foodiepalooza

Satoshi's whirlwind vacation sadly came to an end today...he's heading back as I write this.

He had so many things he wanted to do and people to see, but just not enough time.

When he arrived his request for lunch was at The Alley...for their garlic shrimp.

We tried the Button Up Cafe in Pearl City.

Where he had their housemade corned beef hash benedicts.

Their food was delicious! and I still can't believe there is a brunch place where Diego's used to be...

He had garlic shrimp at Romy's.

Man, I didn't realize the wait for an order takes almost 40 minutes!

Views at Sunset Beach. (click on the photo to see the video)

His first snow puffy from Paalaa Kai Bakery.

A visit to the newly renovated International Marketplace.

A beautiful space, I hope this place can make a go of things.

We bought some pineapple cakes from Kula & Kō, for his friends...I wish the packaging for these were easier to pack in small suitcases (they are long rectangular boxes).

He visited the Shirokiya Japan Village Walk for the first time and was kinda shocked at how expensive gyoza was...close to $7 (plus tax) (in Osaka we pay half that price...)

We tried Kulu Kulu's Hello Kitty Waffles, which remind me of the baby castellas that we get in Japan, except that these were a little too sweet for us.

His first butter roll at Liliha Bakery...man this was buttery goodness!

Breakfast with Ryan and S...so much fun, though he thought that Rocky's loco moco was on the teeny side...

Furikake Seared Ahi at Fresh Catch...delicious.

Our first time trying Dorito Salad...Oh em gee...so easy to make and sinfully good.

Dinners with family.

Just reconnecting...talking story, laughing and eating...good times.

He also got to play catch with my cousin's son and "maybe" work off some of the food he's been eating...

He also got to see his favorite view. (click to see the video)

He was shocked to see all the changes going on because of the rail system coming up.

And I am pretty sure we will both need to go on a diet after this...

I hope he had a nice and relaxing time, even if we were on the go for most of the time he was here.

Have a safe trip back and see you soon!

Button Up Cafe
719 Kamehameha Highway
Pearl City, Hawaii
Phone: 808.454.5454
Closed Mondays
Hours: Tuesdays-Saturdays 7:00-14:00, Sundays 7:00-13:00

Kula & Kō
International Marketplace, 2nd floor
Waikiki, Hawaii
Phone: 808.692.6788
Hours: 10:00-22:00

Kulu Kulu
Shirokiya Japan Village Walk
Ala Moana Shopping Center
Phone: 808.931.0503
Hours: Daily 10:00-22:00

hoisin shrimp with bok choy, shiitakes & peppers

Our weather has been dreary. Rainy.

Yesterday, there was even a chance that a typhoon would pass over us.

Luckily, we didn't receive much rain or damage. Other areas in Eastern Japan weren't so lucky. Lots of flooding.

I hope they can get back to their daily routines soon...

I recently tried Family Circle's recipe for Hoisin Shrimp with Bok Choy, Shiitakes & Peppers.

The recipe is super easy. Just throw everything on a sheet pan and bake.

Hoisin Shrimp with Bok Choy, Shiitakes & Peppers : serves 4
Ingredients
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce, plus more for serving (optional)
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon sriracha
1 large bok choy, cut into 3-inch pieces
2 sweet red peppers, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch strips
1 pound small shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 pounds jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
Chopped scallions (optional)

Directions
Heat oven to 450F (230C).
Line a 13 x 9-inch rimmed sheet pan with nonstick foil.
In a small bowl, combine hoisin, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and sriracha. Set aside.
Place bok choy, peppers and shiitakes on prepared sheet pan.
Combine 3 tbsp of the hoisin mixture with canola oil. Pour over vegetables and toss to coat.
Toss shrimp with remaining hoisin mixture. Place shrimp over vegetables.
Roast at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Garnish with sesame seeds and, if using, scallions. Serve with additional soy sauce if desired.

Tip
For Best Results Use a rimmed pan and line with nonstick foil or parchment.

