All Hail the Mighty...V?

T and I went to watch "Harry Potter" today.  The movie was good and I enjoyed it but I got the biggest laugh from one of the commercials that played prior to the film.  It definitely falls into the category of "Whoa, didn't see that one coming!"  I thought it was funny but there are a number of feminists who have their balls in an uproar over it.  Though I can see some of their points, I decided to let this one go.  T's reaction said it all:  "Really?" I only wish this blog could capture that mingled tone of disbelief and you're-kidding-me-right? tone in his voice. that pretty much said it all.

Just click on this blog's title and it'll take you there!

The (modified) Food Quest

As my sons are less than intrigued by the idea of "questing" and are more focused on the "consuming," I decided to expand our Food Quest; rather than focusing only on places we've never been to, I decided to include some of our great neighborhood eats--and there are a lot!

There is a little mall called City Square on Dillingham Boulevard--most of us don't know it by that name; we identify it as "the place where the DMV is located" or, if you are really old school, it's "where Gem's used to be." If you make your way behind the DMV and Chuck E. Cheese's, you will find a small wealth of good eating places and locally owned shops such as Ko'olau Farmers and Kalihi Pet Center.  Pancakes and Waffles can be found on the Kohou Street side.

I am partial to "breakfast" food and have no problem with eating it at any point during my day.  In addition to the expected offerings of bacon and omelets, P & W puts its own spin on classic dishes such as Eggs Benedict (beautifully poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce on 2 little, crispy brown waffles), and fried chicken and waffles (either served with brown gravy on the side or honey butter.  One dish that C especially loves is vinha d'alhos, a vinegary Portuguese pork that is reminiscent of Filipino adobo.

The meals run in the $10 and below range but servings are generous--the chicken and waffle plate comes with one large waffle and three large thighs!  Definitely enough to share or to satisfy the most significant of appetites.  Other pluses:  parking is plentiful and service is courteous and brisk.  A few downsides:  since they are only open till 2 PM they do get crowded; going during non-peak hours (10 AM, or so) is recommended;  drinks are self-serve and food is brought to your table after you order at the counter.  Minor points, but ones that some consumers may consider important to know.

Waffles for brunch, pancakes for dinner.  What's not to love?

Food Quest, Day 4.5

After having lunch at Choi's Garden, we ran a few errands and decided to stop off for some shave ice.  When you consider that Hawaii has perfect weather for shave ice and my family really enjoys eating it, you would think we would take the time to get it more often.  One of the biggest deciding factors for me is both places we frequent, Shimazu on School Street and Waiola on, well, Waiola Street, have horrible parking situations.  Shimazu is on a main thoroughfare and though there is metered parking nearby, on really hot, and therefore busy days, one's chances of getting a nearby slot are rather slim.  Waiola is on a corner in a fairly quiet residential area so parking is on a wherever-you-can-squeeze-into-that-does-not-have-a-fire-hydrant basis.

On this particular occasion, we found a nice sized space immediately across the street.  So far, so good!  Though there is always a line at Waiola, the service is brisk and we were munching on icy, fruity snow in minutes.

C ordered strawberry and lilikoi, I had lychee and strawberry and T decided on mango and lime.  Waiola's best qualities are a powdery, fine-textured ice and real fruit syrups that they make themselves.  The lychee syrup was nearly clear but fine bits of tan pulp were visible against the white ice.  Yummy stuff. 

We haven't eaten at Waiola since last summer and the one thing that disappointed us this time around was all of us had a fairly substantial white core in the middle of our cones where no syrup had gotten through.  There was a time when the syrup was uniformly distributed throughout--which of course, is one of the elements desired in a shave ice. 

We have been patronizing Waiola since the kids were small and working up a hyperactive lather at Old Stadium Park, just around the corner.  One of the things we always looked forward to was the promise of shave ice before we turned homeward.  Maybe the syrup thing was just a fluke.

Food Quest, Day 4

So our Food Quest has hit a big of a snag.  First of all, our momentum was interrupted because of my week-long jaunt to Anaheim at the end of June.  Second of all, I am finding that my sons are less interested in the "quest" part of the journey than they are in the "food" part; I had thought that part of the fun would be doing a little internet research on places that we would be interested in trying.  I thought.  T and C seem to feel otherwise.  Neither of them have been motivated enough to do a little 'net surfing to find new and exciting places to eat.  They just want to eat. Which makes it pretty much Mom's choice all the time.  Fine.

