Sushi Man

The other weekend we celebrated Mike's grandparents 90th birthdays! We had a Sushi Man come over to Mike's aunty and uncle's house and he and his wife prepared sushi-to-order and other Japanese food. 

Here's a picture of some of the nigiri sushi

Here's the set-up of the sushi.  I had some California rolls and some spicy tuna rolls.

We also had garlic chicken, noodles, green salad, macaroni salad, and BBQ meat.

Dessert was lemon crunch cake from The Alley.  Yum!

Snow Puffies

The other weekend, Mike and I attended a birthday party and someone brought Snow Puppies.  Well, at least that's what I heard her call it. I thought, what a cute name for a pastry.

I searched "snow puppies hawaii" online and then realized that these cream filled Napoleon-like pastries are called, "Snow Puffies."

These are so airy and not too sweet.  I'll have to remember to stop by this bakery if I am ever on this side of the island again.

Paalaa Kai Bakery
66-945 Kaukonahua Rd
Waialua, HI 96791
(808) 637-9795

Boston's North End Pizza

Mike and I were excited when Living Social had a deal for Boston's North End Pizza. I remember enjoying the Garlic and Spinach pizza with the signature thin and slightly chewy crust. 

We ordered of a garlic, spinach, and mushroom and the Big Read (tomatoes, spinach, garlic, mushrooms and tomato sauce). In reality, we just ordered two slices of each flavor.  One slice is a quarter of a pizza. 

Here's a close-up shot of the "Big Red"' pizza. My mom wanted this pizza. The crust was a bit too soggy and could have been due to the tomato sauce and the fresh tomatoes on the top.  Next time, I would not order pizza with tomatoes on it. I don't think it adds much flavor and I'm not a fan of the texture of partially cooked tomatoes.

We paid $15 for the $30 Living Social coupon, so the pizza cost $15, instead of the $30 it would have been.

Boston's North End Pizza
98-298 Kamehameha Hwy
Aiea, HI 96701
(808) 487-4055

Lau Lau

Back in the beginning of the year, Mike's uncle visited from Kauai and brought us some taro and taro leaves from his taro farm.  We decided to make laulau and I was super stoked because I had never made laulau before.  

Fresh taro leaves from Kauai.

Prepared Pork

Salmon. Mike's dad made laulau containing a mixture of salmon, shitake mushrooms, carrots, and mayonnaise. It was delicious!

At the end, we made some laulau with pork and salmon.

Wrapping the laulau in ti leaf.

Tying it with string.

The big pile of laulau ready to be cooked.

Mike's grandpa made this huge pot! He welded and shaped (I think those are the correct terms) it for the specific purpose to make a huge batch of laulau. Isn't that neat?

Making the layers in the pot.

Placing the uncooked laulau in the pot.

After many hours of cooking, we took the laulau out.  You might be wondering why there is foil in the pot.  That's how we differentiated between the pork laulau and the salmon laulau.  

Yum!

Mom's Cooking

Now that Mike and I are back home in Hawaii, we usually stop by my parents' house at least once a week (or once every two weeks when we were sick).  If we're lucky and my mom has time, she invites us over for home-cooked meals.  Here's another spread from her house.  

Pickled Vegetables

Shiraae-Yum! I have to get the recipe from my mom. It's basically mashed up tofu, watercress, carrots, konnyaku, shitake mushrooms, sesame seeds, and other things.  

Agedashi Tofu

Kabocha Pumpkin

My mom's slaw concoction consisting of mayonnaise, cabbage, carrots, onions, imitation crab, and seaweed salad.

Crab and Edamame Sushi Rice

Mike wanted to make a fancy sushi rice type of dish for a potluck at a friend's house.  We were on this Edamame Rice fix from the previous week, so he decided to combine it with a Crab and Shitake Rice recipe.

Mike made edamame rice. He did not follow a recipe, but this is my best guess at his recipe:
Edamame Rice
 4 cups uncooked medium grain rice
1 bag (1 lb bag) shelled, frozen edamame
1/2 bottle aji furikake.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker. Boil some water, throw the frozen edamame into the water and quickly drain the water (you want to do this quickly so you do not overcook the edamame-overcooking results in mushy edamame).  Add the edamame and furikake to the rice.  Transfer mixture to a 9x13" pan.

Mike placed his edamame rice in the fridge (you do not have to refrigerate the edamame rice prior to putting the crab topping on it. we just did this to save time the following day) and the next day I continued the rice-making process.  

I chopped up about 8 oz (1/2 lb) of imitation crab.  

Then added mayonnaise until the imitation crab looked coated (1/2-1cup mayonnaise). I did not have sour cream, so I decided not to add it to the mixture.  Then I spread it over the rice, popped it in the oven on broil for 15-20 minutes and took it out of the oven.  FYI-Not including sour cream is a BAD idea.  While Mike was watching the sushi broil in the oven he yelled, "Oh no, it looks like the mayonnaise is sinking to the bottom of the pan!" I don't think the mayonnaise was dripping to the bottom of the pan, but I do think that adding sour cream would help maintain the crab layer on top of the rice.  

This recipe needs a few more tweaks.  1) I think that the sour cream is necessary in the recipe.  2) The shitake mushrooms or nametake mushrooms should be added to the rice or the crab topping.
I feel that there was something missing in our Crab and Edamame rice. It was missing that extra pizazz to take it from "average" to "great."  It might have been missing an umami flavor that mushrooms could provide.

Home Cooked Meals

The other night my mom invited Mike and me over for dinner.  It was an assortment of home-cooked Japanese food. This is the kind of food that we missed when we were living in Texas.  Mike and I never had time to cook these time-consuming dishes that my mom cooked.  We usually ate one dish meals and occasionally had a side dish if we had the time to spare.  

