip chai (with pork)!

Here’s the filling of the yip chai. Delicious. It’s also the same filling in the half moon – so good!

Chow Fun – $6.25

The most flavorful “haole” chow fun I have ever had. I call any chow fun haole if its not dark like the Chinese ones. This was SO good…so much flavor packed into these noodles. The garlic chives make a big difference. Definitely winners.

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26Mar / 2014

Happy Days Seafood Restaurant – Waialae, HI

Hey folks! Just wanted to share a recent lunch I had at Happy Days Seafood Restaurant. Definitely the go-to restaurant in the Kaimuki area. Their food is pretty on-par with the food served up in Chinatown so I do enjoy going there as much as I hate to admit it. I like them a lot better now than before. Here’s the pics!

Siu Mai – one of my favorite dim sum items. I always have to order this in every dim sum restaurant. Even though siu mai is such a common dish, every restaurant makes it so differently! Hawaii has the best ones for sure.

Hoi Sin Jak – some of these dim sum dishes, I don’t even know the English name because I order it in Chinese. I’ll transcribe the names of them like this one, hoi sin jak – literal translation is seafood bundle/packet. Check out the inside…

There’s shiitake mushroom, shrimp, a chunk of white fish…and depending on the restaurant, there might be a small scallop or some imitation crab throw in. It’s all wrapped up in tofu skin and steamed. So delicious…I definitely recommend this.

Pai Kwut (Black Bean Spareribs) – always winners. Always tender and flavorful – if I wasn’t eating dim sum, I would love to just eat this over a nice steaming bowl of rice.

Kuhl Choy Bang (Garlic Chive Pan Fried Dumpling) – another one of my favorites! It is filled with garlic chives and morsels of shrimp. They have two versions of this dish, one is a steamed dumpling version and this is a pan fried version. I prefer the pan fried version. Delish!

Hoy Sin Chow Mein – Seafood Chow Mein, this dish reminds me of my childhood and the Chinese parties I had to attend. My favorite noodle dish, the crispy noodles with the awesome seafood gravy…and so much seafood and veggies on top. It’s my absolute favorite, I’ve been on a cake noodle kick lately.

Ended the lunchtime feast with dessert from the Pillbox Pharmacy. Unexpected place to grab ice cream but they’ve got some of the best! I unknowingly took a pic with the Hawaii cone in full view. Pretty awesome yeah? 🙂

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20Feb / 2014

Cha Gor

As I’m typing this entry, I can’t for the life of me remember the English name of this dish. I think the literal translation of the name is Tea Roll but if you look that up online it just pulls up a ton of swirled cream cakes. Ahh…and I don’t really see these in Chinese restaurants. Have any of you had these? They’re so delicious, one of my favorites really. It’s steamed in banana leaves but it’s soooo sticky (because the outer layer is like mochi) that they have to put a lot of oil on the leaves to get it not to stick. Well, it sticks anyway so the oil is kind of useless. Well not useless but not up to par. My family has worked around this in the past by wrapping these things in iceberg lettuce, works great for me. No oil and the entire piece is edible! I should really learn how to make this…

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10Sep / 2013

Chinatown – Chicago, IL

Anytime I’m traveling, I like to check out the Chinatown if possible. San Francisco has a huge Chinatown but I must have fluked out because the dim sum I tried was nothing special. In fact, the dim sum I tried at SF and New York were nothing to write home about – they just made me miss the dim sum at home! The dim sum I have tried in Chicago has been the best I’ve had in the mainland. I actually dined at this same restaurant (Ming Hin) during my last trip and wanted to try a new restaurant so we headed to Chinese restaurant that specialized in main dishes/noodles. Well we got seated right away but was ignored after that. We watched as they seated more and more people and no one even came to see us with a menu. I looked around and caught the eye of the girl behind the counter. She caught my glance and proceeded to do nothing. So…we left and went to Ming Hin. Ming Hin is a huge Chinese restaurant and they’ve got everything down to a science! The wait staff know Mandarin/Cantonese/English and their ordering system is so easy! The menu is all pictures and you just put the number of orders you want with each picture. We need this in Hawaii! Also…the wait staff is incredibly friendly, something Hawaii is also lacking…hehe.