sunday

I've written about ku-cha-ne-ku-cha-ne before, well, that is basically what we did this past Sunday because it rained most of the day.

The day started out with breakfast...

Walnut toast with chocolate speculoos spread, topped with slices of banana. Yogurt with fig vanilla jam and bananas that didn't fit on the toast. Speculoos tea with milk.

There was some book reading and then I got lunch together.

Leftover pickled purple cabbage. Baby spinach, a little swiss chard and a little kale goma-ae. I used the peeler to peel a purple carrot, loved all the colors that came out from the peels! I added a little shiso and marinated everything in a little dressing. Rakkyo (pickled onions). Tamagoyaki. And musubi that I covered in blanched swiss chard leaves instead of nori. Green tea to wash everything down.

There was a nap.

Snacktime: café au lait & Big Island Candies biscotti to dip.

There was some smartphone game playing (maybe a lot)...

Dinner was a big bowl of pho (fah).

I've been wanting to use my cilantro. And since I didn't want to spend a lot for basil, I just used the rest of the shiso that I had.

Maybe not the most authentic, there was more noodles than anything, but it hit the spot and was a nice way to use some cilantro.

How was your weekend?

sunday dinner

So yesterday it rained all day, perfect for simmering something on the stove...spareribs.

I used this recipe.

Super easy and the perfect comfort food.

I served this over brown rice with some steamed broccoli and gravy over everything.

These ribs were super meaty!

What did you have for dinner?

sunday dinner

Awhile back, I made mille feuille in my frying pan with a cover.

On a recent trip to visit MIL, I asked Satoshi to look for a donabe (clay pot) amongst her "stash".

She had several and Satoshi brought home this one made by Ginpo. These are made in Japan and are very sturdy (and heavy!). They hold heat well.

Last night we had mille feuille for our Sunday dinner, made in the donabe.

I had to adjust my recipe because this pot holds more liquid.

Instead of 1.5 cups of water, I used 6 cups. The flavors were a lot lighter but since Satoshi is watching his sodium, it was just right.

We had this with beer.

And at the end, I re-heated the soup, added some rice and egg to make a dish called Ojiya (which is also known as Zosui--a porridge of rice and veggies).

You might be wondering what the difference between zosui/ojiya and okayu is? Well, Okayu is just the porridge of rice (plain, if you will). Zosui/ojiya is a rice porridge that is seasoned with condiments like miso, shoyu or salt.

Dinner was easy to put together and I can see why lots of families like to make this during the winter.

I think we'll try other dishes in this donabe (clay pot) for our Sunday dinners in the coming weeks.

Have a nice week!

amarcord ama mora

We had this Amarcord Ama Mora beer last night. Chocolatey!

Apparently it is made by a tiny brewery in Apeccio, Italy. The beer uses a selection of Pascucci coffee and Malawi sugar.

Too bad I didn't read about it before trying it, I could've paired it with some ice cream since it was like a porter.

Instead, we had this with kim chee gyoza and a salad.

I enjoyed this and would definitely buy it again.

What have you been enjoying these days?

sunday

Sunday the weather was quite summery, I think the high was 25C!

We packed a spam musubi bento and went to check out the roses at Aramaki Rose Park.

Arriving close to 9:00, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was nice, no one smoking or talking loudly. Just peace and quiet.

As the tour buses of people arrived, we left and went home to figure out what to do about lunch...

We ended up hanging out at the Itami airport (which is nearby where we live)...just gazing at the planes, dreaming of places to travel to.

The airport also has a huge furniture/interior store, so we did a little window shopping...I think we may change our dining table soon...whoo!

The weather was fabulous...to the point of being, HOT! At least it wasn't humid.

What did you do on the weekend?

sunday dinner

With the salts that we received from Kirk, we tried them with dinner yesterday.

Kirk mentioned that the habanero salt was good with steak, so that is what I served. A-5 Kagoshima kuroge wagyu ichibo (top side).

