Lunch at Gina's

teri beef plate

C & G Luncheons

C & G Luncheons
218 Merchant Street by Alakea

I was having trouble deciding where to eat breakfast this morning; first I went to Great Harvest, but they don't sell Cinnamon bread on Fridays and I didn't feel like a scone again (delicious but a little heavy with all of that cream cheese). Then I went next door to NYC Bagels (also on Merchant) but wasn't impressed with anything they had. It was cheap ($2 for a bagel with egg or cream cheese) but the bagels came out of a plastic bag and were toasted in a mini home toaster oven.

I was going to just go to work and skip breakfast, but then I saw a long line across the street at C&G. For breakfast, they offer breakfast plates (eggs, fried rice, and your choice of breakfast meats), toast, or french toast. I tried the fried rice and a piece of cornbread. The fried rice was pretty boring (a single piece of green onion and a few bits of bacon), I wouldn't go back for that. The cornbread was awesome though, the bisquick variety, like my aunty Mag used to bring to family dinners when I was little. Total: $3.59

*Update: I found out they only bake cornbread on Thursdays & Fridays. And not every Thursday/Friday, last week when I went the sweet worker told me they hadn’t made any that day.

Aunty Mag's Cornbread Muffin Recipe

This recipe is a tradition in our family for the holidays. It’s completely unrelated to real cornbread but SO delicious. It makes a ton of muffins (if you don’t make it in the 9x13” pan), so I would always hide some in the kitchen before I put them out in a basket on the dining table. That way I’d have some for breakfast for the next week.

Ingredients
1 ½ blocks of margarine
4 beaten eggs
2 c. milk
2 c sugar
4 c. bisquick
6 tb. Cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda

1. Melt the margarine, let cool
2. Beat in eggs and milk
3. Stir in dry ingredients
4. Pour into muffin tins or greased 9x13” pan
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

KCC Farmer's Market

Trader Joe's

So I was on the mainland recently and got to shop at Trader Joe’s. Since I know everyone in Hawaii would die to have one here, I thought I’d post some pics of the yummy stuff I got there. (Unfortunately I was in Philadelphia, so there was no ‘2 buck chuck’ since PA doesn’t allow grocery stores to sell alcohol)

In the picture:

Focaccini – I bought these cuz they looked nice and cheesy but I was disappointed

Reduced carb whole wheat tortillas – I’m not into the low-carb diet, but I like these tortillas because they are softer than normal ones

Danish Blue cheese – for salads

Cantare Olive Tapenade – we can get this at Hawaii Costco! (I read in Fortune magazine that Hawaii Costco has the highest per square foot sales of any Costco store in the US)

Trader Joe’s private label Gazpacho – very raw, heavy on the onions

Trader Joe’s private label Dolmas – yum. These are awesome. I threw them into salads. I’d never had refrigerated dolmas, but they held up well.

Review: Hale Vietnam (Kaimuki)

Hale Vietnam.
1140 12th Ave (across from American Savings Bank)


Vietnamese food has been a big trend for me recently. I just crave the hot clear soup broths and the fresh herbs in all of the dishes. Probably the first restaurant I had vietnamese food was at Hale Vietnam. Hale Vietnam (in the popular Kaimuki dining area) is always packed. Having never been to Vietnam, I can't vouch for their authenticity, but I love eating there.

Every single time I’ve been to Hale Vietnam, it’s been packed. The most recent trip we saw 2 tables of Japanese tourists, perhaps HV has made it into the tour guidebooks now. The décor is very casual.

We ordered the sour soup with vegetables, cold noodles with lemongrass chicken, and tofu with peanut sauce. Each dish had a very different flavor, but they all went well together.

*sour soup*


The sour soup is my favorite. It’s a clear broth flavored with lemongrass and galangal that is super sour. It’s a flavor totally unique to Vietnamese cuisine. Then it’s filled with veggies: taro stalk (a spongey green veggie, looks a little like zucchini), tomatoes, onions, and tofu.
*left, chicken bun. right, tofu with peanut sauce*

The tofu with peanut sauce reminded me of a Chinese dish. It had a very peanutty sauce, some onions, and was topped with cilantro. The lemongrass chicken noodles were interesting: cool rice noodles, topped with boneless lemongrass chicken stir fried with celery, and liberally sprinkled with green onions and cilantro. It came with a sweet-spicy chili sauce on the side.

Plus, the giant buddha in the front is just so cool.

Nicos Breakfast Lunch & Seafood

I was looking forward to trying Nicos after hearing so many good things about it. Nicos is an ‘upscale plate lunch’ place, meaning that he offers high-end restaurant quality fish at plate lunch prices.

Nicos opens early in the morning (when the fish market opens!) and closes at 5 pm. I’m not sure what they serve for breakfast, but at lunch it’s fish, fish and fish! (Oh, and I guess they have burgers too).

The day we went, I ordered the furikake crusted seared ahi, and Jennie had the beer battered fish sandwich with French fries. The ahi was excellent; it was completely black with furikake on the outside which went nicely with the rice. The meal came with a mesclun greens salad on the side.

*Seared Ahi*


*Fish Sandwich*


I’m not such a huge fish fan, so I wouldn’t head specially out to Pier 38 for Nicols but I would eat here again. Especially since I haven’t tried the desserts (they only had the chocolate ones left the day we were there, and I hate chocolate.) which I’ve heard are amazing.

Ode to the lilikoi

Smooth round golden globes
Cut open dripping with juice and orange-yellow pulp
Black crunchy seeds
Sweeter than candy
Like sunshine on a summer day

My aunty has one bumper crop of lilikoi this summer. Her vines drop literally at least 20 fruit a day on the grass. It was my job to pick them up while she was on vacation, and I had to go to her yard everyday otherwise the neighborhood pets would prey on the fruit. It was like an easter egg hunt since her garden is on a small hill, tracking down the fruit and seeing where the had rolled.

I tried to make lilikoi butter mochi one day (regular butter mochi, replacing one cup water with one cup lilikoi juice). Here’s a photo. The lilikoi flavor unfortunately did not stand out very well.