ba-le

Lunch on Tuesday was from Ba-Le.

I love their banh mi sandwiches. If you search this site, you'll probably see several posts on Ba-Le.

This time around I tried their BBQ chicken sandwich...US$5.50 + tax (the tax in Hawaii, actually just Oahu, now is something I can't remember)

An Asian style barbecued chicken with a little mayo, the pickled daikon, carrots, cucumber and some cilantro on a toasted crusty baguette. (I love their baguette!)

I also got a sweet potato tapioca to try...US$1.65 + tax

Coconut pudding with tapioca and chunks of purple sweet potato, how can you go wrong with this?!

The tapioca pudding is on the firmer side, rich coconut milk and there are just enough pieces of sweet potato in there.

Life is good!

hawaii volunteers

Yesterday I went to help my mom's church group make tsukemono (pickles).

They do this throughout the year for different church events. In fact, I've written about it before here.

300 pounds of daikon (long white radish) sounds like a lot, and it is, but with 15 to 20 people cleaning, peeling and chopping, we usually finish within a couple of hours, which actually flies by because we are all so busy.

It is always nice to overhear the chatter that goes on while the ladies are doing their thing, though some cannot do two things at once and some hands stop working while they chat...ahem.

I am also amazed at how the men stay "on their side" of the kitchen and keep to their own conversations.

Though I hate wearing those net thingies for my hair, it is still great to help out.

soul

The other day, my cousin's wife, who is visiting Hawaii now, contacted me for lunch.

She said she was interested in trying SOUL, which was a good thing because I too was interested after seeing the photos on Ono Kine Grindz's blog and Tasty Island's post.

We shared the Carolina Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich--tender pulled pork marinated in a vinegary barbecue sauce topped with their buttermilk cilantro cole slaw on a roll.

The pork adobo, which I know is supposed to be vinegary, was just a bit too puckery for my liking, plus the roll got really soggy from the cole slaw.

We also shared the BBQ Spareribs Plate--4 pork ribs, with Ma'o collard greens, cornbread, buttermilk cilantro cole slaw, vegetarian chili. This is a great plate to get "a taste" of many of their dishes.

I'm not sure if the style of barbecuing was responsible, but the ribs were kind of on the dry side and even if they were tasty, we would've enjoyed them more if they were "fall off the bone tender".

I loved their vegetarian chili though, it had lots of bold flavors and a hint of heat.

The sweet cornbread and Southern sweet iced tea helped to cool things down.

The cole slaw was different, it wasn't creamy it was a little smokey, I enjoyed it, especially with all that cilantro in it.

It was my first time eating collard greens, I liked it and thought the texture and taste was similar to spinach.

We had a nice chat and ate almost everything on our plates! (though I did bring home some leftover slaw)

(If I get another chance on this trip home, I'd like to try some other items, like their chicken!)

Of course, even after a very filling lunch, we still had room for dessert, so we drove down the street to Waiola Shave Ice where we sat and chatted some more.

It was a beautiful sunny Hawaiian day out and I hope my cousin's wife had a nice time, I know I did. (Thank you!)

Soul
3040 Waialae Avenue
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone:808.735.SOUL (7685)
UPDATE: Soul closed as of 7/2012, but is scheduled to relocate to another location soon!

hawaii shops

So after we ate our yogurt, we headed out to Waikele to check out some of the shops there.

I found these cute boxes of Jelly Belly with Hello Kitty on them at Borders, which will make cute omiyage (souvenirs) for people in Japan.

I also picked up more Bubble Shack soaps at Target. These are made in Hawaii and will wash away any wintry blues or homesickness you may have.

This time around I picked up Local Shave Ice, which smells sweet like the shave ice syrups, Pikake (Jasmine) & Tuberose which do smell like my favorite flowers!

I love how their soaps smell and can't wait to use these in the up coming months!

yogurtland

Saturday, I met up with BFF. We debated whether we should eat yogurt or drink coffee.

Yogurt won, so we headed to Yogurtland, which is located close to where we both live.

The sign out in front said that there was a new flavor...Chocolate coconut truffle, you know this was going to be good (sort of).

Inside, the place was packed with kids already on sugar highs and their parents, it was REALLY loud and noisy!

I chose a dollop of chocolate coconut truffle, a mixed dollop of double cookies 'n cream/dutch chocolate and a dollop of peanut butter.

As for toppings, I put some crushed butterfinger on the peanut butter, mistakenly put some coconut flakes on the cookie chocolate swirl and some sliced almonds on the chocolate coconut truffle.

They also had something called "popping yogurt" which looked like tapioca.

Not knowing what it was, I took a little of it...well, you know how ikura (fish roe) pops in your mouth and you get a blast of saltiness? This was the same except it was sweet.

We think the label was wrong though because we swore the blast was lychee not yogurt flavored.

I also had a frosted animal cracker, boy, those things are getting smaller.

By the time we bought our yogurt, the crowd had weaned and we were able to sit and chat without having to shout at each other.

It was great to catch-up over some yogurt and then we were ready to do some shopping.

hawaii

Yesterday was quite a long day.

After pushing off from the gate, they realized that the interior lighting wasn't working so, we had to be pulled back in for them to fix it.

I think if the flight had been during the daytime, they wouldn't have turned back to fix it, but since this flight was at night, interior lighting was kinda important.

So, we started out being half an hour delayed.

Which didn't seem too bad, I fell asleep before we took off and the next thing I knew was that dinner was being served.

The one thing I noticed was that we were never asked to choose between the types of meals being served. In fact, all of us on the upper deck had the same meal, and a really skimpy meal, in my opinion.

A hamburger patty served on scrambled egg, grossly sweet teriyaki sauce and some wilted looking cooked veggies and rice. There was also a salad with a dollop of egg salad, a piece of squid & a cherry tomato. A really teeny bowl of fruit with 3 cubes of apple and a sliver of canned pear.

Most people rave about the food they've had on JAL, but with all their financial problems, I think they've had to change some of their ways.

Highlight of dinner was this:Mon Chou Chou's roll cake. I'm glad they didn't change this part of the meal.

I was able to watch a Japanese film & "Alice in Wonderland", both were good in my opinion.

After landing, I had thought we would take the Wiki-Wiki to Immigrations, but with all the construction around the airport, we didn't. Instead, we had to walk from one end of the airport to the other through a man-made sort of tunnel.

Getting through immigrations didn't take me too much time, it was the overlapping of 3 flights that sent baggage into overload that snagged me.

It took almost half an hour just to get my bags!

When I finally came out it was just before noon, my parents had driven round and round the airport plus down Lagoon Drive...we had a quick take-out lunch from Burger King and then I had a short nap.

It was nice to see my Grandma and Aunty at dinner and nice to be in cooler conditions even though we had some light rains.

It is good to be home, even though it was a long day.

bambucha

I know I said the next post would be from Hawaii, but I just had to share with you this awesome find before I left.

The day before I was to leave for Hawaii, I was in the "boycott" market because it was really hot, I didn't want to walk too far, and I only needed a couple items.

They were having a Tottori fair. If you remember we went to Tottori in 2008.

Anyway, as I happened to walk past the produce area, I noticed this beauty.

Most veggies in Japan markets are not sold with their greens so this really stood out.

Another thing that stood out was the price...110 yen (about US$1.10) for this one bambucha (huge) beet!

Even though I was supposed to be cleaning out my fridge to go to Hawaii, I had to get it.

The last time I saw a beet in the market was a couple of weeks back (and before that I'd never ever seen one in the markets here), it had no greens on top, it was half the size of this one (or smaller) and they were trying to charge 498 yen (about US$4.98) for it!

As I brought it home, I loved how the greens peeked out above the lip of my tote bag.

After bringing it home, I wondered how I should cook it. Usually when we have fresh beets in Hawaii, I think my mom steams them.

Instead I decided to roast this one because I didn't want to stand by the stove.

Though I have roasted all sorts of other veggies, this was my first time roasting a beet, especially one this large.

After chopping off the greens, I washed the beet then drizzled olive oil and popped it into a 220C (425F) oven for 30 minutes.

While the beet was roasting, I washed the greens and stalks and threw them into a heated dry pan and added some water and covered it to wilt and steam them.

After 10 minutes or so, I took them out and chopped up the greens.

When the beet was done roasting I let it cool and peeled the thin layer of skin off.

Usually when we eat this in Hawaii, we make a shoyu-mayo mixture to dip into or just eat with mayo (Best Foods, of course).

I've heard our President doesn't like beets...he doesn't know what he's missing.