I’m always on the look-out to make my rice just a little more fiber-rich and healthy so I was happy to find this recipe for Hijiki rice! I made some adjustments for my own variation. All in all, it’s such a simple and delicious dish!
Hijiki Rice (Takikomi Gohan)
Ingredients
2 rice cooker cups of white rice (medium grain)
3 Tbsp dried hijiki seaweed, rehydrated in water for 20 minutes and drained
1 pint of fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1/2 large carrot or 1-2 medium carrots, chopped
2 C dashi liquid (I used 2 C of water with 2 t of hondashi)
For the Seasonings
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp mirin
1 Tbsp sake or cooking wine
½ tsp salt
Instructions Wash the white rice and place it into the rice pot. Add the seasoning and mix with rice. Add dashi broth until it reaches the desirable water level (the 2 cups of dashi broth I make has extra leftover after measuring). Layer the hijiki, mushrooms and carrots on top of the rice. DO NOT MIX IT TOGETHER. We want the rice to cook on it’s own and the veggies to steam on top. Cook it on the white rice or mixed rice setting of your rice cooker. Once the rice is done cooking, mix and serve!
Hamada General Store was holding a special fundraiser for their friend and served up some negitoro bentos. Chan and I wanted to help support so we bought two for dinner. I’m not usually a big fan of negitoro but this is definitely a special recipe. The ahi isn’t all mushed up together and the seasoning was so good. Would definitely order negitoro from Hamada again!
Original Taiyo Ramen Stamp Card
Check this out folks, I was cleaning out some old wallets and found some super old school stuff. The original Taiyo Ramen shop! Look at that map, isn’t that crazy? Well, at least Bank of Hawaii is still there?
Totally forgot about these old school McDonald’s McExtra reward cards. Look, this one was valid through 2000. Crazy yeah? I’m pretty sure I shocked this stuff back into the wallet because why not? How fun to find it! Portuguese Sausage Sandwich for $1.49. Wild!
I don’t think this is an exaggeration but I used to come to Golden Pork Tonkotsu Ramen Bar quite a bit over a decade ago. I really enjoyed their tsukemen back then so I would come during my lunch break, after a while, I noticed the tsukemen broth changed a bit and with that, my attention to this shop waned a bit (also my laziness) so I stopped coming. Then covid happened and for sure I haven’t been back since before then. I do remember all that time ago, there was the sweetest waiter who worked during during the weekday lunch shift. Imagine my surprise when I came here last week that he was our waiter again! I didn’t clock it at first, I didn’t want to assume it was him right away but he definitely looked familiar. Then as the meal was ending and we were leaving, he talked to us and mentioned remembering us! What was even crazier, he remembered my name! I was shook and very touched. I am happy to report that he is still as sweet as he was years ago and is a wonderful server. If you ever get to visit Golden Pork and are lucky to be waited on by Leigh, please say hi for me and please be nice to him (lol). So how did the visit go this time? Let’s take a look!
House Made Gyoza | $7.50 ground pork, cabbage, chinese chives, garlic, ginger, green onion
Hands down, one of my favorite gyoza (if not the favorite currently) at a ramen shop. Great filling and can definitely tell this is house made. I loved it and could probably body a whole order myself but I guess I’ll share if I have a dining companion.
American way to say chicken karaage. Nice juicy morsels of chicken deep fried – pretty sure it’s served with kewpie. I don’t know what to tell you, fried chicken is hardly ever bad. It wasn’t overcooked or dry and that’s a win to me! It was very good.
Black Garlic Tsukemen | $16.95 char siu, green onion, wood ear mushroom, sesame, nori, fried garlic, original black garlic oil, chili paste
Yes! We both went for the tsukemen because this is what we always used to get!
One of the reasons we had waned interest years ago was because we thought the broth recipe had changed. We were used to a much thicker broth which stuck to the noodles so nicely with every bite. The fact that both of us noticed that has got to be something. So how was the broth this time? It was good! Still not as thick as I always remembered it but now I’m wondering if it was just us thinking that. I still enjoyed it quite a bit and Leigh’s friendly service makes me want to return no matter what (even though the parking lot is crazy small). We were able to score one of the last stalls on this visit so it was well worth it in the rainy weather.