Two Thursdays ago we went to Choi's Garden (on Rycroft, behind Wal-Mart).  I had gone there previously and the biggest draw is definitely their yakiniku menu; portion sizes are generous and there is a vast selection of different meats and vegetables.  Since neither of the two boys felt like cooking their own meal when we went to Choi's, we ordered off their regular menu (it's huge!).

The accompanying veggies were delicious and somewhat unusual; besides the kim chee, there were also bean sprouts, konnyaku, tofu, and ong choi.  We each got a bowl of soup with wakame.

I ordered a stone pot with beef and mixed vegetables. T had something similar except his was with seafood.  I believe C had a mixed BBQ plate of some sort--sorry, it's been 2 weeks and I just can't recall without a photo!

T's hot pot had a nice variety of seafood--scallops, shrimp, fish and a whole baby octopus!  I thought his meal choice was tempting except for one thing; there was a large quantity of raw watercress over the top.  Watercress is evil.  But I digress.

The food is very good but somewhat pricey; plates average about $15 which is nearly twice as much as I have paid for very similar food elsewhere.  I was more willing to pay a higher amount for their yakiniku selections; those at least, were "different" from what I encountered at other korean grills.  Though service at Choi's is prompt and efficient, I have to say that in several Korean restaurants that I have frequented, I always get significantly better service when E and/or the boys are along with me.  I hate to say it but the part-Korean blood really does come in handy here--in this particular instance, more than once, I noticed one of the waiters and one of the waitresses studying the faces at our table.  When we were part-way through the meal, the waiter came up and asked if we wanted more veggies.  A few minutes later, the waitress asked the same thing.  The degree of warmth just gets a little more so at these places.  I guess I shouldn't complain!

Choi's does get pretty busy for both lunch and dinner so reservations are recommended.  The parking lot is small but they do have a valet who will take care of your vehicle when the lot fills up.  They are a bit pricey but there is a huge variety of dishes and their yakiniku is definitely worth a try, at least once.  Let me know if you want to borrow either of the boys--you just may get more veggies that way! ;-)

Food Quest, Day 3

Today was my choice.  I selected Hinone Mizunone on S. King Street near Keeaumoku.  I have passed this restaurant on a number of occasions and decided it was time to give it a try.  The boys and I got there around 11:30 AM (the place opens at 11) and the parking lot, which is pretty small, was already filled to capacity.  We were fortunate to find a metered parking stall nearby. 

The restaurant is a lot smaller than I had imagined it to be and there were at least 6 parties ahead of us crammed into a small side room.  We were assured that a table for 3 would be ready in about 20 minutes.  We decided to wait (outside) and in about 15 minutes we were seated.  During our wait, people kept coming, but they were also going--though this is a sit-down restaurant, the impression was one of fast food; the customer turnover was extremely rapid.

We were seated by 12:00 and there was already a sign that announced the daily special (teriyaki chicken for $8.50) was sold out.  Wow.  The menu was not as extensive as I had anticipated but it did feature some classic teishoku plates:  tonkatsu, chicken karaage, misoyaki butterfish, grilled salmon and so forth.  There were several udon/curry combinations as well.  Our waiter was efficient but his brisk, businesslike attitude unintentionally (I am assuming) indicated that building a warm and fuzzy server-diner relationship was pretty low on his list of priorities.

C ordered the tonkatsu teishoku with ponzu, I ordered the misoyaki butterfish teishoku and T ordered the shrimp tempura udon and curry combo.  The prices are reasonable; teishoku meals average $10-14 and T's combo was about $15.  T also ordered a green apple soda which he really enjoyed.

The teishoku plates were attractively plated and came with an individual rice container, miso soup, gobo, takuan and kabocha.  My meal came significantly ahead of the boys' though.  I thought that was a bit strange.  The miso soup was very tasty and full of small cubes of tofu and bean sprouts.  C enjoyed the flavors of the tonkatsu and ponzu and said he preferred it to the traditional tomato-based katsu sauce so many other places serve.  He also liked the kabocha a great deal; I thought it was good but a tad on the sweet side.  The butterfish was moist and delicious and T's udon filled him up so much that he couldn't finish the curry.  He enjoyed them both though.

I didn't take pictures of the boys' meals because C gave me one of his Mom-is-embarrassing-me looks when I snapped the photo of my teishoku and T's green apple soda.

So overall:  on the plus side the food is very good and the prices are reasonable; service is efficient and brisk.  On the down side:  parking sucks--the lot is small and the street parking during the weekday is only 1 hour; this means I had to drop another quarter in midway through the meal (we had that 15 minute wait at the beginning, remember?); daily specials sell out extremely quickly (judging by today anyway); the noise level is very high since the restaurant is pretty much one large square with lots of wooden surfaces and the high speed service does not make this a place you would feel encouraged to linger and chat in (we were out in under an hour).  Since the chatting is a big part of the dining experience, at least for me, I felt slightly cheated somehow.

Food Quest, Day 2

It was T's turn to choose and he opted for Panya Bistro and Bakery in Ala Moana Center.  Panya is an Asian/Italian/American fusion restaurant that features a rather expansive menu of appetizers, salads, noodles, sandwiches and drinks.  Their bakery is set-up in the front of the restaurant so the variety of breads and sweet treats are a temptation going in and coming out; bakery items can be served at table with a modest serving fee.

T ordered the fried baby octopus appetizer and when they say "baby octopus" they mean baby octopus; tiny tentacles curled and crisped are still attached to the head.  C declined--whether it's because he was saving himself for his lunch or because T's comment that he could, "see where the eye used to be" grossed him out too much, I could not fathom.  The little darlings were quite tasty (though chewy) and the mixture of mayo and shoyu that accompanied them, though not my dip of choice, went over well.

The boys opted for ramen--C had miso and T had the gomoku which had a shoyu base.  Both bowls had a generous serving of noodles, flavorful broth and an abundance of toppings that included aburage, shiitake mushrooms, kamaboko and bean sprouts.  C said the miso had a bit of a kick to it and he enjoyed the broth so much that he finished it off completely.  T enjoyed his as well but filled up rather quickly; must be from all the tentacles tangoing in his tummy.

I had the baked pork chop which was basically rice fried with egg then topped with thin slices of onion, peas and bread pork chop slices all swimming in a tomato sauce.  Think smothered tonkatsu and you'll get the picture.  Though the pork was tender (and boneless, which is a plus), I found the rice rather ordinary and the tomato sauce was too sweet for my taste. 

The appetizers are priced in the $8-10 range and the meals average $10-18 or so for good-sized portions and lots of variety.  Our waitress was friendly and efficient but the bakery workers at the door, who also doubled as hosts, left much to be desired.  The initial greeting was cursory and we were waved in the general direction of our table where our waitress greeted us and seated us. When we paid for our bakery items on the way out, the man who rang up our purchases was talking on the phone while also talking to the girl who was wrapping up our treats--in Korean.  She did say thank you when she gave me my change.

Overall rating--good food, reasonable prices and good table service.  I hope they work on the other stuff.

The Great Food Quest!

So the boys and I decided to spend at least part of our summer on a quest for food.  It's a noble endeavor, this seeking of restaurants we have not yet discovered and one we are willing to take on.  For the greater, uh, good.  The only requirements we have established thus far:  we take turns picking places and we try to pick places we either rarely frequent or have never frequented before.  Ever.

Today was C's pick and he opted for Greek cuisine.  We headed over to The Greek Marina located in the Koko Marina Shopping Center.  The Greek Marina is a small-ish place that features both inside and outside dining.  The patio option allows diners a very up-close view of the marina along with its ducky inhabitants.  Though the ducks have been known to wander up to the walkway to scrutinize diners, they were well-behaved and kept to the water today.

We started with appetizers of tzatziki (yogurt mixed with dill and shredded cucumber, served with pita bread) and spanakopita (filo turnovers stuffed with feta and spinach).  The combination of yogurt and cucumber is spectacular and even C who does not really care for cucumber, thoroughly enjoyed the tzatziki. T, who has never eaten Greek food before, seemed to really like the spanakopita and was even able to get the pronunciation down--unlike his older brother who couldn't get the pronunciation down before and now finds it amusing to say "spankatopia" instead. 

We all opted for the gyro as our main course.  The one time C and I went there before, the gyro were solo sandwiches.  This time, we each got a full plate.  Triangles of pita are served alongside a generous portion of thinly sliced lamb and beef. The meat was lightly crisped along the edges and well-seasoned; the additional yogurt dip that came along with it complemented the meat nicely.  A Greek salad of sliced Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, sprinkles of feta and kalamata olives was included as well.  The salad dressing had a pleasant zing and the only item that was not enjoyed by any of us were the olives; T and I aren't big on olives in general and C found it far too briney for his tastes.

The appetizers averaged $8-10 and the gyro plates were about $12.  The portions are generous, the service friendly and prompt. The Greek Marina at Koko Marina Shopping Center.  We highly recommend it.