Soul food

I cannot get enough of Sean Priester's cooking. It's like crack for me. And I know that there isn't really much good for me in it (hello, it's southern cooking at it's best) but that doesn't keep me away.

BBQ sandwich

 Fried chicken plate...love the cornbread, veggie chili and collard greens

 Pecan pie with whipped cream

Every month when I end up at Eat the Street (love to support them, plus it's right by my office in Kaka'ako) I get drawn magnetically to the Soul truck. Even when I want to try all the awesome new trucks.

I've been an original customer at Soul, ever since the Groupon debut, and I became complete obsessed with the cornbread. 

Today I found some competition for Soul...another stick to your ribs, clog your arteries, want to take a kanak attack kind of meal that is so good even though you know all that about it, you can't stop eating good soul food.

Kiss My Grits is a tiny little hole in the wall at Puck's Alley (University Ave) that just opened this fall. They specialize in bbq - North Caroline Style or Southern (Georgia?) style, and also have fried chicken, catfish, shrimp & grits, and more.

Owner Kirstin Jackson moved to Hawaii 17 years ago and was initially working as a very successful publicist but finally gave up her steady job to follow her dream of opening a southern restaurant a few months ago. You can tell that she's thought about all of the small details that go into running a restaurant while she's been hatching her dream, as evidenced by the cute table setting below.

We started with the fried green tomatoes, a recommendation from a friend who was dining there.

Then moved onto our mains: the Dixie Chicken sandwich (which I read about on Yelp and had to try) and the BBQ plate with North Carolina sauce. (vs. a sweeter southern BBQ sauce). The Dixie Chicken is a must-try: a homemade freshly baked biscuit, ham, fried chicken, egg and pimento sauce. To die for.

Then the bbq beef plate: complete with cole slaw, a deviled egg and hush puppies (friend cornmeal dough), served with honey butter! The hush puppy was my highlight.

To end, we had to get the bread pudding, which truly was the best (and most sinful) bread pudding I've ever had. Read this review at Yelp which convinced me. Next time I'm gonna try the banana pudding though, another southern favorite of mine.

Now I'm going to go take a nap...

Kiss My Grits

1035 University Ave

Honolulu, HI 96826

348-0626

Yelp   

Revisiting Bangkok Chef (Nu'uanu)

I've tried the super cheap (i.e., the sketch place on the corner of Alakea and King St with the big $5 sign in the window) and the fancier Thai in Honolulu (Phuket Thai, Keo's) but I always come back to Bangkok Chef. While it's not oh-my-god I'm eating in Thailand authentic, it's good, satisfying, always the same, and very affordable.


Here's some pics from the last time I was there (Nu'uanu location)

Tom yum - nice & sour

Pad see ew

Green chicken curry with sticky rice

thai tea and pandan flavored tapioca

strawberry pannacotta

Bangkok Chef
Multiple locations including Manoa, Nimitz and Nu'uanu
Yelp

Auntie Pasto's on Pensacola

Hadn't been to Auntie Pasto's since high school (ummm, fifteen years ago), but was craving some American-style Italian food. As in, more Italian than the Spaghetti Factory or Buca, but not as fancy / authentic as Assagio's. I still remembered the warm, soft goodness of the bread basket at Auntie Pasto's back in the day (which used to be somewhere other than Pi'ikoi, if I remember correctly? But I can't remember exactly where...)

 Mmm, the bread basket (with pesto now!)

Bread basket

 Mixed greens with walnuts, strawberries and cheese - this was a fantastic salad.

Fancier salad than I'd expect

Eggplant parm

And finally onto the mains: spaghetti with eggplant parm, and a spaghetti with meatballs (my go-to dish, back in the day). The most pleasant surprise of the evening...each was about $8.95! I don't remember exactly, but was shocked at how affordable the place still is. And delicious to boot.

And the classic spaghetti w/ meatballs

Auntie Pasto's
Pi'ikoi near South Beretania
Yelp

Reviewing Non Stop's Korean eats

Ah Lang - Angry Korean Lady / Seoul Garden Yakiniku / Chodang

My brother was obsessed with Non Stop Honolulu’s write-up on “where the Koreans eat Korean food on Oahu.” Obsessed to the point of creating a spreadsheet to chart which restaurant got the most votes, and what to order at each. If I had a copy I’d put it up here (especially because Non Stop’s slide shows can be a big pain to flip through, since they don’t have links to any specific pages within the slide show, or any mechanism to select a slide. But that’s beside the point).

Here’s the story: http://www.nonstophonolulu.com/stories/where-real-koreans-eat-korean-food/

We’d already been to a bunch (Orine, Sorabol, etc). I just realized I’ve never put up Orine on my blog, which I need to get about doing, since that’s one of my favorite Korean finds in Honolulu.

Anyway, we picked three new ones to try: The Angry Korean Lady, Seoul Garden Yakiniku and Chodang. Found two winnahs out of the three, which is pretty good in my book. The only one I wouldn’t head back to is Chodang. It’s good for what it is - super cheap sit down Korean food ($4.99 and $5.99 specials including ban chan? That’s pretty amazing) right outside of Ala Moana shopping center. But the food wasn’t anything amazing.