Sushi Fukurou is a sushi restaurant that Chan wanted to try for a while so when his birthday came about, we decided to celebrate there! This restaurant is quite a maze to find, it’s actually located within the Búho Cocina Y Cantina Restaurant which is located within the Waikiki Shopping Plaza (not to be confused with the Waikiki Business Plaza which is right across the street, make sure you park at the right place!). Anyway, you check in with the hostess at Búho Cocina Y Cantina and take a seat on the side. When Fukurou is ready for you, they will come out to lead you into the restaurant.
Very small restaurant, just sushi bar seats. Very low key environment and also…sorry to say, a bit stuffy and hot in there. I have good news and bad news lol. Good news is, this is a super small restaurant that is only staffed by the two sushi chefs and they are both very nice and very customer service oriented. Bad news, I got very sick during this meal. I’m not going to blame this restaurant because I was the only one who got ill mid-meal – I felt awful about it. I had to come back from the restroom and ask them if they could pack up the rest of my omakase set. Oh my goodness, they were soooo nice about it and kept checking in on me the rest of the night. Stellar customer service, forreal. And they took such care in packing up my leftovers too! I felt so awful but they didn’t make me feel like I was a nuisance at all. For now, I don’t plan on returning too soon (you know how it is when you associate sickness with a place/food). But shoot, I would return again!
Kabocha Nitsuke with Hokkaido Hotate Scallops
Yummy starter! Lovely simmered pumpkin with luscious chunks of sweet scallop. Delicious.
Maguro with Quail Egg Yolk with rice, topped with bubu arare
Chan thinks this might have been the culprit in me getting sick, it’s all theories at this point. It tasted great so I don’t know what to say. He may be right so I don’t know if I would risk it next time…
Shime Saba
One of my favorite sushi, saba! This was lightly seared and tasted great. Yum!
Red Sea Bream Snapper
I believe this was topped with a bit of salted kelp. I liked the contrast of the saltiness with the nice tender fish.
Ika somen style to soften the texture
I don’t know if you can tell but they basically sliced up the ika into strips to make it softer to chew. It was good! They serve it topped with local grown fingerlimes.
Uni Toast served on shokupan, wasabi guacamole and hokkaido uni
Is this not a work of art? This was Chan’s favorite dish of the night. I don’t remember much because of my state of mind lol. It was good I am sure.
Okay, this is the part of the meal where I started to go downhill. I usually love chawan mushi and this tasted great but it was a huge struggle for me to even get it down. Sigh…I had to run to the restroom after this dish but Chan enjoyed the rest of the meal. No worries, I got pics.
Salmon sweet miso glaze topped with fried garlic chip
This is a picture of the take out they packed for me! Doesn’t it still look great? Tasted great the day after too. Yum!
Chutoro nagasaki chutoro topped with caviar
How can this be junk? It’s not!
Wagyu Course wagyu “taco” with daikon shell, wagyu A5
Temaki Roll otoro and takuan
Thankful for Chan’s hand modeling. They packed mine up really nicely and actually sliced it up for me. It was so good. I love these rolls and it seems to be a theme that these get served up at the end of meals!
Churros chibi churros, hojicha brown sugar syrup, kulolo with anko
They packed this up really nicely for me, I didn’t get to try it there but it was good at home too. Okay except for…I didn’t realize the black sprinkles on top of the ice cream was basically salt and that was my first bite and I didn’t enjoy that. It was really really salty lol. Other than that salt topping, it was good!
Happy Birthday my chagee! We had three birthdays in just this one night. They made this for each birthday honoree! Isn’t that sweet?! And yes, another scoop of ice cream! Too bad I wasn’t feeling well or I would have helped Chan eat his ice cream. Shoot!
All in all, a wonderful experience. Only complaint was how hot the room did feel after a while. I’d love to return to give them another try one day in the future. It is currently $100 per person for the 12 course omakase.
Can you believe that as a Kalihi girl, I have never tried Palace Saimin until last week? I was having a bad post nasal drip day and decided I wanted to get some nice warm noodles to soothe my throat for dinner. An early dinner and since it was early, I figured I could beat the dinner rush…I got a parking stall, it was fate. The inside of the shop is old school, I like that it is no frills. They have like 10 fans blowing inside so it’s loud and blows all the napkins around, not a huge fan of that but I’ll take cool air anytime lol. I ordered with the waitress and began the wait. It was taking quite a while, not that I have anything to compare it to. She came out twice to apologize for the wait. I’ve had way longer waits in restaurants but I guess they must usually be speedy? She mentioned something about having to wait for the water to boil on the second apology. When she finally came out with the food, one of the bowls was wrong (lol). I was actually fine, she gave us a wonton min versus a regular saimin – she said she wouldn’t charge for that. I figured she meant for the wonton but when I got the check, that whole bowl was not charged. That’s super nice but not necessary! They are a small mom and pop shop – but I just ended up giving way more tip and went about my day.
This is one of the last remaining OG saimin shops around and I really want to give it a good review…
Table Settings
This is the visit that my brother learned what hot mustard is and licked up both his plateful and mine. He was a maniac.
BBQ Stick | $4.00 each
I’m not a fan of BBQ sticks normally since it’s usually pretty tough meat to gnaw on. Gotta try the BBQ stick at a saimin joint, especially at Palace since they keep to just the essentials in their menu! How was it? Well, it has a nice char to it but as I mentioned – it was dry, tough and hard to chew. I don’t find it satisfying myself. I would pay premium if folks served up thicker more tender pieces of BBQ meat. Well $4.00 for one stick is kind of premium already. Not worth it.
Won Ton Min (Small) | $9.25
Combination | $10.50
I asked what combination was since there was no description on their menu. It’s basically everything they offer in one bowl. Saimin noodles, udon noodles and won ton! I thought to myself, why not try everything in one go to know if it’s good. I’m sorry to report that the noodles were too gummy for my taste. I was disappointed. The won ton had manini filling but I’ve come to expect that anyway. My main thing was…the noodles were junk! Made me a bit sad as a noodle lover.
Noodle pull!!
In the end, I am glad I finally got to try them but the hype was not there for me. I don’t plan to come back again. Did I come on an off day? Please let me know if I did. If I do ever return, I would probably go straight for the saimin noodles only.
Another Hilton Hotel means Jenny taking in all the perks from Chan’s membership! What does this mean in Japan? Buffet Breakfasts baby!!!! I’ll just put all the pics from our trip here and let all the judging happen within this one space (no judging me outside of this post but also please be nice to me).
There’s an Executive Lounge in the hotel but the food is kind of junk. I think that’s just a quiet room for you to relax if you want to! Probably best for folks who have to wait for check in or had to check out early. Here are some sandwiches they had at the bar.
Do I eat like a child? At times, yes. And do they cater to children since they are a family hotel chain? Yes. Yes they do.
Ogura Toast
The hotel was pretty cool about also offering up local specialties in Nagoya. Here is the special order Ogura toast. It was just alright, not my kind of thing. I do like that they used smooth an, sorry, I am picky!
Their buffet selection is always so vast, a good variety of American and Asian foods!
Another specialty but I forget the same. It’s basically a rice ball smothered in red bean and either grilled or baked. It was just alright (sorry!).
Unagi Omelet
Damn, I really like noodles.
Another video to end the post! The Hilton Hotels in Japan always puts up an impressive holiday train! Here’s a quick video of the one in our hotel.
A trip to Japan means a repeat visit to Kiharu! You can read my previous post here. I didn’t take a lot of notes this trip around but you will see there are some similar dishes from the last visit. Great experience as always. Chan bought some Hawaii omiyage for the taisho and he was so tickled and happy! That’s always fun.
Green Pea Soup, Tofu wrapped in Fried Mochi Bits with Yuzu Miso
Had this dish last time, was just as good as before. Fresh peas with fried mochi bits? WHY NOT. Great starter to the meal.