I wasn't too sure what to serve the uni (sea urchin) salt with, but after tasting it, I thought it might be nice to dip seafood into it.

So I pan seared some scallops.　Since I didn't season the scallops before searing them, the uni salt gave the scallops a nice ocean-y flavor.

And we dipped our steak into the habanero salt...boy, did it have a nice after burn (cough!).

The fried ika (squid) and fried shrimp I picked up at the market so these were already pre-seasoned. We ate them as is.

For veggies we had some kiriboshi daikon mustard salad.

and washed everything down with this Italian Collesi Amberata. This amber ale was a little fruity and with 7.5% alcohol content had a nice kick.

This beer is unpasteurized and naturally fermented in the bottle. They suggest you serve this with grilled meat so this was perfect with my menu.

I'll keep experimenting with these infused salts. Do you use infused salts? Write how you use them in the comments. We both enjoyed our first try of these salts...Thanks again Kirk!

sunday dinners

We had Sunday dinner at my Aunty's the other night.

In addition to all the delicious food, we ended with this beautiful mango tarte.

Apparently this year's mangoes are kinda scarce due to bad weather...boo!

Hope your week is going well.

sundays

Before I talk about Sundays, I need to tell you about the earthquake we had on Saturday. 5:30 a.m...you could hear the rumble come up the road and then we shook, at least a good 20 seconds, though at that point it seemed W-A-Y longer.

Turns out Awaji Island had a magnitude 6 earthquake. I didn't know this, but this was near the spot where the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake started too.

Luckily our area wasn't damaged, but there were many people on Awaji Island that were injured.

So much for the app that was supposed to warn me that an earthquake was coming, didn't even beep...boo!

Moving onto today's post...

Sundays, Satoshi has his German language class.

It's been only two weeks since his class started.

While he's at class (which is 3 and a half hours) I usually sit at a cafe, run errands, window shop, walk, walk, walk to pass the time.

This past Sunday, I started off at Starbucks. A cup of coffee and their salad wrap with 15 different items in there. I liked that it had a mexican avocado sauce and enjoyed all the veggies in it.

Then I walked around--running errands and window shopping.

　At about 2-ish, Satoshi's class finished and we had a late lunch.

This week we checked out the Shikoku Fair at the Hankyu Department Store.

One of the vendors was Aji Gekijo Chika, from the Shimanto-area of Kochi prefecture.

They were serving katsuo (skipjack tuna a.k.a. bonito a.k.a. aku).

I had the katsuo-zuke don (pictured above) and Satoshi had the katsuo tataki don. These were delicious...950 yen each.

After lunch we stood in line for the Tosa Jiro Vanilla soft serve...300 yen each.

Tosa Jiro is a type of chicken from the area, they use the eggs in the soft serve making it a little richer than the norm.

And then we went for coffee at Cafe Corridor, though I chose a seasonal berry soda instead...350 yen.

It was nearing 4, so we decided to head home all the while trying to figure out what to have for dinner.

How was your Sunday?

funny foodie sunday

Sunday was unusually hot but a very nice day. Lunch was at Abientot. We've gone here for breakfast, and I've been wanting to taste their lunch menu.

I was surprised to see the place was doing steady business (on a Sunday), luckily we were able to get a table.

Satoshi and I both ordered the main dish set...1800 yen (about US$18) each.

This came with a salad (baby greens, sweet potato salad, proscuitto & fried renkon (lotus root), chamiton simmered in red wine served with roasted veggies & dessert.

Chamiton is a brand name for a type of pork in Kagoshima. A couple of years back, kurobuta (Berkshire pork) was all the rage, apparently now it is chamiton. The pork in this dish was cooked so tender, you really didn't need a knife to cut it. I loved the free refills of bread to mop up the tomato based sauce!

Dessert was a little scoop of vanilla ice cream and pineapple cheesecake. The pineapple cheesecake was whipped so it was really light. I also thought it was neat how they didn't serve it on a crust.

