naan taco

I should talk about the humidity and heat more often.

This morning it was 71F/22C and no humidity!

I had to convince Satoshi to bring a light sweater to work.

Changing the subject, apparently, it's been 4 years since MOS burger had their naan taco.

It seemed a little smaller than in the past, but was still delicious.

What did you have for lunch?

eat this...

Kalua Pig Soft Tacos with Pineapple Salsa (with a schmear of spicy red pepper hummus).

You could omit the hummus, but use flour tortillas if you can because the corn flavor kinda overpowers the whole thing.

Still it was delish!

tacos el nopal

Saturday we visited MIL and had lunch with her. She seems to be fine though her leg is giving her trouble.

In the early evening, we made our way back from Kyoto to Osaka and stopped off at Juso for dinner at a Mexican restaurant which Rona (a reader) gave me a tip about awhile back.

The restaurant has about 20 seats, plus seats out on the terrace.

We sat inside since the weather was still very humid.

I ordered a margarita and Satoshi ordered a beer.

We also ordered guacamole (this only came with 4 chips), the nopal (cactus) taco and coctel de camaron.

The guacamole was delicious, though we wished it came will a little more chips.

The taco was delicious also, the cactus texture reminded us of a very soft green bell pepper.

Coctel de camaron was a Mexican style shrimp cocktail. Very refreshing with the lemon.
Satoshi ordered a margarita and since we were still hungry we ordered chilaquiles, a flauta & burrito.

The chilaquiles was beans with a tortilla stewed in tomato sauce topped with queso fresco (fresh mexican cheese).

The flauta reminded me of tacquitos, deep fried corn tortillas filled with meat and topped with salsa and some sour cream.

The burrito was filling...filled with rice, chicken, cheese and topped with salsa and some sour cream.

Be prepared to wait for items as the owner and (her daughter?) make everything from scratch....total for our meal was 5670 yen (about US$56.70) a little pricey, but for homemade Mexican food, we thought it was worth it.

We enjoyed our meal and would like to try their lunch sometime. (Thanks for a great tip, Rona!)

Tacos el Nopal
3-28-7 Juso-higashi
Yodogawa, Osaka
Phone: 06.6305.6331

t.a.s.t.e. & cake works

The lunch wagon is not something new in Hawaii. Recently though, there are taco trucks popping up here and there.

I think I mentioned that I had planned to check out one with Deb, but since that one was out of business (or so it seems on Twitter), we instead planned to check out one called T.A.S.T.E.

T.A.S.T.E. stands for Tasty Asian Style Taco Eatery. Asian style food items served on 6-inch tortillas. (Apparently, this is all the rage in L.A. at the moment. (The Kogi trucks))

Anyway, this truck has 5 regular items on the menu and a daily special (unfortunately at 11:30 am the special was already sold out!).

Each taco is either $2.75 or $3.25 and served with a nice amount of slaw on top, (which does not make them too blog photo friendly (because they all look alike)).

Deb and I ordered 2 each and shared.

Deb was also kind enough to email the menu (Thanks!)...

Ribeye with kalbi marinade and wasabi dressing ($2.75)--this was very flavorful and matched the wasabi dressing and slaw...sweet, salty and a hit from the wasabi

Mahimahi with green onion ginger sauce & miso dressing ($3.25)--moist mahimahi served with the slaw, sauce and dressing, very tasty! kind of reminded me of the cold ginger chicken at chinese restaurants in a good way

Shrimp with wasabi honey mayo& wafu (Japanese style) dressing ($3.25)--loved the sauce but thought the shrimp should've been marinated or something.

Homemade charsiu with shoyu aioli & Hoisin vinaigrette ($2.75)--nice 5-spice taste, very meaty.

Just the right amount for lunch. A bit messy, definitely not something to eat while driving around.

We noticed that the majority of customers were guys. (though I think they'd have to at least eat 3 or 4!)

I would definitely go back, these tacos are reasonable (by Hawaii standards) and very tasty.

Wanting something a little sweet after lunch, Deb introduced me to Cake Works.

This bakery is in the spot where Mary Catherine's cake shop used to be. (I was shocked because MC used to be there forever!)

They mainly specialize in wedding and celebration cakes, but do have lots of other goodies there too.

Another nice thing was that they also had a little eating area right in front of the shop.

I tried their mini red velvet and mini peanut butter cupcake...$1.25 each

So moist and delicious, even with it being in the refrigerated case! The red velvet had cream cheese frosting and the peanut butter frosting was so light and creamy.

I would definitely go back for some sweet treats!

It was nice to see Deb again and to try two new places.

