Tag Archive | Japanese Food

Katsumidori Sushi Tokyo – Honolulu, HI

Feb9

Back at one of my favorite sushi restaurants, Katsumidori Sushi Tokyo! I used to come every month with my friend so they knew me. I also used to ask for a totally random table which I think amuses them. I still ask for that table anytime I book! I haven’t been here in a while but when I checked in, I still got seated at “my” table so I was ecstatic! I’m hoping just a little bit that it was because they still recognized me lol. Anyway, it used to be super hard to get reservations for this restaurant. You would have to plan at least a month out. Nowadays, it’s quite easy to get a reservation (they’re on Open Table). If you like sushi, I plead that you give this place a chance and go! I don’t want them to close ever! Not that I need to worry too much, the restaurant still had a good number of diners! They are located in the Prince Waikiki Hotel so you don’t have to deal with the craziness of central Waikiki and they offer validated parking. No, I’m not sponsored by them. I’m not sponsored by anyone, I’d like to be given money to eat though. Let’s get it!

Seared Saba (Mackerel) Oshi | $10.30

I love this dish but it is also a very rich dish and very filling. We started with this dish and well it kind of filled me up for the rest of the meal. Still super good but just a fair warning…

Kobore Salmon Roe | $15.40

Deep Fried wrapped Shrimp Cake & Shiso Leaf | $7.45

Another must get dish for me. The title of the dish tells you all you need to know. I sprinkle some fresh lemon juice on it and dip it in a little bit of salt and voila – scrumptious shrimp goodness in my mouth.

The biggest reason we came! They are having a Crab & Shrimp Fair until the end of March 2026!

Red Shrimp Flight | $16.00
(From left to right: Butter Soy Sauce, Regular, Garlic)

This was Chan’s dish, good thing I didn’t order it. It looked good on the poster and I thought it would be cooked but it wasn’t. Chan enjoyed it! I watched in jealousy, hahaha

Ankimo (Monkfish Liver) | $10.00

Another favorite dish of mine. I freaking love ankimo with ponzu sauce. I don’t know what else to say other than that.

Assorted Tempura | $17.05

Great deal. This comes with two pieces of shrimp and a variety of vegetables. It’s fried light and crisp. Mm…man this post is making me want to go back already!

Engawa (Flounder) | $6.60

Engawa is an underrated sushi. I implore you, if you see engawa on the menu – order it and try it. It’s super good.

Scallop (left) | $5.45
Salmon (right) | $3.50

Spicy Tuna Roll (Half) | $9.00

Another one that I like to get. I don’t know why spicy tuna has a hold on me but it does. I enjoyed it and it was nice and spicy. I miss the old times when I used to go Genki Sushi all the time, I thought they had the lock on the best spicy tuna recipe. Hmm…I wonder if I should try them again one day. I’ve been massively disappointed the past few visits though.

Furi Furi Pudding | $7.50

Ehehehehe my favorite dish of the night. If you follow me on IG, you already saw my silly shaking video because this pudding is so BOUNCY. It was super good, like a strawberry milk pudding with chocolate sauce. I may be in the minority but no thank you to nutella and yes please to chocolate sauce all day long. Don’t take away my chocolate!!!!

It was a great visit and meal – hope to return soon!

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Mixed Plate Friday

Feb6

The Only Bean Edamame Beans | $7.98

Trying to find some snacks to chomp on at work that are somewhat healthy for you. Tried this. I’ll be honest, it’s just okay lol. It’s not bad but not great. Do-able. Sam’s Club has it right now if you’re interested.

Jack in the Box Jibbi Set

I never have good luck with limited time collectibles, especially when they are blind boxes! But Chan and I wanted to get all four of these figures (especially the one with the suit and tie) so we had to eat their Double Chicken Supreme Munchie Meals to get them! Guess how many of these meals we had to scarf down to get these 4 charms. FOUR. Yes, you did the math right. We got each charm exactly with the meals we ordered. Miracles! Do we need these charms? No. Was it cool to get all four? Yes. I’m the red spicy one and Chan is the blue icy one LOL.

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Recipe: Healthy Vegetable Soba Salad

Feb4

In my quest to be healthier, I did sit down with a nutritionist about a year ago. I was hoping it was like a coaching program where she would oversee me for a few visits. It was only one visit but I tried to take notes and heed her advice (well, the best that I can). One of the biggest pieces of advice she had was to incorporate as much vegetables as I can into my meals. I found it super hard to prep all these different vegetables to try to add into my already made meals…which would make the prepped veggies go bad.