NOTES: I don't have an oven to actually bake a sheet pan in, so I threw everything into a baking dish lined with parchment and baked it off.

Instead of shiitake mushrooms, I used shimeji and maitake. I made half the recipe for the sauce and just drizzled it over everything.

This dish is perfect with rice. I like the flavors of this dish, reminded me of the hoisin sauce chicken and ribs my mom used to make.

The hardest part of this dish is cleaning the shrimp.

I'm making this again.

re-vamped

I recently re-vamped cabbage mochi by adding some dried sakura ebi (sergia lucens) and green onions.

Got a thumbs up from Satoshi...I guess I'll make this version again.

If I'm not mistaken, Golden Week starts today...

zippy's fresh strawberry summer salad

I know, I know by looking at the title you're shivering if you are reading this in wintry climates, but strawberries are kinda in season over here (for Christmas), so it was the perfect chance for me to try this.

While in Hawaii this past summer, I scribbled down this recipe by Zippy's, a popular local family style restaurant.

I adapted the dressing because I didn't have dry mustard, I also added more "stuff" to the salad...here is what I did...

Adapted Zippy's Fresh Strawberry Summer Salad (MIDWEEK 9/11/2013): serves 2

Salad
2 generous handfuls of baby leaf mix (washed and shaken dry)
10 strawberries, tops taken off and sliced in half
1/2 a package of maitake
10 shrimp, deveined, rinsed and butterflied
some yellow bell pepper, cleaned and sliced thin
some glazed pecans*
some bleu cheese

Dressing
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
some grated onion
grinds of pepper

Glazed pecans
handful of pecans
1 teaspoon maple syrup
Tossed and baked in 325F (165C) oven for 10 minutes

Sautee the shrimp and maitake in some olive oil on medium heat until shrimp and maitake are cooked, set aside
Toss the baby leaf, shrimp, maitake, yellow bell, strawberries in 2 tablespoons of dressing
Top with cheese and nuts

NOTES: This was delicious! I think the bleu cheese I used needed to be a little stronger, but all the other flavors went nicely. The dressing is a bit puckery, sweet-sour. I think the next time I make this dressing, I'll add a little dijon or whole grain mustard.

I'm making this again, but during Spring...

It's Friday here, I hope you enjoy the weekend!

honey walnut shrimp

Have been trying to get back into the cooking "groove". Quite easy to get "lazy" in Japan, with all the pre-made foods that are available.

Anyway, my mom gave me this package of candied walnuts when I was in Hawaii last summer.

I made some honey walnut shrimp.

Super easy when the walnuts are already candied. I just coated the shrimp with a little cornstarch and fried them in some oil. Then coated the shrimp with the mayonnaise sauce and then sprinkled some of the walnuts.

Dinner is served!

yum

I mentioned that the first meal I made for 2012, was grilled wagyu with a miso dip, well, I remembered another blogger used the dip for shrimp and had to try it too.

With the leftover dip, I added some water until it had the consistency of a marinade then put in 10 cleaned, butterflied shrimp in and left it in the marinade for about 2 hours.

I cooked them on a non-stick pan, just watch how hot your pan is, with the sugar in the marinade, you may burn your shrimp if you aren't careful.

I served this with some kinpira and leftover kamameshi.

Love the versatility of this dip, we've had it with grilled steak, with pork, veggie sticks and now shrimp...yum!

dinners

The weather is getting warmer so we probably won't be drinking much red wine after this bottle, but I wanted to share with you this Cono Sur's Organic Cabernet Sauvignon/Carmenere. We liked the spiciness of this wine.

It went nicely with steak and veggies.

I tried Anchor's Bock Beer the other night. I liked the smokiness of this beer. It went nicely with the following foods...

A cajun shrimp and corn salsa/relish salad. I used a salt-free cajun spice mix and coated the shrimp. In a non-stick pan, I cooked the shrimp with a little olive oil.

For the corn salsa/relish, I cut up a jalapeno, added a can of corn (drained), some zuccini, half a yellow bell pepper, 4 mini tomatoes,a little onion and squeezed this sudachi.

Sudachi is a type of lime here. I also added some tablespoons of pre-made salsa.

On a side note, the price of veggies has really gone up. I think they were asking 350 yen (about uS$3.50) for a teeny bunch of red leaf.

I ended up picking up some ruccola instead because it was only 99 yen (about US$.99) a package. The ping-pong sized sudachi was 158 yen (about US$1.58).

The beer also went nicely with some okonomiyaki style konnyaku (devil's tongue jelly). Rinse and cut up konnyaku (about 130 grams), dry.

Sautee the konnyaku in some oil and when it is heated through top with some katsuo bushi, mayo and aonori (green laver). This is a very low calorie dish while still making you feel full.

What have you been enjoying for dinner?

back in the kitchen

Saturday the rainy weather continued, since we didn't have anything in the house for breakfast, we went to a favorite cafe in Makiochi (post about that later).

After breakfast we walked to Yamaya to buy some beer and other things.

As we made our way from Yamaya to the train station in the rain, we also stopped into a market to pick up some other groceries.

Dinner was a hodgepodge of salads and some shrimp.

I noticed that the cherry tomatoes on our lanai were ready to eat, so I picked them and tried La Fuji Mama's Jerusalem Salad recipe.

I didn't write down the recipe and kind of did it by memory...I think I added too much garlic so it was kinda bitter to me, Satoshi said it was delicious.

I used the grill rub that I bought at Blue Hawaii Lifestyle on some shrimp and cooked them in the oven for 10 minutes.

I saw this "Barefoot Contessa" episode while in Hawaii where Ina Garten roasts shrimp in the oven with just some olive oil, salt and pepper.

I used her method except I sprinkled the rub in place of the salt and pepper. The rub was tasty giving the shrimp lots of smoky flavor.

I also made some carrot salad, watermelon-feta salad and steamed some corn.

We tried Orval beer...I saw this on Rowena's blog and also wanted to try it. Yamaya had this for 628 yen (about US$6.28), 330 ml, 6.2% alcohol. It had a floral/fruity aroma but it was too bitter for me.

All in all, it was great dinner for a rainy night.

p.i.t.a. (a.k.a. honey glazed walnut shrimp)

Most times whenever I try a recipe, I try the ones that look easiest to me. The ones that don't need me to fuss over them and can usually get me in and out of the kitchen within 30 minutes to an hour.

But this recipe has been tempting me ever since I saw the photo of it. I've had this at Chinese restaurants, crispy shrimp coated with a mayonnaise sauce topped with crunchy glazed walnuts...mmm.

Looking at the recipe, it didn't "seem" so bad, but going through the steps...oh boy!

I started with blanching the walnuts then boiling them in sugar water then coating them with honey...then frying them...

Can I say, I have a phobia of frying things at home because of all those oil splatters on the wall, on me...then having to discard the used oil...

I put as little oil as possible in my pan (and I don't have a wok)...so the nuts took a little longer than if I fried them in a wok.

Then came the shrimp, deveined and cleaned that was the easy part...I forgot to coat them with flour after dipping them in beaten egg whites...so guess who needs to soak her pan?? and maybe need to buy a new one since it is supposed to be non-stick??

Needless to say, it was a p.i.t.a. (pain in the A) of a recipe but tasted similar to what I've eaten in the restaurants. It didn't have that crispy outside that it should have, but it was still delicious.

Will I make it again? Meh, not unless President Obama is coming for dinner. (Though if I find an easier way to make this, maybe omitting the frying somehow, I "may" make this again.) Otherwise, I tried it, it was delicious, let's put it on the "done" pile...

p.s. If you really want to try this one, email me and I'll email you back the recipe.

unagi dokoro kishi

Monday night we had some of Satoshi's friends and their families over for dinner. (We always get together with these families for Christmas.)

Usually when we have parties, we like to start them around lunch time, so that the children have time to run around outside while the adults chatter away, but this time, the party started late because everyone had things during the day, on top of that, Satoshi had to work until 18:30. By the time we started eating it was 19:30.