After lunch, we went home to rest.

UPDATE: as of 2/2012, Abientot no longer has breakfast or lunch service, instead you may purchase breads and eat in their dining area.

In the early evening, we walked to the Ikeda Community Hall to watch Japanese stand-up comedy.

Some people often say that in order to be truly bi-lingual, you need to be able to fight and to understand jokes in the said foreign language. While I don't understand all the jokes/humor in Japanese, I think I could hold my end when it comes to verbal fighting (if I had to).

Anyway, in Kansai, especially Osaka, manzai (stand-up comedy), like rakugo (Japanese comedy story telling) has been around for decades.

With manzai, there are 2 people, the tsukkomi (straight talk) and the boke (makes fun, literally means fuzzy). The tsukkomi usually is telling a story and the boke usually interrupts making fun, using puns.

Sometimes the tsukkomi slaps the boke for making such funny remarks to his story.

While I do not like when they hit each other, I do enjoy when I understand the puns.

Also, there are some manzai-shi (stand-up comics) who shout during their performances, I don't appreciate this type of comedy, to me, it makes it harder to understand what he/she is saying.

Nowadays, I think manzai is called o-warai (literally big laugh) because not all performers are in pairs.

On one of my walks in August, I noticed the poster for this show. I told Satoshi about it and we went to buy tickets after we came back from Palau...3500 yen (about US$35) per person.

2 hours of laughing, definitely good for the soul.

After the show, we ran across the street for dinner at a tiny Chinese restaurant called Chaina (that is how it is spelled).

This shop only has about 16 seats. We tried to eat here before during the summer, but the place was packed and they didn't know how long it would be before a table would open up.

As we walked in, the place was quite full but we were able to get seats at the counter. Satoshi and I both order one of the two specials.

One special was the chinjaorosu (thinly sliced bell pepper with bamboo shoots, mushrooms and pork). This came with karaage (Japanese fried chicken), egg drop soup, cole slaw, and lots of rice....800 yen (about US$8).

The other special was an eggplant-pork dish. This came with spring rolls, cole slaw, egg drop soup, some gyoza and lots of rice...800 yen (about US$8)

Satoshi also ordered 6 pieces gyoza..220 yen (about US$2.20) and a jocky of beer on tap 400 yen(about US$4). In Japan, they call these tall glass mugs, jocky.

The food took some time to come out but everything was nicely seasoned, not too salty nor too oily. The serving of rice was quite large, I gave half to Satoshi. The restaurant is only run by 2 people so be patient, it is worth the wait.

It was a great Sunday.

Chaina
1-1-16 Tenjin
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.763.1147

sunday

Sunday also started off rainy but turned out to be a sunny day.

Dinner was again a hodgepodge of salads, plus an avocado-maguro tower.

We also tried Westmalle Trappist's Tripel, a Belgium beer...628 yen (about US$6.28) for 330 ml.

This one had punch! 9.5% alcohol to be exact....a little bitter and cloudy with a little fruity aroma, but for me, more drinkable than the Orval.

At least when we went to Yamaya on Saturday they had more Wychwood's Black Wych beer, not at the great price I got it at the first time, but nice to know they still carry it.

foodie 4th of july weekend

Friday we went to Costco, since they close on the 4th of July, the place was packed with people picking up food/drinks for the long weekend.

While my mom stood in line at the checkout, I ran over to Fat Boy's to pick up our lunch...only to be greeted by a huge line there too.

I had read about Fat Boy's on Lori's blog last year and wanted to check them out. My mom was a bit leery because of their name (wouldn't you be too?).

But we were glad we checked them out. Their food was tasty and the portions very generous. I picked up their garlic chicken bento (US$5.25) 6 pieces of their garlic chicken, rice and furikake.

Their chicken tasted more like mochiko chicken, didn't have much garlic flavor, was crispy but not hard as rock as some deep fried chicken are.