Shirako (V’s Favorite Dish)
LOL sorry, I had to put that in there. This restaurant is an omakase so you don’t choose what you eat, I didn’t order it I swear! Was good though. LOL
I forget what kind of fish this was but wow, this dish was so good. He braided the fish meat together to create such a pretty look! The fish is a bit salty but I think the squeeze of the citrus provides a wonderful contrast. One of my favorites of the night!
I’m starting to wonder if he just created our meals from one single fish lol. I have no problems with an all fish night.
Yes, his tempura! I think that’s a sakura leaf fried up with sweet potato slices. Super good. I am pretty sure he is all by himself in this restaurant so he is busy cooking and serving us. Very small space, just the counter for service.
Quick video reveal of the steamed rice with mushrooms. I need help on why my videos become so white washed when I edit it and upload it? UGH! This is why it’s so much easier to post on social media. Actually this video is one of the better uploads upon review.
Another great experience at Kiharu again but this is thanks all to Chan’s friend who makes the reservation and dines with us there. There is no way we could do this on our own not knowing Japanese. Can’t wait to return again during our next trip!
Happy to report that the filet-o-fish recipe is consistent in all countries lol. Also happy to report that the fries are still in these cartons versus the junk baggies we get in Hawaii now. Yum!
Had to try one more trend. Eating the Egg Salad sandwich with Famichiki. I only found this sandwich so well it was a mini sized try.
Here we go! So how was it? Well it tasted like an egg salad sandwich stuffed with awesome chicken patty. No complaints here man, what did you think would happen when you combine to ono things together? Yum!
I took a break from Japan posts and completely forgot that I have so much more pics to share! So I’ll slowly finish up some posts with you folks. This was Chan and I’s first meal in Nagoya! We tried out Moumou Tei which was conveniently located very close to our hotel and oh my gosh, it was so good. One of my favorite meals of the trip!
We were placed into a private room and seated right in front of a window? I have never had a set up like this before. Chan and I sat side by side staring out onto the street lol.
Banchan
I don’t know much about the restaurant but it seemed to be a fusion of both Korean and Japanese cuisine. No complaints here!
“Almost Salad”
Don’t ask me why they call it almost salad, it was from their website that was probably google translated. Just to let you know, it was fully a salad to me lol.
Beef Tartare
You already know I liked this. Come on.
Here’s the grill!
Mmm salted beef tongue…
Raw Japanese Yolk with everything!
Meat, meat, and more meat
Favorite dish of the night coming up…
Oh my goodness, I am salivating as I look at these pictures. The waitress cooked the block of meat for us and I wondered if it would be overcooked. Not at all. Look at how glorious and marbled this meat is. Of course we ordered the egg yolk! It was a great dish, my only regret is that it was at the end of the meal when I was feeling full already. I couldn’t enjoy it as ravenously as I would have liked!
You know the drill, Sushi Que is my favorite omakase sushi joint right now. We make a reservation every time we return. It’s pricey but not pricey for what you get! Good people running a really good sushi joint. If you are able to make a reservation, please do! It’s well worth the wait. The food and service was of course spectacular. Unfortunately there was a very loud and drunk party seated behind us which made it a bit harder to enjoy the night.
Seafood Bouillabaisse
SO GOOD. Deep in flavor and umami. Super super super oishi.
A newish dish! Haven’t had this before, I think it was like a crab roll. Oh my, every morsel was delicious. I loved it!
Assorted Sashimi
The usual Himalayan salt block with the sashimi slices for the night. I forget each sashimi but the torched piece was so good!
House-made Miso Butterfish
Super tender with a nice sweet miso sauce. Tasted like how I feel like home cooking in Japan would taste like. It was wonderful.
Octopus! One of my favorites because I watch the taisho throw each “sucker” down on the cutting board. It must be a method to make it tender? Not sure.
Saba!
Ikura!
Uni
Great quality uni – so sweet and clean tasting. I can get spoiled easily eating here!
Negitoro with Takuan Roll
Ankimo (Pupu Style)
This was an order after the omakase was complete. They don’t serve it up with ponzu sauce but hey, they way they make it is much better. They serve it with super thin slices of cucumber which offers a nice crunchy fresh taste contrasting with the rich creamy liver. Yum!
Otoro
Final bite! Also an order outside of the omakase, so good!!