I made bulgogi, szechuan salt & pepper shrimp, spicy poke and apple crisp.

The other wives brought cake, and pork wrapped around bainiku (ume paste) and shiso (perilla leaves)--The recipe is easy so I'll be making this soon and share it with you!

It was a loud gathering (6 adults and 5 children) filled with lots of chatting, laughing, drinking and eating. I hope we didn't bother the neighbors too much.

Yesterday was the last day of the Golden Week. For lunch, we went to Hibarigaoka Hanayashiki, this is 3 stops from where we live. In Japan, there are many guide books for finding eating places, dessert places, just about all topics not just food--if you can be featured in one of these guide books you are almost guaranteed a boost in business. We have a book that is filled with all kinds of eating places around our area. As Satoshi was flipping through it to get an idea of where to go for lunch, he came across an unagi (eel) restaurant. This restaurant has a 230 year history dating back to the Edo period (actually we realized that the owner's family's restaurant in Wakayama, has the history).

The restaurant is very tiny, only 10 seats at the counter and 6 in back in a little room. The place was almost to capacity when we got there, but we were able to get seats at the counter, we looked over the menu and the owner explained the size differences of the unagi don (eel bowl).

Satoshi ordered the unagi teishoku (2940 yen about US$29.40) this comes with an unagi don (eel bowl), unagi cream croquette, kimo sui (broth with the liver of the eel), tsukemono, unagi jelly (terrine of unagi, yuzu (citron) and other herbs).

I don't really like unagi, but will eat it, so I ordered the small order of unagi don (1470 yen about $14.70).

After Satoshi ate his terrine and some broiled eel liver (both quite teeny), our orders of donburi came.

The eel was very tender and the sauce was light tasting. I love sauce on my rice, but to tell you the truth, my chopsticks skills suck and for me to eat rice that has sauce on it is hard because the rice doesn't stick together, so I "balance" rice onto the chopsticks and scoop it into my mouth...disgrace being of Japanese ancestry, but true. I think when I was staying with my host-family, my host-mom felt sorry for my chopstick skills because she would almost immediately bring out a fork or spoon for me during meals.

Still, the una don (short for unagi donburi) was delicious!

By the time I had "balanced" all my rice onto my chopsticks, Satoshi was finished.

Then I asked him, "aren't you supposed to get a croquette too?" He said, "it must be coming soon." Then he asked the owner, "doesn't the teishoku come with a croquette?" She replied, "I thought I mentioned that we aren't serving croquette today." So then Satoshi said, "uh, so what about the liver broth and tsukemono?" The owner's face turned white as a ghost and she began apologizing profusely.

She/her staff had forgotten to give us the tsukemono and broth to eat with our meal.

We ate our tsukemono and drank the broth. I didn't care for the broth, it was quite fishy and bitter too.

I thought they would comp our meal or at least discount it, but they didn't. Satoshi was upset that they didn't explain the menu clearer and do more to change the bad feelings. Still, the price he paid was too expensive for the amount that was served.

We both decided that even though it was delicious, we won't be going back.

tuesday

Tuesday's breakfast started off with some leftover carrot salad, strawberries and cake that my mother-in-law received from a neighbor, then gave to us, oh and cafe latte/cappucino.

Since I had to run an errand for Satoshi at the city office, I stopped in to my favorite bakery, Abientot, and picked up a basil chicken sandwich and a coffee custard brioche for lunch. The coffee custard was too sweet for my liking.

Dinner was szechuan salt and pepper shrimp on some baby rocket, and some fried gobo (burdock) coated with a sweet but spicy sauce (also bought...I gotta figure out the recipe for this one too, I love this too!) and rice.

giovanni's & romy's

Just wanted to share with you some photos which Satoshi sent to me. It apparently has been 11 years since Osaka had 5 centimeters (close to 2 inches) of snow (and I missed it, darn! no really, darn!)

