banh xeo

1st time making banh xeo and I think even 1st time eating it.

It is a fun word to say...ban-say-oh!

Somehow I thought it was made with eggs, but looking online, this is only made with rice flour, coconut milk, turmeric and some water.

I used this recipe and cut it down to make 2 crepes.

Adapted from the internet, makes 2 crepes

42 grams mochiko

14 grams flour

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

water

66 milliliter milk

coconut oil

Mix and let the batter sit in the refridge for at least 3 hours.

Heat oil in a pan and swirl in 1 ladle of batter to make 1 thin crepe

Add your filling, and cover to steam, fold the crepe in half, repeat to make another crepe, serve.

NOTES: Originally this is supposed to be gluten and dairy free, but I didn't have rice flour and used mochiko. 

Not sure, but I think using rice flour might make a difference as to how light the crepe comes out.

Also, I didn't have coconut milk and used regular milk.

When I cooked the crepe I used coconut oil so it would have a slight coconut fragrance.

I had some leftover gapao filling, so that is what I put into our banh xeo.

I know Thai filling, Vietnamese crepe, still it was delicious.

You are supposed to cut off pieces of the crepe and wrap it in some lettuce, but we just ate it with wilted spinach.

I think I need to thin out the batter a little more, but we thought it was delicious.

I'll make this again and make sure we have lettuce to wrap it in.

coconut milk braised chicken legs

Every time I travel back to Japan from Hawaii, I buy a magazine that I read from cover to cover on the plane ride home (sometimes I finish reading the magazine before I get on the plane...).

Usually that magazine is "Bon Appetit"...there are lots of delicious looking photos as well as recipes and tips.

On my last trip to Hawaii, I bought a copy of "Bon Appetit" and the photo for Coconut Milk Braised Chicken...jumped out at me.

It took me awhile to get the ingredients together but I finally got a chance to make this.

So easy!

Just put everything into a pan and put it in the oven to do its thing.

Coconut Milk Braised Chicken Legs : From "Bon Appetit" : issue September 2019 : makes 4 servings
INGREDIENTS
1 (13.5 ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
2 tablespoons Thai curry paste
2 lemongrass stalk, tough outer layer removed, lightly crushed
1 2" piece ginger, peeled, smashed
6 garlic cloves, peeled, smashed
4 chicken legs (thigh and drumstick; about 3 pounds total)
Kosher salt

(for serving)
Toasted unsweetened coconut flakes
cilantro leaves with tender stems
cooked rice or flatbread
lime wedges

RECIPE PREPARATION
Place a rack in top third of oven; preheat to 400°F (200C).

Stir coconut milk and curry paste in a 2 quart baking dish to combine (or, use a medium skillet if that’s what you’ve got).

Add lemongrass, ginger, and garlic.

Season chicken with salt (hold back a bit since curry pastes often have a lot of salt).

Place in baking dish and spoon some liquid over.

Bake, occasionally spooning liquid over, until chicken is browned, tender, and cooked throughout (the joint should be reasonably easy to flex), 60–75 minutes.

Divide chicken between plates.

Top with coconut flakes and cilantro.

Serve with rice or flatbread and lime wedges alongside.

NOTES: so easy and tasty! I found lemongrass but it was pricey, so I left it out.

Also, I could only get green thai curry paste, so that was what I used.

I didn't add any salt and served this with rice.

I also added some water because my coconut milk seemed thick.

If you like Thai curry, you'll enjoy this, especially since you don't need to stand near the stove.

I'm making this again.

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

roi thai

Roi Thai is a brand that we have here for coconut milk.

Recently, as I was walking around Kaldi Coffee Farm (a shop that imports all sorts of foods), I noticed that they had an "instant" curry.

I picked up their Massaman, Green and Red.

Each box is 2 servings and you only need to cook the curry for a couple of minutes, so I precooked all the "stuff" I wanted to put in it...eggplant, red bell pepper, maitake and chicken.

We tried the green curry, because I thought "green" was not as hot as "red"...wrong.

It was super spicy!

But so good!

I'm glad we tried this, and the next time I put chicken, I think I'm gonna try putting in minced chicken instead of chicken wings, so it will cook through faster.

bangkok chef

Finally got to meet Jalna of Photos by Jalna and her friend, Mich.

Jalna's as crazy in person as on her blog...so funny!

What was so cool was that it was so easy to talk with both of them.

We had originally planned to eat at Morning Glass, but they didn't have any tables open, so we ate at Bangkok Chef (next door) instead.

What was nice about this place is that they had lots of tables AND air-conditioning.

Jalna treated us to spring rolls, chicken larb, penang curry, rad nah, thai iced coffee and Mich treated us to a pannacotta mango thingy (no photo) (thank you!).

Everything was so good!

And everyone was way too generous...Mich gave me these beef jerky chips.

Jalna's cousin, V, gave me these other beef jerky chips, gummy bears and crispies.

And reader Ryan gave me a homemade ohelo jam that his mom made! So nice. Brought back memories of when we were small and had to pick ohelo berries on the side of the road by the volcano on the Big Island.

Jalna gave me two handsewn bags that she made too...so creative, yeah?!

All in all, it was a great meet up, lots of talking and lots of eating.

Thank you everyone!

tom yum nuts

I was browsing in Kaldi one day and came upon these...Tom Yum Nuts.

If you are familiar with Tom Yum Soup, then you'll know it is a Thai version of "hot and sour" soup. If you aren't familiar, you can read more about it here.

Cashews are coated with a "caramel" then dredged into herbs and spices like chili, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves.