Satoshi is coming soon so there will definitely be more eating for another week or so.

MIL was supposed to come too but decided not to, it's too bad because everyone was looking forward to seeing her.

T.A.S.T.E. UPDATE: closed as of 2011
2012 S. Beretania St (inside the parking lot of Ocean Sports Bar)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.429.0818
Open Mondays-Saturdays 11:00-14:00 & 17:30-20:00

Cake Works
2820 S. King Street (across from Humane Society)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.946.4333

naan taco

Monday was so hot! and humid. I wondered what the temperature was.

Before I went out to do my daily grocery shopping, I vacuumed. Big mistake!

(I think there should be laws against vacuuming or ironing during these type of days.)

After vacuuming, I changed and put on some make-up (which immediately started running off my face while putting it on!)

Then I walked to the station. Even though I had my sun-blocking umbrella, it was still quite hot and humid with little to no breeze.

When I got on the train, I tried not to sit with my back up against the backrest for fear of a big wet spot on the back of my T-shirt when I got off.

After doing some grocery shopping, I also wondered what made me think I could walk from Ikeda station to home (about 30 minutes) in this sort of weather.

Luckily, along my route there was my favorite fast food place, MOS burger to cool down and get some lunch.

Since it is summer, they have started serving their Naan Taco.

It has been awhile since I've eaten them, the naan seemed thinner and crispier this time around (and the chips were not stale!). Also, the meat filling was curry flavored not taco.

I also enjoyed their Lassi, a yogurt based drink, very sweet and a little tart. It was a nice lunch and great way to cool down, even though I had to walk the rest of the way home afterwards.

p.s. today is Tanabata, I wonder if the two star lovers will meet? What will you wish for? I think I'll wish for tradewinds.

happy 4th (early)!

My blog friend, Pocky, tweeted me a recipe that is on the Food Network's page for Watermelon Salsa.

This weekend is the 4th of July in the States (which I had forgotten about until Rowena reminded me), so trying to get into the spirit, I thought this salsa would be the perfect thing to try for the "celebration".

Man, coriander a.k.a. Chinese parsley got expensive all of a sudden...I have a feeling all this rain has something to do with it.

And the markets only sell red watermelon (with seeds), so I picked out the seeds and that is what I used. And since I already spent a lot of $$ on Chinese parsley, I didn't want to spend $$ on red onion, so I used what I had.

I liked this, it sort of reminded me of lomi salmon, a dish we have in Hawaii (minus the salmon) and kind of like chirmol. (Thanks Pocky!)

I also threw together a warm corn "salsa" with a can of corn, some zucchini, onion and roasted red bell pepper, seasoned with some black pepper.

I had intended to serve this watermelon salsa with some shrimp but remembered that I had already thawed out some pork (after buying some shrimp), so I sauteed the pork in some homemade taco seasoning. (I'll make the shrimp tomorrow to serve with the rest of the salsas.)

Everything went nicely with some corn chips and Yebisu All Malt Beer.

This was a delicious start to the weekend, even if it is only Thursday!

inspired by a book

Recently I was reading a novel, "Tough Cookie", the author often gives recipes of some of the delicious food described throughout the book.

In this particular book, a spicy dip made with velveeta cheese was mentioned.

Processed cheeses can be found here, but since I had some Fromage Roux, a creamy French washed rind cheese, and since I had some leftover taco filling from taco rice, I nuked the two with some salsa.

It was delicious on toasted bread! and probably would have been better if we had had some tortilla chips.

In the same book, there was a recipe for muffins with marmalade in them.

I remembered I had some marmalade in my freezer, so I added it to the muffin recipe I always use along with some chopped almonds.

I baked it a little longer than the original recipe stated because of the jam--I had sandwiched the jam between the batter.

I think I should have mixed the jam into the batter instead.

Still, I liked this, the marmalade originally wasn't too sweet, so it matched nicely with the muffin.

hokulani's

Well, it has been a week since I've been back. Grandma is up and around. She uses her cane, when she remembers to (she's never had the need to use one up until now, so this is a good sign that she doesn't really need one.) We have been taking turns staying with her at night, but will try to let her stay by herself after this coming week.

Since I still have to eat...this is just a little round-up of what I've been eating...

From our neighbors...these bambucha (huge) avocados...These actually "fell" into our yard like a bomb...SPLAT! from tip to end they are about 6 inches long! creamy and delicious. (Thank you!) Can you believe the ginormous tree grew from a single avocado seed planted over 20 years ago?

