Archive for the ‘reviews’ Category
Baby Basil
Recently, I’ve really been wanting to start a garden. This desire to grow my own herbs, fruits, and vegetables began a couple of years ago when I really began to take an interest in cooking, and was only exacerbated when I was introduced to Diane and Todd’s amazing garden. Seriously, that’s my dream garden.
Skinny Chives
Problem is, my apartment isn’t exactly overflowing with free space, and I have, er, less than a green thumb. I’ve tried growing things before, and everything but some very hardy bamboo has died. Kaput. Gone all too soon. Heck, I’ve even managed to kill a Vietnamese herb that is supposedly considered a weed. I unintentionally killed a weed! This gardening aspiration was not getting off to a good start.
Itsy-Bitsy Sweet Marjoram
So when my brother got me a Chia Herb Garden for Christmas, I was understandably excited. Finally an opportunity to grow herbs in an easy, compact way that even I could do correctly. I mean, come on. It’s a Chia garden. I couldn’t possibly kill that… right?
The herbs have been growing for almost a month now, and they aren’t dead yet! In fact, they’re starting to look like the herbs that you buy from the store. These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, and since then the cilantro has begun to grow those spiky leaves that you normally associate with Mexican or Asian food, and the basil and chives are getting bigger by the day. And even though it’s still itsy-bitsy, I have high hopes for the sweet marjoram!
Graceful Cilantro
Tanto Izakaya
Every now and then, Son has to travel up to Sunnyvale for work. Now that I’ve graduated and am no longer required to be in Southern California all the time, I travel along with him. When we are in Sunnyvale, we will often go to dinner with his co-workers. This week we visited a Thai restaurant and a Chinese restaurant, neither of which I’m going to review. However, we also went to a Japanese Izakaya – Tanto.
For those unfamiliar with this type of restaurant, an izakaya is like the Japanese version of a tapas restaurant. Many small dishes are served, and meant to be shared by the entire table rather than as individual meals. However we instead decided to order dishes individually, instead of to share as a table.
Son and I ordered several dishes to share between the two of us. The first to arrive was the edamame. This was, well, meh. Nothing special. It wasn’t bad, but it definitely could have used more salt.
Edamame
As we always do when offered, we ordered a sashimi dish. Since we like to try new types of sashimi when given the opportunity, we decided to try the white tuna. This was alright, not something I’d order again though. Whoever sliced the sashimi did a poor job – they looked like chunks of meat rather than expertly sliced sashimi. The taste was… interesting. Much meatier than other types of fish, and while it wasn’t going bad, it didn’t have the same sort of fresh, clean taste that most types of sashimi have.
White Tuna Sashimi
Son’s favorite dish was the Hotate Butter Uni Nose. This was a sauté of mushrooms and scallops in butter, topped with uni and ikura. He thought that the scallops were perfectly cooked, and the uni reminded him of eating crab eggs. He really enjoyed the salty uni, and easily ate most of the dish by himself. (I only got one scallop!)
Hotate Butter Uni Nose
My favorite dish was the anago tempura. This consisted of a fillet of anago (eel) coated in tempura batter, then fried and sliced into inch-wide slices. Delicious. I have never had eel prepared in this fashion, but my goodness, it is delicious! The crunchy fried tempura batter complements the meaty, soft anago flesh. Incredibly good. I would get this again, and even make it at home if given the opportunity!
Anago Tempura
Although no one would admit to it, someone ordered sashimi spring rolls. Since the dish went unclaimed, everyone tried a piece of the spring roll. Son enjoyed it, although in my opinion it was just alright. The sashimi was very chewy which made the rolls difficult to eat, and I wasn’t blown away by the combination of sashimi and vegetables they used in the roll.
Sashimi Spring Rolls
Although we didn’t get pictures of most of the other dishes at the table, we did sneak a photo of the tempura dish next to us. The typical sweet potato, green bean, and other vegetables were present, but there were also a few types of tempura I had never seen – lotus root tempura and shiso tempura. Definitely out of the ordinary, but the person who ordered it didn’t complain, so they must have been good.
Vegetable Tempura
At the end of the meal, several people at the table decided to order fried bananas with vanilla ice cream. Like most of the dishes here, I found this to be just okay. The ice cream was pretty much regular vanilla ice cream topped with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, and the banana was like any other fried banana I’ve had. This is definitely not something I’d order again… I could make it better and for less money at home.
Fried Banana with Vanilla Ice Cream
Note: I know there have been a lot of restaurant reviews lately, but I promise I’ll be back to recipe posts soon. I’ve been traveling for two of the last three weeks, and when I was home I barely had time to make two TWD recipes, never mind trying to cook other foods!
Waiola Shave Ice
One of the places we were told that we must visit in Honolulu was Waiola Shaved Ice. (The other place was Mana Bu’s, but we unfortunately never got to try it – the day we stopped by, they had closed just an hour after opening, so we missed it.) On our very last day, the day where it just happened to pour rain all day, we stopped by after checking out of our hotel.
We decided to get the ice cream bowl and the azuki bowl with mochi balls. Two bowls was a bit much for us to finish, but they were still delicious. We got rainbow flavorings and condensed milk on the ice cream bowl – a few scoops of ice cream, topped with shaved ice. The azuki bowl consisted of shaved ice, topped with azuki beans and condensed milk, and surrounded with pink and white mochi balls.