Since I didn't grow up with snow, I love to see it during the winter months in Japan, flurries to snow storms. Satoshi thinks I'm crazy every time it snows or flurries fall and he sees me jumping up and down.

Now, let's warm up with some food...

I had heard about Giovanni's for awhile now, but never taken the initiative to get out to Kahuku. And then there were posts all over the blogosphere.

So on Friday, I talked my family into driving (I was driving) all the way to Kahuku to try Giovanni's and Romy's shrimp. I convinced my mom that we should try both today because "we're only going this once". (Dad and Grandma didn't know what was going on, but happily went along for the ride. Thank goodness the rain let up just enough for us to make the drive out to Kahuku.)

Giovanni's is known for their scampi, so that is what we got. For US$12 tax included, you get 12 shrimp cooked in its shell with lots of garlic and butter (plus an extra paper plate to share). The garlic and butter flavor really comes through and matches really nicely with the spicy sauce (kind of like Tabasco) that they give.

Then about 2 or 3 minutes from Giovanni's up the road is Romy's, their menu is a bit more extensive than Giovanni's.

We ordered the butter & garlic (#1)(so we could compare it to Giovanni's) and the fried shrimp(#3) (each US$11.75 + tax).

Romy's Butter & Garlic shrimp were huge and had lots of flavor, it matched nicely with the spicy shoyu sauce that they gave. It was different from Giovanni's but good in their own way.

The Fried Shrimp are peeled shrimp and are fried in egg roll wrappers. This is served with a gooey sweet chili sauce. Of all entrees, this was the easiest to eat. Jaden has a recipe on her blog similar to this.

Giovanni's gives a LOT of napkins because eating the shrimp will get messy. (Definitely not somewhere to go on your first date!) We ate our plates from both places at Romy's, they had a little sink to wash your hands after you're finished eating.

Talk about finger licking goodness! Both places are good (messy, but good) with their own flavors and followers. Definitely worth the drive out there.

Giovanni's
83 Kamehameha Highway (from Waikiki---on the left, just past the old Kahuku Sugar Mill)
Kahuku, Oahu
Phone: 808.293.1839

Romy's
56-781 Kamehameha Highway (from Waikiki---on the left, a little past the Turtle Bay Resort)
Kahuku, Oahu
Phone: 808.232.2202

szechuan pepper & salt shrimp

Remember I told you that Nate gave me a LOT of szechuan pepper? Well, he also e-mailed me a recipe for szechuan pepper & salt shrimp. I sort of deviated from it and came up with this.

I also want to apologize to the cashier at the market. I thought I had put only 10 shrimp into my plastic bag, and you charged me for 10...When I came home and cleaned the shrimp, I had 12. Oops...Sorry!

Szechuan Pepper & Salt Shrimp Serves 2

12 shrimp, deveined, rinsed, dried
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon Szechuan pepper
1/4 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
2 teaspoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons olive oil

After cleaning the shrimp, dry well, you may have to dry them twice.
Grind the salt, pepper with a mortar and pestle or if you have a spice mill, whiz it.
In a ziploc bag, add the the dried shrimp, cornstarch and half of the salt, pepper and 5-spice.
Put the oil into a pan and heat.
With your hand, take some cornstarch and sprinkle it over the oil. If it bubbles, the oil is hot enough.
Add the shrimp and cook for a total of 1 or 2 minutes, turning the shrimp on all sides.
When the shrimp is cooked, take out from pan and sprinkle the rest of the salt mixture.
Enjoy!

NOTES: The cornstarch adds a light "crust" to the shrimp and hot out of the pan is the best way to eat this...make sure to have some rice and beer on the side!

Thanks again Nate for the pepper and recipe!

ebisen

Whenever Satoshi goes to Nagoya, he always picks up some Furaibo--twice fried chicken wings, for me. This time around he bought another favorite of mine, ebi senbei or ebisen . This one is made by Bankaku. The crackers are crispy and very shrimp-y, makes you feel like you are chomping on the shells of the shrimp!

Can't get to Nagoya? Don't worry, they are in most large department stores around Japan.