A lunch of 3 crispy tacos with guacamole from Diego's....US$4.50+tax. More than the tacos, which were really dry, I enjoyed the homemade guacamole and homemade salsa. If there is one thing I miss in Japan is Mexican/Tex-Mex food. UPDATE: as of 3/2012, this place has closed

Lunch with my Aunty M at Ryan's. Satoshi and I used eat here often, loving their appetizers and frozen li hing margaritas.

My aunty and I shared the mango stacked salad (refreshing!), buffalo wings (spicy!) and their sweet potato fries (loved their BBQ aioli!). I'm sure if it were happy hour, my Aunty and I may have had some of their reknown mojitos...(Thank you for lunch Aunty!)

Hokulani's Red Velvet Cupcakes...4 for US$10...bought at the New Food and Product Show...Aunty M and I thought there were way more products than food.

They seemed smaller than the ones I picked up from Cake Couture. I guess these cupcakes were sitting out for awhile...the parts that weren't frosted were dry and the cream cheese frosting had a hard shell to them and seemed a bit greasy....meh!

My Dad, who is a man of few words, said they were okay, but he wouldn't have spent $2.50 for it. I guess it was good that we got to try them, will we go back? probably not.

What have you been eating lately?

homemade gifts

Christmas is just around the corner. The economy is kind of sucky, but you still want to give your friends something small.

How about something homemade?

I recently gave away some homemade vanilla extract and some taco spices.

If you haven't made vanilla extract before, it is really easy. (Maybe you could try this for next Christmas?)

And the taco spices are a nice combination of different spices, beats the pre-packaged stuff!

Just put into small jam jars, wrap up, attach a card...you're good to go!

baba ganoush & naan taco

Ever since having Baba Ganoush at the tea party last month, I've been wanting to make some. When I told Satoshi what I was making he said, "baba ga-what?" I think it is kind of fun to say, "baba ganoush", don't you?

Baba Ganoush adapted from The Leftover Queen
3 small eggplants
1 whole lemon, squeezed
2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons yogurt, plain
1/2 clove garlic
salt
parsley
toasted pine nuts

Wash and cut off tops, pierce eggplants. Put into a 400F(200C) oven for 30 minutes. Cool and peel off skin. Whiz everything in a food processor, garnish with nuts.

NOTES: this is really easy to make. Since I couldn't find "tahini", I substituted Japanese sesame paste. I served it with some tortilla chips and it was delicious. I think the next time, I might have it with naan or a pita.

Black bean dip adapted from Ellie Krieger
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 clove garlic, minced
1 whole jalapeno, diced
1 (15 oz)can black beans, rinsed
1 whole lime, squeezed
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
cilantro
1 tablespoon water
salt and pepper

In a pan, saute the onions for 2 minutes and add the garlic and jalapeno. Add the beans to evaporate any excess water. Blend everything in a food processor.

NOTES: easy to make and this would be good with tortilla chips too.

Naan adapted from Video Jug
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon sugar
200g plain flour (about 1.6 cups)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon EVOO
2 tablespoon plain yogurt
2 tablespoon milk

Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix. When combined, knead for 5-6 minutes. Cover with a tea towel and let rest for 15 minutes in a warm place. After 15 minutes, divide the dough into 4 pieces and roll out to about half an inch thick. Bake in 275F (140C) oven for about 20 minutes.

NOTES:The naan dough didn't get as big as it should have, I don't think the yeast was that fresh (the last time I used the other half was making bagels)

I did try making naan taco, I forgot to buy lettuce, so I had to do without. I put a layer of the black bean dip, some ground beef that I sauteed with cumin, paprika, chili powder and cinnamon, cheese and salsa...delicious!

We're still having weird weather, hope you are keeping cool where you are. Have a great week.

naan taco

Awhile back, I posted about MOS burger and how they serve a naan taco during the summer. Well, Friday was the start of naan taco on their menu.

In Japanese, they call this dish "naan tacosu", I think it is because if they called it "taco" they would get people confused into thinking that there is tako(octopus (same pronunciation)) on it. Plus, the Japanese have a hard time pronouncing things, I think this is due to the katakana phrasing of words, they can't pronounce "boot", it will always come out "boots", "salad" will always come out "salada".

Anyway, since I had a lesson in Ikeda this morning, I walked to MOS burger for lunch on the way home.

This year, they came up with 3 types of naan taco. Cheddar cheese sauce naan taco--with "real" fake cheese (This is the original one and the one that I had). A spicy sauce naan taco--with a habanero & jalapeno sauce. And mole sauce naan taco--with a sweet sauce made from chutney, chocolate & cocoa.

The only part of the naan taco that I don't like are the chips on top, they tend to be stale. So now that I've had my naan taco for the year, I think I'm ready for the heat of summer ahead.