Coming home

Flying back to Hawaii tomorrow; can't wait! Expect more posts soon...

Ice Garden (Aiea)

Ice Garden

99-080 Kauhale St
Aiea Shopping Center

Yelp Reviews

From the outside, it's hard to spot

This old school shave ice bowl store offers a plethora of Taiwanese shave ices. You can have a bowl with regular shave ice (full range of flavors) or you can get the much more tempting bowls with mochi, flan pudding, taro, chocolate syrup, oatmeal (never seen that before!), condensed milk, etc.

We had the flan: 2 flans, ice (shaved sooo soft), sweetened condensed milk, and mochi balls. Then we tried the taro bowl: fresh taro balls, ice cream on shave ice.

Total for the two was around $7.

Yotteko-Ya Ramen/Kyoto Ramen

Yotteko-Ya

1960 Kapiolani Blvd
Ste 214
Honolulu, HI 96826

(808) 946-2900
Yelp reviews

Yotteko-ya (the sign also calls it Kyoto Ramen) is the home of the collagen broth: simmered for 10 hours with chicken & pork, that is supposed to be really good for your skin. And taste really good too.The special paitan ramen: the broth is more opaque from extra meat that's cooked into the broth I think
The original ramen (shoyu broth), with char siu (amazing) and veggies:
Kim chee ramen:

Inside the restaurant:

Lunch today: Shirokiya bento

Wanted to share some pics of my delicious lunch today from Shirokiya (Ala Moana shopping center):

2 bentos: butterfish & salmon
These artisinal musubi (handmade while you watch): seaweed, ume and salmon

Yummy's Yook kae jang

Yummy's is one of the places I always have to visit when I come home (I like the one at Don Quixote). OK, so it's a chain...but it's just so delicious and everything always tastes so fresh. Prices have gone up since I last went there ($7.99-8.99 for a plate) but it's still worth it!

This time I ordered the yook kae jang - lightly spicy (but very red) beef broth with rice noodles, shredded beef, and egg. It's one of those soups you just crave after being sick or on a cold, wet day. Sides I got (which were all wonderful) were long rice, kim chee, bean sprouts, and omelette roll.

Yogurtland has opened! (and it's better than Pinkberry)

Yogurtland, a new fro-yo shop has opened where Volcano Joe's used to be (on the corner of University and Metcalf, right across from UH). I'd drive down University everyday, wondering when it was going to finally open.

Super cute, bright, and airy inside (wonder if they have free wi-fi?)

It's the greatest idea ever - I can't believe no one has thought of this before. They have 16 flavors of fro yo, a topping bar (half is fresh fruit, half is dry toppings), all self-serve, for $0.39 an ounce. The fro yo flavors were all amazing - I tried the taro, mango, tart blueberry, cheesecake, peanut butter, and green tea - super dense and creamy (and the signs say 99% fat free).

The self-serve yogurt bar

4 of the 16 flavors:

For toppings, I added mochi pieces (just like at Pinkberry), cheesecake pieces, and fresh raspberries. YUM.

Bangkok Chef

Bangkok Chef
1626 Nuuanu Ave
Honolulu, HI 96817

(808) 585-8839

Yelp Reviews

Bangkok Chef from the outside

Inside, placing our order:

I'd heard all about the great, cheap Thai food served out of a garage in Nuuanu at Bangkok Chef, so naturally it was on my list of places to try out this summer. When we pulled up, I was surprised because it was more of a hole-in-the-wall, completely unrenovated shop, in a tiny strip mall, than an actual garage. But anyway, that's not important. How was the food?

We ordered a green curry and the mango salad. I think the curries/entrees were $5.50 (+ 0.50 for brown rice or sticky rice) and the salad was $7.25.

The salad was overwhelmingly spicy and sour, to such a point that it was almost unpleasant. It came with mango (not green, but not ripe either), carrots, shallots, cilantro and cashews.

The curry was nice (the menu said the green curry is spicy, but this was mild in comparison to the salad) but not spectacular. A rich, coconutty green curry with bamboo (tons!), some eggplant, and a bit of chicken. More chicken would've been nice.

So I guess Bangkok Chef is a good place if you are craving some affordable Thai food, but I'd much rather have a bowl of pho, or a Yummy's plate lunch for basically the same price.

Mo'ilili: India Market & Well Bento

I went down to Mo'ilili for lunch today...to try out Well Bento: the healthy bento, or 'gourmet macrobiotic takeout fusion' as they like to call themselves. The premise is vegetarian bentos with whole grains (brown rice) and 'healthy' cole slaw and mac salad (I believe it's vegan, but not sure how low fat it actually is).



Their menu is divided into 'vegetarian' options and 'transitional' options for those of us who still like to eat meat :) I decided to try the veg option, since I was there. I almost ordered the grilled tofu, since I knew it would be good since I like tofu, but decided to branch out and order the grilled seitan (wheat gluten) instead to try something new.

It was actually pretty good (although super salty), with their homemade vegetarian 'gravy' covering all the brown rice in the pic below, but for $10 for a vegetarian lunch, I would've expected that Well Bento could use biodegradable corn packaging, instead of a styrofoam box....

While I was there, I visited India Market, which is in the same complex, kind of across from Star Market. I was in India a few months ago and took a cooking class, so I was excited to find the availability of herbs, spices, pickles, and Indian ingredients that are available here. I bought some fantastic lime pickle and some tamarind puree.

The outside of India Market:

I had to try a samosa while I was there :) (only avail on M/W/F/Sat)
They also have South Pacific groceries, like these taro leaves in coconut cream
Packaged curry and spice mixes
Frozen food section (with kulfi ice cream!!)
Packaged crispies like sev and bhel puri mix: