Tag Archive | Korean Food

Yakiniku Don-Day – Honolulu, HI

Yakiniku Don-Day is a cute Korean BBQ joint located behind the Keeaumoku Supermarket. It’s a unique one because it boasts both indoor and outdoor seating. Folks generally opt for outdoor eating – there’s a huge tree in the middle of the eating area and you are surrounded by wonderful stringed lights. I really recommend you give this place a try! They have good food and good service too. They actually cooked for us the whole way through! Usually my service starts off with them throwing stuff on the grill and then like leaving us to fend for ourselves at other places. Let’s get to the pictures!

140316-02Ban chan is EVERYTHING.

140316-03I give Koreans props for their food – mainly for the side dishes! So much effort is put in, I appreciate that.

140316-04Another ban chan and the dipping sauces!  Check out the edges of these dishes, they have been burned once too many. Hell hath no fury like a dish scorned – what am I saying?

140316-05Ooooohhh – we went with the bulgogi pack. It was delicious! It comes with chicken, pork and beef prepared bulgogi style. The pork was definitely the highlight.

140316-06Can’t eat yakiniku without some tofu stew and rice, yum!

140316-01Hello pretty girls on our water bottle! We also ordered yogurt soju – it was so good!

140316-07We had to drink it all, I don’t know how many shots I had…lost count!

The bathroom situation is…interesting. It’s inside of the restaurant. There are two doors, one for women and one that is unisex that also says Employees Only. Yeah weird. I tried to open the door for the woman’s bathroom but it was locked so I was waiting. The staff then told me to go right into the unisex bathroom so I did. Typical bathroom – toilet and a urinal and their entire stock of alcohol. Yes. And umm…one brand of beer had many cases and they were already past their best used by date…that’s all.

I thought sitting outdoors would allow me to not smell like BBQ after dinner. Unfortunately, I still smelled strongly of BBQ. There wasn’t much wind around and when there was, it blew the smoke into our faces…lol.

Homemade Korean Goodies

Hey folks. As I write this, I am at home hacking up a storm. I am coughing and my nose is like a dripping faucet. Sorry for the TMI – so while my brain is somewhat lucid, I don’t think my coworkers would appreciate me spreading germs at work. Yesterday was definitely the worst of it, I must have slept all day. I hope that today is the end to the worst of it. Hope you all are doing well! I heard the flu is going around so take care of yourself! Luckily, I think I only have a cold. Anyway, I wanted to share some banchan I got to try from my friend. This stuff was brought straight from Korea (don’t ask me how) from her in-laws. How lucky am I to get to try it? Very!

140310-03Here is the kimchee. Um. If you know me at all, you’ll know that I am a kimchee freak. I couldn’t really eat this. It was already very old and sour…and I think if you eat it, you will have to make it into some kind of pork stirfry or stew. I hope the kimchee is still good, I still have it but haven’t been able to eat it!

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140310-02Garlic! Check this out. My friend said that they use specially bought garlic…which are huge…and DELICIOUS. I don’t know how they made this but it had no raw taste! It was very crunchy and delicious. And how did they find garlic without the inner root?? Oh wait, do I just use junk garlic? Hehe…anyone know what this garlic is called in Korean?

King’s Korean BBQ – Honolulu, HI

King’s Korean BBQ is a cozy little Korean BBQ joint located in the same lot as Sweet Home Cafe and Kozo Sushi in Moilili. We’ve done lunch orders here a few times since it’s close to us!  I love to support this joint over Gina’s (she is so mean!) since it is run by a really sweet Korean couple all on their own.  Their portions are good and the prices are reasonable.  Check out the pics!

140107-01Mini Kalbi Plate ($9.00) – Pretty good price I think!  Their mini plates comes with two scoops of rice and two veggies. Continue reading

O-Bok Restaurant – Honolulu, HI

O-Bok Restaurant is a little mom and pop Korean restaurant located in the heart of Manoa.  I’ve been here a few times and have received mixed service.  My very first visit was terrible and I got bad treatment from the old man who runs the front.  The past few times I have gone, I have received good service from him so I can’t complain.  As I was looking for the yelp link for this post, I couldn’t help but notice all the recent one star reviews for the restaurant.  It makes me feel sad if what the posts are saying is true.  I honestly thought the old man was the owner of the restaurant but judging from some reviews, I guess he just works there.  A fair warning for everyone who goes to this restaurant – he’s not the friendliest guy but I think he’s a good guy.  He brought us our drinks right away, we got the right amount of banchan and the food came quickly.  Let me share some pictures!

131202-01Delicious banchan!

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Ahi & Vegetable

Sometimes I have to go to downtown for meetings and I always look forward to it!  I used to work in downtown over 10 years ago (scary!) and all you downtowners know, the food is awesome there!  Well aside from Kalihi right?  Fort Street Mall is one of the biggest winners.  One of the mainstays of Fort Street Mall is Rada’s Piroscki.  I don’t know if anyone remembers them but they were a super hole in the wall place run by some really efficient older Filipino ladies that sold the best pirosckis and fried squid.  Well they moved locations since then but I was so happy to see they still exist.  It looks like they combined kitchens with a Filipino restaurant.  I cannot express how disappointed I was when I tried it this time.  The filling was still good but the pastry covering it was terrible.  It tasted like rancid oil, really rancid oil.  I even bought one for my coworker and told her she had to try it!  My credibility was slashed!  If anyone of you do frequent Rada’s, please tell me it was a bad day!