Well one day, I saw a recipe for soba salad with it’s own ginger soy dressing so I did it. I don’t like a lot of veggies raw but wanted the colors so I quick pickled red cabbage and carrots – quick blanched spinach, etc. I add some fish cake as a protein/meat for the meal and I haven’t turned back since. I’ve been eating this for lunch at work for 2 weeks now and I still haven’t grown tired of it. I love all things savory and noodles so this really works out for me. And you can easily play up which veggies to use as toppings which keeps things fresh. Here’s a quick write-up of what I do. The dressing is the most important part of this recipe.

Healthy Vegetable Soba Salad

Ginger Soy Dressing (enough for 5 servings):

  • ¼ C rice vinegar
  • 3 ½ T vegetable oil
  • 3 T soy sauce
  • 2 T honey
  • 3 t sesame oil
  • 1 t grated fresh ginger

Salad Ingredients:

  • Blanched spinach – throw in boiling water for 15-30 seconds, drain and squeeze out excess water
  • Red cabbage, shredded and pickled (salt/sugar for 15 mins) – rinse and squeeze out excess water
  • Carrots, shredded and pickled with cabbage
  • Edamame, cook according to instructions
  • Chikuwa, sliced (4-5 slices)
  • Green Onions, sliced as garnish (a must for me)
  • 1 bundle soba per serving, cooked according to package instructions

Other topping ideas: wakame, cilantro, dashi tamagoyaki, bell pepper slivers, cucumber slices

I like that it’s my own homemade dressing. I like that it’s a cold dish so I don’t have to heat it up in the microwave. It just ticks all the boxes for me.

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Yakiniku Like – Ke’eaumoku, HI

Jan7

Yakiniku Like is a newish restaurant near Ala Moana. This is a chain restaurant from Japan and they offer up premium meats at a good value price – they also offer up a smokeless grill environment. I didn’t even know that was part of the restaurant until I was there and I was pleasantly pleased that I didn’t smell of grilled meats when I left! That’s a big plus. They have a lot of great value set menus, the only thing I didn’t like is that you have to pay right when you order. It’s a QR code ordering system (of course it is) so they do not take cash, you have to place your order on your phone and pay right away for them to prepare it and bring to your table. So yeah, you basically have to pay tip before you even get any service. No good. The service was pretty attentive so I was okay with it – I don’t give a huge tip for restaurants that I cook my food myself. Especially this one where they drop the food and that’s it, not like an AYCE where they have to constantly bring you plates and plates of food.

Also, they have a $9.99 special every month which comes with 2 choices of meat, rice, soup and salad. We didn’t go for the special, we wanted to try the other meats!

Beef Lovers Set!! | $19.95
kalbi short plate (100g), misuji (100g), and harami (50g)

Best Duo Set!! | $19.95
kalbi short rib (100g) & pork belly (100g)

We got both sets and shared the meats! I think the beef lovers set is the better deal and for the same price! The quality of the meat is pretty good and the grill cooks pretty fast. We enjoyed our meal! I think it’s worth it and I would return (maybe not soon soon but one day). Their parking lot is junk – get chance if you go super early, if not, good luck with street parking.

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Totoya – Kaimuki, HI

Dec29

Totoya opened a few months ago with pretty big fanfare, I didn’t dare go because of the long lines! They are a super small shop so unless you lined up early, you would have to stand and wait for the next seating. I came on a random weekday for lunch the other week and luckily for us, even though we came 30 minutes after opening, we scored our two seats! Had more seats open after we sat too…so I guess they aren’t as busy as before. They also opened a second location by Ala Moana.

Totoya specializes in rice bowls – specifically negitoro or kaisen bowls. In other words, if you don’t like raw fish, don’t come here. So was it worth the hype? Check it out!

Nagomi | $22.90
Add Egg yolk shoyu | $1.50
original negitoro, red shrimp, salmon (2pc), scallops, tobiko, nori (2pc)
aosa seaweed miso soup

Matsu Negitoro Bowl | $34.90
Add Egg yolk shoyu | $1.50
tuna, scallops, cucumber, kazunoko, green onion, tobiko, nori (2pc), sesame seeds
Matsu: luxurious bowl topped with sea urchin and salmon roe
aosa seaweed miso soup

Miso Soup

Shoyu Egg Yolk (honestly, not needed)

This was my bowl. Ooh…it’s a lot of food! I liked it the first few bites and then it was just…too much? Too much rice? Too much stuff. I think since it negitoro – it’s also very mushy. We also added the shoyu egg yolk and well, that’s just triple mush lol. It just becomes a bit too much at the end. It was good but nothing I would return for. I think I’d rather go to a sushi restaurant and eat sushi by the piece! If you love negitoro and rice bowls, please have at it!

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Nihonbashi SUI – Machida, Japan

Dec22

A visit to Snoopy Museum means a visit to Grandberry Park and our favorite kaiten sushi place, Nihonbashi SUI! Machida and Grandberry Park is such a cute neighborhood, I’ll bet it’s expensive to live here too. If I was rich, I wouldn’t mind living here! Not much to say in this post, just look at al the food we had. We really go crazy at this place. This time, there was no line. We were the first ones there but it did get busy after we started to eat.

