Category: Food

Every place I’ve visited, I’ve sampled or devoured huge quantities of the local food/cuisines I’ve encountered (ramen anyone??).
Honolulu is no different. It’s extremely warm here, even in January when the rest of the states are freezing their collective asses off. And since it’s warm here, shaved ice is very popular here.
Now, you’d think shaved ice is the easiest thing to make. You shave some ice. Plop it into a cup. Pour syrup of different colours and flavours on top. Voila, instant treat AND hydration. But like an In & Out Double-Double, it’s deceptively difficult to make it well.
Think for a minute. A Double-Double is made of of ingredients. Two beef patties and two slices of cheese. Lettuce. Tomato. Onions. Thousand Island sauce. Fresh bun. You can try making this yourself, using the same ingredients but it won’t taste the same. Same thing with the shaved ice thing in Honolulu.
I hiked up Diamond Head today. Why? Because it was there and it was nearby the Waiola Bakery (more about that later). Also, it was just to see if I could still do it.
Mental note: Do this climb before the sun comes up next time! But once on top, the views were worth it.

I think all of Hawaii is about great views…

The visitor facility is inside the crater. That’s what you’re looking at.
Like an idiot, I began this hike at 1100 and didn’t come down until after 1300. In the parking lot, there’s a snack truck that sells snacks and beverages for tourists that didn’t plan ahead and have whiny loud kids. They have burgers, beverages, bottled water. And they offer shaved ice. In a moment of weakness (since I finished my water coming halfway down the mountain), I ordered one. The shaved ice tasted good enough since it was drowned in syrup, but the texture of the ice was like little chunks. Not really smooth but in the condition I was in, it was refreshing enough. I didn’t think much about it until I drove over to the Waiola Bakery.

Dun look like much, does it?
The Waiola Bakery has a bakery on site, through the doors on the left. On the right, they make shaved ice. Back in the day, there were many local, family run establishments like this. Sadly, they’re an endangered species as the local attractions they served (such as the old Honolulu Stadium that used to be across the street) shut down or get demolished.

The menu for shaved ice. All sorts of options.
Besides the basic “rainbow” where you get three colors (flavors) of syrup on your shaved ice, you can get it topped with different toppings or even get ice cream or nuts or fruit inside the shaved ice. I got the “rainbow”.

Here’s a “rainbow”, 2/3rds of it gone!
It was very very VERY good! The ice is shaved finely, unlike my Diamond Head shaved ice. Because of the finer shaved ice, the syrup gets completely absorbed instead of just collecting at the bottom of the cup with the melted ice, nee water. So you get a sweet treat AND hydration! Because it’s hot here and you’ll need it. Just get here before 1830, because that’s when they close!
Waiola Bakery & Shaved Ice
525 Kapahulu Avenue
Honolulu HI 96815-3854
808-735-8886

It’s Sunday night and normally I’d be watching football. Instead, I was prowling Honolulu’s Chinatown for a place to eat.
But since I’m in Hawaii and Hawaii is two hours behind California, which is three hours behind New York, watching football becomes an early morning thing. Which means that if you can get up early to watch the games, you still have the rest of the day to do stuff.
Generally, the early Sunday game begins at 1300 EST. That translates to 1000 in San Francisco, which means 0800 in Hawaii. The afternoon game begins at 1100 in Hawaii. And Sunday “night” football during the regular season begins at 1500 here. That means if the game ends on time, it’s 1900 here and you can actually do stuff afterwards. Back in SFO, the late game ends around 2100 which means it’s time to clean up and to pack it in for the evening.
Tonight, I had dinner at the Green Door Cafe. It’s a very small restaurant with four tables and one chef/waitperson. I walked by this place and smelled the mix of spices and food wafting out the door and ducked inside to take a look.

The menu changes each day, depending on what’s available to cook and the owner’s mood
Inside, there was a redhead in a red dress who was waiting for a table and her two roommates for dinner. During the ten minutes she was waiting , she wound up with two more dining companions; a friend who saw her standing on the street as he was driving by and myself, for a total of five.
We ordered a LOT of food and devoured it. The Green Door Cafe specializes in Nonya cuisine (hailing from Malaysia and Singapore, primarily) which was not too spicy but with a lot of zing and punch to it. Yum!
There was roti canai, sticky rice, Nonya pork loin, Tai Tom Sum shrimp soup, Malaysian Chicken Curry, mixed veggie curry and fried tofu with bean sprouts on our table. Also two bottles of wine since it’s BYOB and no corkage here! WAAAAAH!

Fantastic food (often referred to as Chinatown’s best restaurant) and the smells and tastes here made miss Singapore (and a certain individual) that much more. Eat! But eat early, they close at 2000 and last orders are taken at 1930…
The Green Door Cafe
1145 Maunakea St.
Honolulu HI 96817
(808) 533-0606

Stumbled upon this ramen website via a story about Ando Momofuku, the father of instant noodles.
Apparently, there’s a guy who runs an appropriately named ramen fan site who has done the pilgrimage to Yokohama, like many of us have. Except his WIFE is also a ramen fiend. That’s hella cool, almost like having a g/f that’s into football and doesn’t mind riding on the back of the motorcycle…
Where do you find girls lidat??