Deep-fried hasu (lotus root). My mom had extra lotus root and wanted to make an appetizer that she heard was at some restaurant (that's really descriptive, huh?) Anyways, I thought that it was pretty tasty.

Namasu (Pickled Veggies)-Lotus root, carrots, cucumber and daikon.  She even cut the carrots into cute flower shapes.

Tempura!!! Sweet potato, Vegetable, Kabocha (pumpkin), and panko-crusted shrimp.  Mike loved all of this! We haven't had homemade tempura in a long time.   His favorite was the shrimp and the vegetable tempura.  My mom's vegetable tempura recipe contains: green beans, gobo (burdock root), onions, carrot, and kamaboko(fishcake).

Nishime!!! I have never made nishime before, so Mike and I have not eaten it for over the past three years. This is one of the most time-consuming Japanese foods to make.  My mom's version tastes just like my grandma's.  My mom's nishime contains: lotus root, araimo (Chinese taro), green beans, carrots, bamboo shoots, fried tofu, chicken, konnyaku, water chestnut, daikon, shitake mushrooms,

Japanese Style Potato Salad.  Potatoes, onions, cucumbers, kamaboko, carrots, mayonnaise. I'm sure that there are other ingredients, but that is what I could taste in her salad.  

Spam Lumpia?

Things have finally calmed down here in Hawaii.  Mike and I have unpacked and enjoyed the holidays with family and friends.  So now I have to budget some of my free time (baby nap time) to start posting on my blog again.  I have a bunch of drafts from restaurants in Texas that I still have to post and then I can begin posting about our food adventures in Hawaii. 

Mike wanted to make some spam wontons (Yes, we are back in Hawaii!) to bring to a potluck party, but when he went to a local grocery store, the wonton wrappers were super expensive (I think about 20 cents a piece), so he called me up and asked me what I thought about spam lumpia (lumpia wrappers were cheaper than won ton wrappers). FYI-lumpia is kind of like a Filipino egg roll that is usually filled with meat and vegetables. 

 

Mike had already made a spam wonton filling (spam, water chestnuts, oyster sauce, green onions) and then had to add other vegetables (onions, carrots, cabbage) to convert the spam wonton filling into spam lumpia filling. 
On a sidenote, here's a fun game. Look at the picture above, can you guess which lumpia Mike rolled and which ones I did?  Is it obvious?

Mike enjoyed the spam lumpia and felt that they were more flavorful than standard lumpia.  I tend to disagree. Maybe it's because I grew up with my Mom's awesome lumpia which has pork, beef and shrimp in the filling! I'll have to blog about my mom's lumpia one day. Maybe she will let me share her recipe!

We had some extra lumpia wrappers and decided to make some banana lumpia too.  Yum!
Well, so far it is great to be back home in Hawaii.

Hawaii~Gulick Delicatessan

I haven't been to Gulick Delicatessen in years. Come to think about it, I am not sure if I have ever been there in my life. My parents were raving about the corned beef hash patty that they ate there, so Mike and I picked up lunch there on the way to visiting my grandpa. 

Look at all the choices. It was a bit overwhelming because there was a long line of people who knew what they wanted and knew the system of ordering. Mike and I were a bit lost with the hustle and bustle and ended up pointing at random food items to order. I'm sure if I had more time to take in all the signs and choices I would have ordered more items.

This was the plate I picked out for my grandpa.  He doesn't eat much nowadays but likes shrimp tempura and inari sushi.  I also ordered a couple of those hash patties my parents recommended. Plus my mom thought that Gulick adds some kind of starch to the patty so that it has an extra crunch, and I told her I'd taste it and tell her what I thought. (She thought that they added mochiko, but after Mike and I tasted it, we think it's just a standard hash patty that is fried in a lot of oil for a period of time so a crust forms on the surface). 

This is the plate that Mike ordered. I guess he likes his carbs! My grandpa ended up eating the vegetable tempura (which was great) because I was afraid that his appetite shrank and was glad to see him enjoying the food. 

Gulick Delicatessen

1512 Gulick Ave
Honolulu, HI 96819
(808) 847-1461

Poke Bowls

One of the foods that Mike misses the most is raw fish. Be in sashimi, sushi, and poke. I'm sure that there are a lot of restaurants in Texas that serve high quality raw fish, but Mike and I have not tested those waters yet. Therefore, during our short vacation back home to Hawaii, we ate tons of raw fish.  Wait, for those of you who know me, let me rephrase that last sentence, "Mike ate a lot of raw fish." 

Paina Cafe's poke bowl.  Mike ordered a bowl with half shoyu poke and half spicy tuna. We opted to add a taegu topping to the bowl. My parents really like the additional taegu.

Mike's friend ordered the "Hawaiian Poke Bowl" which includes kalua pig, lomi salmon and your choice of poke. At $7.25 for this bowl, I'd say it is a good deal!

Poke from Foodland.

Spicy tuna from Foodland

Tako (Octopus) Poke from Foodland

I read about Ono Seafood on another blog and wanted to check it out. You can choose between shoyu poke, spicy tuna poke, tako poke, or any combination of the three pokes.  The poke bowl is reasonably priced at $6 and that includes a can of juice/soda or a bottle of water

I ordered the spicy tuna bowl. . This spicy tuna was composed of raw fish, onions, green onions, and tabiko (flying fish eggs). I liked the addition of the crunchy fish eggs, but I was not a fan of all the raw onions in my spicy tuna.  It was more of a gourmet type spicy tuna rather than the traditional conveyor belt sushi bar spicy tuna.

Paina Cafe

Ward Warehouse
1200 Ala Moana Blvd
#24
Honolulu, HI 96814
(808)356-2829
Ono Seafood
747 Kapahulu Ave Apt 4
Honolulu, HI 96816
(808) 732-4806