hawaii re-visits

Yesterday was another errand, so we tried to pick up lunch from one of the places on mom's list...only thing was that they weren't open yet...so..."plan B", another choice off of mom's list...Hank's Haute Dogs.

I've eaten here in the past and loved it.

Mom ordered the Chicken...a grilled chicken sausage topped with lime mustard and mango relish.

She gave me a bite of this and it was tasty.

For my Dad, who likes things simple...we ordered him the Polish.

A grilled polish sausage topped with grilled onions and grainy mustard.

He liked it though the sausage was a bit koge (burnt).

And I ordered the Chicago...after seeing endless posts by Kirk on this, I had to try one.

Those tiny sport peppers sure have some heat! and I liked the neon green relish and other goodies on top too.

Mom was happy that she got to try this place and I'm glad I got to try a Chicago dog.

Hope you have a great weekend!

giovanni pastrami

Went out with BFF yesterday and we had lunch at Giovanni Pastrami in Waikiki.

I think this is a sports bar, but there were many booths to sit at, so there were also many families.

BFF ordered the hot pastrami sandwich and I ordered the reuben bites which were filled with pastrami.

Delicious, and definitely no skimping on the pastrami. This went nicely with their crispy fries.

Afterwards we went to Starbucks to sit and chat.

I bought two rocky road cake pops and gave one to BFF. It was like a moist brownie filled with teeny marshmallows and almonds but not too sweet.

Always fun to hang with BFF! (Thanks for lunch BFF!)

Giovanni Pastrami
227 Lewers Street
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.923.2100

home bar & grill and off the wall

It's been almost a year since I've seen D, our family friend. I first wrote about him here and then again last year here.

Since he knew I was in town, he asked if I would like to go check out a relatively new place called "Home Bar & Grill".

Our other family friend, Neil is cooking the food there, which I've written about here. In that time, he had moved to this new establishment.

We got together with some of D's friends and it was 9 of us drinking shots and eating all sorts of food like tater tot nachos, kalbi with fried noodles, toro sashimi...just search for this place and you can see all sorts of photos of the food there, different but very delicious!

I'm actually a wimp when it comes to shots, so mine were sipped (ahem!)...anyway it was a fun time.

As we wrapped up the evening, we planned to get together with D's friend, B, during the week for dinner.

Well, on Tuesday, we met B at Off the Wall in the Pearl Kai Shopping Center.

I'd never been here, but my parents had and they had even ordered their Thanksgiving turkey from them one year.

The food is Okinawa meets Hawaii local-style food.

We tried Shoyu Pork "pasta" I put pasta in quotes because they actually use the Okinawan soba instead of Italian pasta.

We also ordered some edamame hummus, a "naked" spicy ahi poke musubi (a layer of rice topped with some spicy ahi poke), fukuoka style tonkatsu (choy sum wrapped with bacon then wrapped with thinly sliced pork, breaded then deep fried) and some goya champuru.

I also tried an apple saketini (like a martini but made with sake)...super fruity.

They let us try something that wasn't on the menu (I think), an okonomiyaki gyoza...a fried gyoza topped with some okonomiyaki sauce...so delicious!

One interesting thing on their menu was the chocolate filled andagi...so chocolatey and not too sweet.

Another item they let us try that wasn't on the menu, a deconstructed banana foster.

Banana and salted caramel gelato, a caramelized banana and some salty crunch like things on the bottom...good but a little too sweet.

Lots of food, lots of chatter and good fun! Thanks B & D!

Home Bar & Grill
1683 Kalakaua Avenue
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.942.2235

Off the Wall
Pearl Kai Shopping Center
98-199 Kamehameha Highway
Aiea, Hawaii
Phone: 808.486.WALL (9255)
Closed: Mondays

kahai street kitchen

Another errand means another chance to try a new place for lunch...we recently tried Kahai Street Kitchen.

You should know that my mom has this list of places she wants to try, my dad is not a foodie, so he isn't interested in eating out, so every time I come home, we try to knock off as many places from her list as possible.

This shop is located in a busy industrial area and the bad part is that they have no parking.

So, while my mom jumped out to order, I circled many many times.

We got a side order of sweet potato fries...a little limp by the time we got home, but very flavorful.

The boneless short ribs were very tasty, though some pieces had lots of gristle.

Cooked to medium rare, this was quite tender. The meat was marinated in a teriyaki sauce.

The garlic chicken was very moist and tasty.

The sauce was shoyu based, not a lot of garlic flavor, but it was still very flavorful.

All in all nice sized portions for the three of us and delicious...we also appreciated only 1 scoop of rice per plate (usually when there are 2 scoops, like most plate lunches serve, we end up having leftover rice).

We'll be back.

Kahai Street Kitchen (UPDATE: 2018 moved to Moiliili)
237 Kalihi Street (corner of Kahai/Kalihi)
Phone: 808.845.0320
Tuesday-Thursday 10:30-13:30
Friday 10:00-13:30

hawaii re-visits

I've written about my favorite malasadas before here and here...pillows of flaky dough, fried up light and covered with sugar...nom!

Recently I had one and think that all coffee shops should sell these malasadas with their coffee.

I noticed that Champion sells coffee with their malasadas and other treats but also noticed that they have their pot of coffee just sitting out.

And while US$1.05 is cheap for coffee, for a coffee snob like me to have it sitting out like that is a big no-no.

What would you have with your cup of coffee?

things I'm liking (disliking)

Some random things I'm liking and disliking...starting with disliking...while this bento from Marukai looks really good, most of the side dishes were bland, very disappointing.

These Harney & Sons bottled teas were also a disappointment, very watery, not much flavor and I didn't add ice when I drank them either.

Loving the signs on the bathrooms at the shopping area on Lewers in Waikiki.

Wahine (wah-hee-nay) means woman in Hawaiian, you should also know that Kane (kah-nay) means male.

Love the garlic cheese balls at Big Kahuna Pizza...BFF and I shared an order and a garlic tomato spinach personal sized pizza for lunch one day...so good and cheesy!

Diamond Head Market & Grill's Mochiko chicken musubi is good with chicken in every bite but I think US$3.50 is a little steep for it.

I've been to Yogurtland a couple of times already...some of the frozen yogurt I've eaten was kinda iffy (I really should ask for a taste before I put it into the cup!)

I usually choose toppings like peanut butter cup and my all time favorite the hot pink frosted animal cracker.

A cute cookie made by Liliha Bakery. My mom received this from a friend and shared it with everyone at a Sunday dinner...while it was cute, the cookie didn't have that much flavor.

Apparently the thing to do is paint your nails with a nail polish with "shatter" or "crackle" in the name...I bought my first bottle and love it...you paint a base color, something you want to peek through the "shatter" paint and let it dry thoroughly.

Then add one coat of the shatter paint (mine is silver), if you add any more coats, you will ruin the effect.

Wait for this to dry then paint over with a clear top coat...the shatter paint dries to look like it is cracked...fun, yeah?!

Madre chocolate is a bean to bar operation in Hawaii.

I got this 70% Fair Trade Dominican cacao bar with popped amaranth from Deb and it is delicious. I especially enjoyed the popped amaranth, which seemed like crispies except smokier.

Whew! long list...what are you liking? disliking?

matsumoto's okazuya

So all eats are not created equal...whenever you get a good one, there has to a bad one too, right?

So, let me tell you about a bad one...now, I usually don't blog about bad places because "if I don't have something nice to say about something..." well, you know how the saying goes.

You may have already eaten here, and liked it, but I need to tell you about this place though, because my experience was really bad.

After an errand in the area, my mom, dad and I stopped to pick up some lunch at Matsumoto's Okazuya.

There were lots of choices, so we picked up some of this and some of that, paid and left.

My Grandma and Aunty M came over for lunch and we all shared.

Teri-chicken, tamagoyaki, kinpira gobo, inarizushi, chow funn & corned beef hash patties...US$18.22 tax included.

While all this food sounded good, it wasn't.

The corned beef hash patties were hard & burnt. Inarizushi was just rice, usually you have at least some flecks of carrot, there was also an unusual citrusy flavor to it. The kinpira was made from a frozen gobo mix, so it was very very mushy.

I could go on and on. I will say that the only thing good was the tamagoyaki, very flavorful and light.

In Japan, they often say that when you partake of a meal, you can feel what the person who cooked the meal was feeling, thinking...for me though, I just couldn't feel the "love" from the person who cooked this.

I'm glad we tried this place and I'm also glad that for the most part, my eats have been good experiences, but we won't be coming back here.

Matsumoto's Okazuya
1323 Gulick Avenue
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.848.7464