So who is Ando Momofuku?
Well, he’s the reason why hundreds of thousands of college students survived! He invented the process to make instant noodles in 1958 and had the brilliant (BRILLIANT!) idea to put his instant noodles in a cup in 1971. You know his company and you know his company’s big product, Cup Noodles!
So tonight I will have some Shin Ramyun (from the ROK) because it’s cold out tonight. Thank you Ando-san!
Hmmm. Maybe this is where Momofuku in New York got their name from? It would make sense…

Peter Luger Steakhouse is an icon for those of us meat-a-tarians who eat meat. It’s one of the best steakhouses in the US and has been a mainstay in everyone’s “best steakhouse” listings since Fred and Barney ate there. I SMSed one of my buds who made it here before I did about a year ago that I was having lunch there. His reply? “You bitch“. Then he asked for a doggie bag. WAHAHAHAH

It looks old school because it is!

Well, maybe they’re not THAT old, but they’ve been around for a long time.
Anyway, I’ve been to New York three times since I was tipped off about the existence of Peter Luger’s but haven’t been able to go. Until today. I finally made it to the promised land of meat! Now where is the promised land of meat? It’s in Williamsburg which is a part of Brooklyn. Take the N or the R to Marcy Street and then follow the signs. It’s a good 6 minute walk from the Marcy Street station. Easy.
Peter Luger’s doesn’t take credit cards. Bring lots of cash. If you need cash, there’s a big HSBC across the street. They have a bar that you can wait at while you wait for your table. You will be drinking a lot of booze waiting. If you plan to come here for dinner, make reservations months in advance. You’ll have better luck at lunch where the wait was only an hour.

Even the steak sauce was good (and I dun usually use da stuff)
I decided to go full-on for lunch since A: This was my first time here and I wanted to see if the steak was all that, and B: I was flying home on UA that night and running around beforehand. UA = NO FOOD, even on its “Premium Service” flights. I asked the waiter what was good for a Peter Luger virgin and he asked me “how do you like your steak”?

I like it like this!
Well, it wound up being a medium rare porterhouse and the best US$50 lunch I’ve ever had. I couldn’t finish it all, it was such a meal. What I mean is that I couldn’t finish the meal. I devoured the steak but couldn’t finish the token greens that came along with it.
Go here. Eat. Revel in the “old school” that this place is and that it still exists. Be content.
Peter Luger Steakhouse
178 Broadway
Brooklyn NY 11211
718-387-7400
www.peterluger.com

We got all the guys together last night for a festival of food not on a Late Friday this time but an Early Saturday evening because two of the five guys attending are flying out on CX tomorrow night heading out to HKG. Lucky lah! There was Rib-Eye steaks all around. Homemade pesto over some kinda pasta, rabbit food (AKA “salad”) and smashed potatoes. We also had several bottles of red wine. Burp. And after a heavy meal lidat, you can figure out how motivated we all were to go out and debauch like we did last week.
Yeah right. WHAHAHAH. Whipped out the cameraphone to take pix.

Looks like someone gassed the room! Eeeew!

Just think, 10 minutes ago, they were all whining “wannagoout!”
I left them all lidat as I walked home at 2330. They all left late this morning! Good thing I didn’t need a ride…

When I’m stuck in San Francisco, I morph into a creature of habit. I ALWAYS go to the same places to eat, depending on what it is.
For example, when I want good ramen, I go to Santa or Himawari. For spicy Chinese food, I go to Spices. For izakaya fare, I go to Oyaji, each of these places I have written about at one time or another in this blog. Now, it’s not out of stubborn loyalty or benign ignorance but rather that these are the “best” places for these kinds of foods. There’s not a lot of diversity here in San Francisco, food or otherwise so ya gotta go with what you know.
There’s a small restaurant across from the Kinokuniya bookstore in the Japan Center here. Besides being a fully stocked bookstore (with all sorts of Japanese books, magazines and DVDs), it’s a good meeting place because traffic and transit here makes it impossible to meet at an agreed time after work.

“Want to eat?”
“Sure. Where to meet?”
“Meet me inside Kinokuniya and we’ll figure it out then”
Across from Kinokuniya is a small restaurant called Maki. It’s really small inside (19 seats!!) and has some tables outside.

I’ve run past this place soooo many times!
The menu is posted outside as well as all the accolades they’ve received. Lunch specials are a bit on the high side. Dinner is higher. Maki makes good Japanese comfort food like sukiyaki, shabu shabu and fresh made maki. Sounds ordinary, right? I mean, this is comfort food and the prices make it sound like a “date place”. However…
They specialize in Akita style udon, called inaniwa udon. Unlike typical udon that’s the width of TV cable (the kind you buy from Comcast) and has a chewy, almost undercooked doughy taste, inaniwa udon here is made fresh, is half the width of fettuccine and is very light on the palate. As is the broth. Yum.

This is the ebi udon and those are small tempura shrimps in the bowl along with a vegetable
I’m a self-confessed ramen guy and I’ve also developed a taste for Matsumoto soba. I never thought I’d like udon. Until now. It was really good! But be ready for sticker shock if you come here for dinner cuz this bowl costs….
US$18.00!! WAAAAAAAAH!
So this is definitely a date place, but unlike many date places in San Francisco, you will get a good quality meal and you’ll leave satisfied knowing you’ve had something unique.
And I’ve got to stop running past small hole in the wall restaurants like this in future…
maki
Kinokuniya Building
1825 Post Street
San Francisco CA 94115
415-921-5215