I’d torn between picking a favorite of Ah Lang (the angry Korean lady) and Seoul Garden. Seoul Garden was probably better overall, and a real restaurant as opposed to a tiny (4 table?) spot in a strip mall in Kakaako, but I am still thinking about the meat jun at Ah Lang as some of the best I’ve ever had.



The proprietress at Ah Lang is know as the “Angry Korean Lady” for a reason. She has very specific opinions about how she runs her restaurant, and she’s made little signs with all of them and hung them up on each wall, just in case you forget.









But aside from her rules, there’s her food.

The ban chan (a step up from a Korean plate lunch)



cold noodles


kal bi


soon du bu

Soon du bu

And this is the meat jun (although I had to borrow the pic from Yelp, since as soon as ours came out, I started eating and forgot to take a pic!)

Bi bim bap (without the stone bowl) - killah


Seoul Garden is one of those places I’ve driven past on Kapiolani a million times but never really noticed before. But when it got such raves on Non Stop, we had to make a trip over there. It seems (to me, at least) to be pretty full-on authentic, with Korean speaking servers, and primarily Koreans eating in the restaurant.





The menu is extensive, so it was hard to pick between favorite stand-bys (kim chee pancake, soon du bu) and new stuff we wanted to try.

For 3 of us, we ended up going with:

pork & kim chee stir fry


“tofu dregs” - like okara


fishjun


yook kae jang - beef soup - this was my winnah of the day. Nice & spicy.


Expensive for lunch ($20 each) but definitely worth another visit!

Lastly, there's Chodang:

Chodang ban chan

Cho dang meat jun

Kal bi tang

Not food per se, but right next to Bac Nam! New recycled furniture store

Saw this on Paula Rath's blog this morning: a new recycled furniture store over on King Street. Mark Ariyoshi takes used furniture (estate sales, hotels), refurbishes it, and sells it. Store looks super cute! Once I have a house to furnish, I'm definitely going to check it out.

**And I borrowed this picture from the story, just because I like how Bac Nam pops up in the background :)

Da Spot's new digs on King St.

Da Spot
YUM. I’m a fan of Da Spot from back in the day when I would go to their TINY little hole in the wall for the amazing Egyptian chicken, curries, and smoothies. I’d also go track them down on UH campus or at farmers markets.

When I heard they were opening a fancy new spot by UH, I had to go check it out. It’s amazing how far they’ve come, and I’m so happy for Ahmad and Ako with their success. The new place (open for lunch and dinner) has a hot bar (pick 1 or 2 for a plate), PLUS a fridge of yummy looking mezze (hummus, baba ganoush, grape leaves, olives, cheese etc) that you can order by the pound (would be an awesome tapas party) AND an even larger menu of smoothies.

My friend and I split a two choice plate ($10, not cheap) and a piece of baklava. I am blanking on which curries exactly we had - there were so many to choose from! But both of our selections were fantastic. I’ll definitely be back here frequently.

Looking in

Curries

Grape leaves & veggie curry

Mezze

$10 2 choice plate w/ brown basmati rice & taboulleh salad

Da Spot
King St by University
Honolulu Magazine
 Yelp

This is it: Best bagel on the Island!

I miss my east coast bagels. I still remember when my dad brought home a bakers dozen of H&H bagels and I finished them off in a few days. Heaven on Earth. Chewy but soft. I tend to avoid bagels when I'm at home (although I do like Lox of Bagels on Sand Island), but I wanted to pick up bagels for my office the other day. So I decided to stop off at This is It in Kaka'ako...for the best bagels on the island. Here's the baskets of fresh bagels. You can see all the donuts in the back! They also have a separate case with pastries and scones. I got a dozen mini bagels and some cream cheese for my office. And also picked up a sandwich for lunch. Wasn't sure how I was spending $7 or 8 on a bagel sandwich, but it was SO worth it. The bagel was delish and the perfect base for my ham & cheese sandwich.

And also a scone for the road...yum...

443 Cooke St Honolulu, HI 96813

(808) 597-1017

Yelp

Cheesy goodness: Melt and Bella Mia Pizzeria

Mmmmm, there is always room in my stomach for lots of gooey, melted cheese. Checked out the relatively new Bella Mia pizza & pasta place on Beretania with some friends. It's a super cute red and white house with lots of patio seating.This is why I wanted to go: PIZZA FRIES! I can't believe every other Italian restaurant hasn't capitalized on this. French fries smothered in marinara sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese.

We also had a calzone (yum).

And a meatball sub...even more yum.

Everyone's been buzzing about Melt, the gourmet grilled cheese food truck. They are hard to pin down, since they are in a different spot almost every day, but so worth following their twitter feed to find them.

My melt sandwich peeking out of its bag:

Rye bread, bacon and cheese, perfectly grilled:

More rye bread, cheese (can't remember what type) and swiss chard (although why pretend to make a grilled cheese sandwich healthy?). Sandwiches are about $6:

Bella Mia Pizzeria

2222 S Beretania St Honolulu, HI 96826

(808) 941-4400

Yelp