this week

Friday, met up with V, she had the "last" of her avocados to share.

We had lunch at Ohana Hale Marketplace (OHM).

It is the perfect place to get out of the heat & humidity.

We tried a ginger tumeric smoothie from Miko and the Juice...delicious...lots of citrus in this and the ginger and tumeric are pretty strong in a good way.

And bun cha gio from L & K Pho & Sandwich, a shop which Jalna wrote about here.

I thought the spring rolls were a little sweet.

The lady working there calls everyone "honey" and she gives lots of spring rolls for this dish.

She runs the place by herself so it does take some time for orders to come out...be prepared.

Or like she told the guy before us, "next time you call ahead, so you no need wait, honey"

In the middle of the marketplace are seats and tables to enjoy your food, there is also live entertainment.

I'm glad we got to try this place and look forward to trying other booths.

Saturday, BFF and I went to Royal Kitchen to get our manapua fix.

We prefer the baked type.

I also tried their coconut filled one and lup cheong.

All so good!

Dinner was at Kalapawai Cafe in Kapolei...little did we know that the menu goes kind of "fancy" after 17:00....

I ordered their watermelon salad...not quite what I had envisioned...

My version would have had salad greens (maybe arugula or baby leaf), "cubed" watermelon, feta cheese "sprinkles", the sprinkle of mac nuts and balsamic drizzle...

Afterwards we went next door to Lanikai Juice...where I ordered the Kailua Monkey (banana, peanut butter, organic soy milk, chocolate whey protein, honey)...

next time I'm having "this" for dinner...

Sunday, BFF and I went to Rainbow's for lunch...I had their BBQ Beef Sandwich and a slush.

So so good!

How awesome are these watermelon carvings Satoshi saw at the Ikegami Festival?

Dinner was at Aunty M's where we had Sam's Club pizza...during the year, the fam has been comparing Sam's and Costco's pizzas.

Sam's is the winner because their crust and toppings have a balanced ratio.

Going home, there was a stabbing on the freeway, WT? luckily, I got off the freeway and took the back roads down to Nimitz Highway instead of sitting in traffic...took this photo of the sunset before we got in the car....

Monday, Aunty M1 gave us a dragon fruit....it was my first time to peel this and luckily, youtube had a tutorial.

I love technology!

Tuesday, Malia has been hiding in the back of my closet, I guess because it is quiet and dark there and also because Aunty Kat has no clue as to where she is...I swear she disappeared...

Wednesday, met up with Flickr friend, Rex...every summer we've been trying to eat at W & M, but always end up elsewhere, finally, we had lunch there, parking is always krazy here, but we were both lucky to each get a stall.

I had the cheeseburger...so good! while Rex had their HAL special.

Always fun talking with Rex, he's super tech savvy and keeps me up to date on things regarding iPhones and such.

Thursday, got an email from the realtor, he will be mass mailing some realtors and planning to have an open house on the Sunday after Labor Day. (Hoping this will spark some interest in our property)

Lunch was from Roast Duck Kitchen...this tiny shop mainly sells roast duck, roast pork, roast chicken and char siu.

I got their roast chicken plate and a gau gee (long fried won ton).

The chicken was tender and very moist.

And I also enjoyed the gau gee, it is stuffed to the gills!

Bummer that the rice was really dry and the cabbage underneath the chicken really oily.

Still, I'm glad I tried this place and there was definitely enough food for two meals...I want to go back to try the cake noodle with oyster sauce chicken and char siu.

That was more or less my week...it is still gross and humid.

It is the end of August, seems so fast, yet it doesn't.

Hoping we'll get an offer in the coming weeks that I am here...have a nice weekend.

Miko and the Juice : UPDATE OHM CLOSED
333 Ward Avenue (inside OHM)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.861.5046
Hours: 10:00-20:00 (Mondays-Saturdays), 10:00-17:00 (Sundays)

L & K Pho & Sandwich : UPDATE OHM CLOSED
333 Ward Avenue (inside OHM)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.722.9730
Hours: 10:00-20:00

Roast Duck Kitchen
99-115 Aiea Heights Drive, Aiea Shopping Center 2nd floor
Aiea, Hawaii
Phone: 808.486.0005
Closed Mondays
Hours: 9:00-17:00

eat this...

It's the end of June...So many things eaten, so little time to blog about them...here's what's what...

Pure Bar's Dark Chocolate Berry Bar, liked the chewiness and chocolati-ness of this. 18 Rabbits' Haute Diggity Date & Funky Fig & Cherries, both were delish!

Taegu on a plain musubi

Champions malasadas...nuff said.

Kristen's (in Waipahu) BLT...so much bacon...love!

Nanding's lup cheong roll...so good!

Chun Wah Kam's mini plate lunch...can feed several people actually.

Fried noodles, spicy minute chicken and long beans with beef...yum!

Ba-le's lemongrass chicken sandwich...now THAT's a sandwich!

Green smoothie (baby kale, baby chard, baby spinach, apple banana, blueberry yogurt and soy milk)...could've made this thinner but it was still delicious!

Coco Puffs from Liliha Bakery...yum!

Mochiko Chicken Musubi from Tanioka's...still huge and delicious.

Goteborg Musubi...tasty!

K's Bento, we've watch the price slowly go up and when we recently had them, we noticed they didn't have their corned beef hash patty in there...boo!

What are you enjoying these days?

"green" smoothie

It is the Friday here, the single cherry blossoms have ended but the double ones are in full bloom.  The weather is also very warm, almost summery.  We had rain, really heavy rain last night.

I tried my hand at "green smoothies" for breakfast because I had been seeing it all over the blogosphere as well as on info-mercials.

I guess I didn't add enough "green" though, because mine turned a brownish color...I know, not too appetizing looking, but trust me it was delish.

I added a handful of baby spinach, 1 small banana, 7 strawberries and a handful of frozen blueberries.
I also added a teaspoon of ground flax seed, a teaspoon of almond powder, some water and 1/4 cup of milk.

Even if it didn't look "green", I'm planning to experiment some more with this.

Hope you have a great weekend.

whiz...brr

We had a mini snow storm the other afternoon. Nothing that stayed on the ground for too long, but it was fun to see (from my seat on the sofa).

It is still a bit too cold for smoothies, but since Satoshi was off on business, I made this one for my breakfast the other morning.

I've been seeing blueberries from Chile in the markets lately, and the local strawberries are in the markets too.

Here's what I put in it...10 blueberries, 5 strawberries, 1 small banana, 1/2 teaspoon ground flax seed, 4 tablespoons plain yogurt and 1/4 cup skim milk...whizzed together, even though it looks like only a cup worth, it was a little over, a very simple and delicious breakfast.

whiz it

If I remember correctly, my first attempt at smoothies was pre-immersion blender, and I think the texture was a bit more "chunky" then because I was using a food processor.

Fast forward to yesterday...Satoshi was on a business trip, so it was just me, myself and I for breakfast.

4 strawberries (about a handful), 1 small banana (12 centimeters, about 4 inches), 1/4 teaspoon ground flax seed and 1/2 a cup of milk.

Whiz it...this one was definitely smoother.

I think my favorite combo for smoothies is strawberry and banana.

Actually I've never really tried any other combo...I should be brave and experiment more.

I also had 1/2 a slice of toast with chocolate peanut butter spread and some black tea.

What did you have for breakfast?

saturday

As I told Lori in the comments from a previous post, we eat out mostly on weekends. This is an agreement that Satoshi and I have had from before we were married. The agreement is that on weekends, I don't cook...so I have "the weekend off". My half of the agreement is that Satoshi is allowed to sleep until 9:00 a.m. (Though with our holo-holo (galavanting) schedule, usually he has to wake up earlier.)

Anyway, last Saturday was a beautiful day.

Breakfast was really simple, yomogi (mugwort) toast, with adzuki cream cheese and a strawberry-banana flax seed smoothie.

Half a banana, 5 strawberries, 1/2 a teaspoon of ground flax seed and 1/2 a cup of milk. Whiz in food processor, makes 1 serving. Add more milk if too thick.

After breakfast, we walked to Suigetsu Park. Most of the cherry blossoms were billowing to the ground. Seeing the ground all pink is just as beautiful as seeing the blossoms on the trees.

We also visited Sonpachiyakujin, we've visited this temple before and I've written about it here. The archway at the entrance seems to be eroding and starting to lean. Still, it was beautiful with the cherry blossoms.

From Sonpachiyakujin, we walked to Satsukiyama Park then to Kawanishi. Lunch was at a restaurant called Corin. There was a line, so we waited for a table.

I ordered the daily lunch special--fried shrimp and Chinese roast pork (950 yen--about US$9.50). This came with ratatouille, a salad and "clam chowder". (Actually it was clam flavored soup, nothing chowder-y or clammy about it...)

Satoshi had the jumbo fried shrimp (1600 yen--about US$16). Ordering this, he was told he'd have to wait about 20 minutes for them to cook it. Boy, were they HUGE!

We both added dessert--ice cream (each 250 yen about US$2.50).

Mine was honey & walnut, Satoshi's was matcha (green tea).

After lunch, we walked to Hibarigaoka-Hanayashiki through a little park near the tracks. Most of the cherry blossoms were billowing off the trees, but it was still nice to be out and about.