Look at this shrimp tempura! The shrimp was HUGE. It was so plump and bouncy – super good!!

One of my all time favorite fish – flounder! It’s so good and tastes so well with shiso leaf. Highly recommend!

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Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

Dec19

Another Hawaii related sighting! Blue Water Shrimp! Did I try it? No. I don’t even eat here when I’m home lol. The prices aren’t horrendous but pretty expensive for Japan.

Grape Sorbet Balls | Cup of Ice | Mitsuya Cider

Yes, yes, yes! This is one of the social media trends I wanted to try the most! Add the sorbet balls to the cup and pour in some mitsuya cider…mix it all up and this is what it looks like. It’s super good, super sweet. I loved the taste of it though! If they ever bring these grape sorbet balls to Hawaii, I suggest you try it!

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IPPUDO – Gotanda-Higashiguchi, Japan

Dec15

Chan has never been to an Ichiran, can you believe it? I don’t know why I brought that up when this post is about Ippudo. I like Ippudo but don’t necessarily come to Ippudo when I visit Japan. This location was located really close to our hotel and I really wanted some ramen and chahan so off we went. How was it? Much better than I remembered! This was also Chan’s first time trying Ippudo and he liked it a lot! In fact, this was the first out of two visits during this trip.

Free sides! Pickled spicy mustard cabbage, bean sprouts, gari and whole garlic cloves! They offer garlic graters to put freshly grated garlic into your ramen. Oh so good!

Gyoza (10 pcs) | ¥470

Chan’s Noodles!

My noodles! I only got half an egg…humph!

Chahan

This is super random but I really enjoy Chinese fried rice made by Japanese ramen shops. Is that random? I super enjoy this version of fried rice, it has a good wok hei flavor and a good amount of MSG. Not many places in Hawaii makes this…or makes it well. Sorry, I must have been hungry and didn’t get a picture of all the menu prices!

The service here is enthusiastic, they get you in and out quickly (which works great for all the business people). I think their broth is deep in flavor and I like that they offer up many different bowls with a variation of toppings. English menu available on their ipads! I would return (and did return).

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Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

Dec12

Saiboku

Saiboku was such a cute town with its pork restaurants and grocery stores! Unfortunately we did not get to try any of the pork products during this trip, we just did a quick walkthrough before heading to a shrine and then off to Kawagoe. I would definitely like to return to try out their products!

Sayama Cha Cola

Chan’s friend got this for us. They were told that this area was known for the sayama cha cola (green tea mixed with cola). I’m not usually a big fan of green tea so I wasn’t too sure about this. Well let me just say, I tried it a few days later in the hotel room and freaking loved it. It wasn’t too sweet and had just the right amount of carbonation. I liked it a lot, Chan didn’t love it as much as me which meant I could have the rest of his bottle. A win is a win.

Time to buy some cloting. LOL, not as much funny Engrish signs this time around.

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Shunkashuto – Kawagoe, Japan

Dec10

Chan and I were hanging with his friends and made an impromptu trip out to Kawagoe! Totally unexpected and so awesome because there is a Snoopy Village there! We started off with a warm and nourishing udon meal on this rainy day (the only rainy day of our trip) at Shunkashuto. I think the restaurant is geared towards tourists but it doesn’t matter, it was still so good.

Kakuni (Boiled Pork) | ¥800

Yummy kakuni for the table to share. What can I say? Broke-da-mout tender, fall apart in your mouth kine. Delicious!

Sweet Potato Tempura | ¥420

Yum! So glad they ordered both side dishes because I wanted to get a full set that included these sides but didn’t…and they ordered them as sides anyway. Isn’t life great? LOLOL.

Shrimp Tempura Noodles | ¥1550
classic udon noodle dish topped with deep fried shrimp tempura

I was excited to eat some shrimp tempura with “tick” udon noodles but soon regretted my choice after my fellow dining companions got their meals. Not that my dish was bad, not at all, it’s just that theirs was better!!!

Kakiage Noodles | ¥1380
ukiuki is happy or a delightful noodle dish with kakiage shrimp and veggie fritter
kakiage is deep fried shrimp and veggie fritter, which uses a variety of ingredients, such as shrimp, onions, sweet potatoes, carrots and japanese parsley.

The other three including Chan got the kakiage set and damn, take a look at that kakiage. The kakiage we get here in Hawaii looks so sad compared to this. If I knew this is how their kakiage was made, I would have definitely gotten this. Chan let me have a taste and it was so good! Big chunks of vegetables and shrimp – fried light and crispy. Dang. I enjoyed this restaurant a lot!

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