Mom chose the BBQ Mix (US$8.95), this came with a salad, 2 scoops rice, a good sized piece of grilled teri chicken, lots of teri beef and a strip of teri short ribs. I gave my mom some of my chicken and she gave me some of her chicken and short ribs. The teri beef we saved for our lunch on Saturday.

Dad chose the mini beef curry (US$6.50). This came with salad, 1 scoop of rice and the curry. He liked the flavor of the curry but was disappointed at how little beef there was, how huge chunks of celery there was (probably one whole stalk chopped chunky!) and one piece of carrot.

I think Fat Boy's popular items are the grilled items and the garlic chicken. While we probably wouldn't get the garlic chicken again or the curry, we would definitely get the BBQ Mix.

Saturday, we got up early to check out the KCC Farmer's market...it was nice to see the market packed with locals and tourists.

I picked up a small bottle of Wililaiki (Christmas berry) honey from Big Island Bees, US$6. My friend introduced me to them awhile back and I was glad to see them at the market.

All around the island you can see these shower trees in bloom, my Aunty M said that they are late this year, they remind me of cherry blossoms.

Saturday evening we gathered at my Aunty M's in McCully. She has a pretty good view of the fireworks (well, there are a few buildings in the way), but it beats fighting the crowds and sitting in traffic.

We picked up some grilled KFC (did you know they only serve drumsticks and thighs for their chicken pieces and use the breast for something else? my mom said that when we were kids a bucket of KFC meant getting a whole chicken.)

Anyway, my mom also made baked beans w/portuguese sausage, 3-bean salad, potato salad and grandma bought some sushi. We all agreed that grandma's homemade sushi tasted better than the bought.

Dessert was apple pie and some manju.

Grandma got this ripe mango from a friend and gave it to me. It was my first time peeling a mango and gnawing on the seed (gosh, have I lead a sheltered foodie life or what??) The mango was perfectly ripe, juicy and delicious. I shared it with my parents during lunch.

Sunday dinner was at our house, my mom made my favorite shrimp with pineapple. And we also had leftover salads from the night before.

Dessert was an apple pie from Costco, these pies are huge! but the crust was a disappointment, it seemed raw in some areas. We agreed that the pie the night before was better.

The weekend ended with this beautiful sunset.

It was a great foodie weekend, hope you have a great week!

Fat Boy's
94-1201 Ka Uka Blvd.
Laniakea Plaza
Waipahu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.680.7520

sundays

I think I've mentioned before that we get together with family for Sunday dinners. My mother and her sisters take turns cooking and we gather at the house which dinner is being cooked.

Last night was my Aunty M1's turn to cook, so we gathered at her house. Her husband is Swiss so we had a Swiss dish called Zurcher Geschnetzeltes, which is like beef stroganoff except it uses veal, or in this case, she used pork. It was delicious though I thought the gravy could have been a little thicker. We also had salad and some sauteed beans.

Dessert was this fabulous tart, made with fresh berries. The colors of the berries were so deep and the fruits were ripe and delicious. On top of that, the crust was perfect! nice and flaky.

It was nice to see my Aunty too, she and her husband travel a lot, so they are usually on the go.

I hope your Sunday was just as nice.

sundays

In our family, Sundays mean gathering for dinners together. Growing up, my mom, and her two sisters would take turns making the meal and we would go over to each other's houses to eat. Since there were 5 adults and 4 children, the children usually had a special table all of their own, called what else, the "kid's table", here the 4 of us would get to eat alongside the adults then hang around the "adult table" to hear all of their chatting and gossip. When our grandparents came for a visit, things got even more lively.

As we got older though, most of us moved away for college and work. But the gathering rituals still continue to this day.

In Japan, most families do not get together with their families unless it is a special occasion, which is why coming home is really special.

Tonight was no exception, and although there were only 5 of us, it was still a nice gathering and we all got to catch up on things.