Anyhow, for lunch this day – I decided to go to Ahi & Vegetable.  This place wasn’t there when I used to work in downtown but they run a super great shop!  Great raw fish sets for a good price and the staff is so fast!  I just wanted to share the lunch I got.  Jalna will laugh again, here goes:

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Spicy Ahi and Natto combo!  Hahaha it was so good.  This place is run by a Korean owner so they included Korean seasoned choy sum.  Yum!  And yes, this was very good!  I didn’t mix the two together though, that would be pretty weird.  Our coworker was laughing at me too wondering how I could get into natto so late when people usually grow up eating it.  I should just become a walking ad for natto.  Now I have two co-workers who are constantly eating natto…lol

Million Restaurant – Honolulu, HI

Is it Millions or Million?  I swear it was called Millions before?  No?  Anyhow, Million Restaurant has been my go to Korean restaurant for a few years now.  I enjoy them because the restaurant is clean, the service is on the most part friendly and the food is good.  The prices aren’t too shabby if you aren’t doing yakiniku.  Their parking is limited but the street parking is free after 6pm I believe.  I love their regular bi bim bap (no hot stone pot), cheaper that way and I don’t need the scorched rice.  I LOVE their Kalbi Tang (Kalbi Soup) and I also love their banchan.  Sometimes you score and get raw crab like we did this night.  I am pretty sure I am allergic to raw crab because my mouth and throat gets very itchy – but I still eat it.  I do silly things like that.  Here are the pics!

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Banchan.  My favorite is the savory egg custard.  I could eat that alone and be satisfied.

130913-02Bibimbap with a side bottle of kochujjang

130913-01Kalbi Tang!  So good.  Two big kalbi rib bones, daikon, long rice, egg, thin slices of meat…you can’t go wrong.  Ahhh I want some kalbi tang…

Jjajjangmyun

Have you ever had Jjajjangmyun?  Well if you ever watch Korean dramas, you will inevitably see them order delivery noodles.  Then you watch as they stuff their faces with shiny glossy black noodles into their mouth.  I’m a huge fan of noodles so it really piqued my interest.  I learned that it was considered a Northern Chinese dish and there was this whole Chinese cuisine in Korea!  Well I didn’t know where to get these noodles in a restaurant so I found a recipe online and made it myself at home before and I thought it was delicious.  They have instant cup noodles of it now and I also learned there are Korean restaurants in Hawaii that are Korean Chinese restaurants and serve these dishes.  Is that confusing?  I’ll bet it is.  Anyhow, one place I go to get this is Eastern Paradise Restaurant.  As far as I can tell, this is a Chinese restaurant owned by Chinese people that serves Korean style Northern Chinese food.  I’m probably blabbing nothing but wrong information so here’s a picture of what I ate…lol.

130911-01Jjajjangmyun – just pour the thick black gravy over the noodles…mix and eat!  Delish!

Park Ga Budae – Seoul

One of the dishes I most looked forward to when I traveled to Korea was Budae Jigae.  I know it’s not considered special by any means, but I am a fan of sausages and luncheon meat so this dish really appealed to me.  If you don’t know the history of this dish, check out this page.  Luckily there was a restaurant in the IFC Mall that specialized in it and I was able to try this dish out!

Before the stove was fired up...

Before the stove was fired up…

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Japchae Hotteok

Just wanted to share a quick update with one my favorite things from my trip to Korea.  I saw many pictures of the original hotteok which I wasn’t interested in, I’m a fan of savory over sweet.  When we visited Namdaemun, our wonderful guide led us to a very popular hotteok stand which sold AMAZING japchae hotteok.  I am drooling just thinking about it.  They fry it up fresh, stick it in a cup and pour some special sauce over it.  The sauce was like a sweet marinade, looked like the type of marinade you would use for kalbi.  You must try this if you go to Korea!

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Soondae

130609-1Can you tell what that is in the picture?  Well I sort of gave it away in the title of this post but for those who don’t know Korean, this is Korean blood sausage.  When I talk about blood sausage, I get the inevitable “ewww” from people.  That’s okay with me because all that means is…more for me!  I don’t know when I tried this first, but I love it.  If you look closely, you will see that it is filled with various innards and noodles!  Yum yum yum.  This sausage is usually served alongside a seasoning salt.  Even more yum…hehe.

Fishcake Kimbap

Fishcake Kimbap

Here is some delicious Fishcake Kimbap.  Both I got from Keeaumoku Supermarket.  The way they roll this kimbap is so beautiful.  So simple yet you know it takes so much preparation of different ingredients to create this one roll.  Totally worth the $4 in my opinion!