These are spicy! and they are similar to Sahale Snacks' Sing Buri...Sahale's were sweeter.

These are nice with beer.

I'm glad I bought two bags...

crazy pantry

Found a small package of Thai chilies at Crazy Pantry recently.

They look a bit more stubby than what I have seen online.

I've never cooked with these but from what people have told me, they have quite a kick.

Do you cook with Thai chilies?

What recipes do you use them in?

gapao

The other day, I made a batch of Ayun's Salad. Yup, watermelon is in the markets here...whoo!

Since I had some basil leftover, I bought some minced chicken and made some gapao, which I think is called "chicken and holy basil"...I like saying "gapao" though...

Here is what I did:

250 grams minced chicken
2 small bell peppers, sliced thin
handful of basil, julienned
1 clove garlic, grated
1 nub of ginger, grated
1/4 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste)
1 teaspoon sugar
1.5 teaspoon nampla (fish sauce)
1.5 teaspoon oyster sauce
olive oil

Heat a pan with a little oil, the garlic, ginger & tobanjan
Add the meat and break it up with a wooden spoon
Add the bell peppers
When the meat starts to change color, add the rest of the condiments and cook well
Add the basil at the end
Serve over hot rice and a sunny side up egg

NOTES: this was good, I think I can up the chili paste up a little bit, but the flavors were nice.

I'm making this again.

inaba gapao

I talked about Inaba's curries here, here, and here.

Well, they also have gapao...minced chicken with basil and spices.

We had this for dinner one night and I served this with some spinach, rice and a sunny-side up egg.

I liked this. It was really spicy and I like saying the name too...gapao.

inaba red & yellow

So, there was the Inaba thai green curry...

And then I found the red and yellow ones...

Yellow is made with chicken.

To me, it had a little sweetness to it and wasn't as spicy as green.

Red was spicy, and filled again with lots of tuna.

I think these are great to have in the pantry for emergency rainy days.

inaba thai green curry

I've been seeing this around the web lately. Inaba makes a canned curry.

Apparently there is a red curry, yellow curry and this green curry. From what I've seen, the yellow curry is made with chicken and the red and green curries with tuna.

I'd never seen it in the stores here, so we've never tried it, until the other day.

It was on sale at Daiei, only 98 yen a can.

It was my first time to try a green curry of any kind.

The curry is spicy, there are kaffir lime leaves in there as well as red chilies. I was surprised at how much tuna there was too. Whole chunk type not teeny bits.

This was good and I hope to find the others so we can try them too.

ba-le

These have probably been around for awhile, but we just noticed them at our local Ba-Le...puffed mochi rice.

The lady that owns the shop says that a Thai grandma makes them for her.

You know anything made by someone's grandma has to be good.

I found this recipe online and think this is how it is made.

They aren't too sweet and really addicting.

harnn

I've written about Harnn soaps before, here.

Satoshi recently received this rosemary & artemisia bar. I had to look up what artemisia was, apparently it is part of the daisy family.

The packaging changed a bit from the time I picked some up, the rosemary fragrance is quite strong, can't wait to use it.

Since today is the 7th, we're having our nanakusagayu today.

This weekend is also a 3-day weekend, but Satoshi has to work today.

bangkok chef

One of the places on my mom's list to try has been Bangkok Chef.

Apparently they are a tiny restaurant in Chinatown which has been around for awhile, and have expanded to Manoa.

Since we figured parking would be kinda crazy in Chinatown, we checked out the one in Manoa.

We got there a little after 11:00 and the place was empty.

We placed our order and as we waited for our food, the place filled up.

Here's what we ordered: Fried chicken wings--lemon grass flavored fried chicken wings...the girl at the counter suggested that we order it ala carte so we would get more wings (10 pieces) and no rice...$7.25 + tax. These wings were so juicy and we loved the crisp skins. Dipped in nuoc mam (sweet chili sauce) this was really good.

Eggplant chicken--this came with sliced chicken, eggplant, sauteed in a spicy sauce with lots of fresh basil. Since we ordered this as a "plate" this came with half the container being filled of jasmine rice, which is their standard rice for all plates....$5.70 + tax. If you want brown rice or sticky rice, it will cost you a little more (I think like $.50 more).

We also ordered 2 orders of their summer rolls. These were HUGE!...$4.50 + tax for 2 pieces.

And an order of their spring rolls...$5.95 + tax, this comes with 6 pieces.

Why my mom had this on her "to try" list was for only one thing...their house delight...mango ice cream over warm coconut mochi rice sprinkled with crushed roasted peanuts...she ordered 4 because she wasn't gonna share with anyone...$3.50 + tax for 1.

We thought the mango ice cream should've been more "mango-y". Actually fresh mango in vanilla ice cream would've been nicer (and probably more expensive, though I hear that Roselani makes a good one).

And the place was so "loud" with chatter that it was quite hard to hear what we were saying to each other.

My last and final peeve was that each dish came in a styrofoam container. Granted if you wanted to take home your leftovers you didn't have to go ask for a container, but for all of us eating at the restaurant, I thought it was a really big waste of these containers and could envision even more trash being shipped to other States...

All in all, the food was good and I would go back, I just wish they would consider the environment a little more.

Bangkok Chef
2955 E. Manoa Road (past Manoa Marketplace)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.988.0212
Monday-Saturday 10:30-21:00
Sunday 12:00-20:00

UPDATE:I wrote that they have a shop in Chinatown, but found out that it is on the outside of Chinatown on Nuuanu Avenue.