Here's what we had: (sorry the pictures are a bit dark)
tofu (soy bean curd) salad with taegu (Korean-style cuttlefish), cucumbers and tomatoes.

Corned beef and cabbage with onions

And konbu maki (pork, carrots and gobo (burdock) wrapped with konbu (kelp) and tied with kampyo (dried gourd), my mom also threw in some araimo or satoimo (dasheen).

Lots of good food and conversation...Sundays.

It's great to be home, hope you have a great week!

foodie two days

Yesterday, we had dinner at my Aunty M1's house. My family gets together for dinner almost every Sunday and my mom and her sisters take turns cooking. This has been going on since way back when.

My Aunty loves her kitchen and also loves to try new recipes. She fried up some soft-shelled crabs. This is a local favorite and you can usually find them inside of temaki (handrolled sushi). Although these guys weren't too crispy (because she didn't deep fry them) they were still delicious. She also made an "Italian" type of dish using eggplant, green peppers, ground beef, onions, cheese and a tomato sauce. And also cooked some miso butterfish, just in case my Grandma didn't want to eat the first two dishes.

Miso butterfish is also a local favorite. You can find it in most Japanese restaurants. And the supermarkets also sell them already marinated. Butterfish is actually sablefish(which is also called black cod) marinated in miso, sugar, ginger and sake overnight then either grilled or cooked on a pan. The fish is quite oily so it is very flavorful and moist.

Dessert was from the bakery at Daiei. Daiei is actually a supermarket in Japan, but came to Hawaii about 20 years ago or so. The bakery had some pretty interesting stuff. Mochi (rice cakes) filled with sweet bean paste which were baked into a sweet bread type dough, they were called mochi an pan. Coconut bread filled with a vanilla custard. This bread was so light and airy.

We also had Sam Sato's manju. Sam Sato's is a diner in Maui. They are known for their saimin (a local kind of noodles in broth) and manju. Manju has a pie crust like outside and is filled with sweet bean paste. This manju comes from the island of Maui and is a popular omiyage (souvenier). In Hawaii, when we travel to the other islands (on business or for pleasure), we usually bring back a popular food item from that island for our families, friends and/or for the office. Sam Sato's uses the white sweet bean paste instead of the black one.

My Aunty also made her own manju but put peanut butter and jelly inside since she ran out of the sweet bean paste.

I think I ate more dessert than dinner...

Today, I went to lunch with my friends, W & S. We went to a new restaurant in Ala Moana Shopping Center called Romano's Macaroni Grill.

This restaurant is part of the Brinker International company, they also own Chili's. The restaurant is decorated to look and feel like you're entering a ski lodge. I ordered the Chicken Fontina Salad. This salad was great! A light lemon-garlic dressing over chopped spinach, orzo, olives, sun-dried and fresh tomatoes, and capers. Can I just say, the portions are huge! I couldn't finish my meal and took half of it home.

It's nice to be back in the U.S. where you can order a salad as an entree and have so many choices on the menu that you have to ooh and awe over it, then bite your lip because you can't decide what the heck to order because there are just too many choices! Despite the rain, we had a nice lunch and a great time shopping.

Last but not least, my friend W, made these moist brownies, a belated birthday gift. They were really good and chocolatey! (Thank you!!)

Hopefully the rain will have let up for awhile, although the forecast says it will continue to rain for the rest of the week. Most islanders are getting a bit down about this weather (since it has been going on for the past 4 weeks or so), but hey! at least there's leaves on most of the trees and it isn't butt freezing cold, right??

Have a great week!

Sam Sato
1750 Wili Pa Loop
Kahului, Maui
Phone: 808-244-7124

Daiei USA-Kaheka
801 Kaheka Street
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808-973-4800

Romano's Macaroni Grill
Ala Moana Shopping Center, Ho'okipa Terrace, 4th floor
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808-356-8300