Ice Cream Bowl
Son loved the ice cream bowl. While I found the flavorings (particularly red – cherry?) reminded me of medicine, Son absolutely loved the varied flavors. It went very well with the ice cream, and the bowl even came with a straw to drink the melted shaved ice! Quite enjoyable.
The flavors sink into the middle, but still yummy!
I, on the other hand, preferred the azuki bowl. I love the flavors of the azuki beans, and although these weren’t quite as sweet as I would have liked, they were still delicious. I especially enjoyed the mochi balls. As we all know, I can never get enough mochi. The only thing I disliked about the bowl was the shaved ice – it was just ice. No flavoring, no nothing. The azuki beans and mochi would have been immensely more enjoyable with ice cream, since that would at least add some sweetness. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the bowl.
Azuki Bowl with Mochi Balls
We were glad to have been able to try Waiola Shave Ice, with one reservation – we wish we had chosen a hotter day to go!
Roy’s
After a day spent relaxing on the beach, we decided to go somewhere nice on our last night in Hawaii. We checked our nifty little list/map of yummy places to eat in Honolulu, and settled on Roy’s.
Roy’s fancy menu cover
After we ordered, the first thing that came out was a bowl of edamame. Normally I adore edamame, and can down a whole bowl by myself. Not this time. They were seasoned with salt, chili pepper flakes, and sesame oil. While Son enjoyed the edamame, I found it to be too oily for my tastes. I prefer my edamame plain, seasoned only with a little salt.
Seasoned Edamame
I love escargot. It’s not often that I visit fancy restaurants that serve the dish, so when I am I always get it. (Which has been about twice in my lifetime.) I love the texture and flavor of the little snails, and heck – who doesn’t love a good butter sauce?
Escargot
The first time I had escargot was when I was eighteen. The guy I was dating at the time decided to take me to a nice French restaurant for my birthday. We got escargot as an appetizer, and even though at that time I wasn’t fond of trying exotic foods, I loved the snail dish. It was the one bright spot in an otherwise unpleasant birthday.
Scooping one escargot out
As I expected, I loved the escargot. The buttery, cheesy (?) sauce was amazingly delicious, and the little crostini that came with the dish were a perfect accompaniment to the rich snails. While Son wasn’t exactly impressed by the escargot, I absolutely adored them… I ended up eating most of the six that came as our appetizer.
Escargot on a crostini
I ordered a Slow Braised and Charbroiled Short Rib dish that came with a sort of scalloped potato side and grilled vegetables. The short ribs easily yielded to my fork, and were incredibly tender. I loved the buttery potatoes (of course, I love nearly any potato dish), and the grilled vegetables were delicious as well. However, I wouldn’t order this again – if I went back, I would order one of the other delicious-looking dishes on the menu.
My beef short rib dish
Son decided to get the Roy’s Classic Trio of Hibachi Grilled Salmon with Citrus Ponzu Sauce, Roy’s Original Blackened Island Ahi with Spicy Soy Mustard Butter, and Hawaiian Style Misoyaki Butterfish with Sizzling Soy Vinaigrette. As I mentioned in my edit of the Sugoi review, Son will leap for misoyaki butterfish any time he can get it.
Roy’s Classic Trio – 3 fish dishes and a scoop of rice
Son found the salmon to be nothing special. Of the three fish dishes in his meal, this was undoubtedly his least favorite. He found the sauce to be a tiny bit sour for his tastes.
Hibachi Grilled Salmon with a Citrus Ponzu Sauce
He somewhat enjoyed the blackened Ahi tuna. This dish reminded him of sushi – not incredibly special or out of the ordinary, but still very delicious. Although it came with a wasabi sauce, he found it to be a little bland compared to the other two dishes.
Blackened Island Ahi with a Spicy Soy Mustard Butter
And then there was the misoyaki butterfish. Oh my goodness, the butterfish. This was easily his favorite dish of the entire night, and possibly of the entire trip. If he could do the meal over again, he would order just the butterfish. Really, his only complaint about the dish was that there wasn’t enough of it. The soft flaky fish, the spicy-sweet misoyaki glaze… I think he’s in love. I might just have to be jealous.
Misoyaki Butterfish with a Sizzling Soy Vinaigrette
For dessert, we got Roy’s Melting Hot Chocolate Soufflé – Flourless Chocolate Cake with a Hot, Molten Center; served with Raspberry Coulis and Vanilla Ice Cream. The waitress said this takes 25 minutes to make, so we ordered it when we ordered our meal. This was delicious, yes, but not ohmygod amazing. As with any chocolate cake (which reminded me more of a brownie), we easily finished the dessert and enjoyed it. However, this struck me as something I could make just as well, if not better, at home. From a restaurant such as this, I expected more “amazing” and less “meh, it’s good, but I could do better.”
Roy’s Melting Hot Chocolate Soufflé
Overall, we enjoyed our meal. The food was delicious, and the environment was somewhat elegant. My only real complaint was the service. While our waitress was very professional, knew the answers to every question we could possibly think to ask, and was incredibly polite, there was another waiter who would come and refill our water. Every five minutes. Never mind that the glasses of water were huge and we had barely made a dent in them, he would still come by and top the glasses off. I’m sure he was just doing his job, but my goodness did that get annoying. Otherwise, a great experience!
…served w/ Raspberry Coulis and Vanilla Ice Cream
Boot’s & Kimo’s
I’m the type of girl who’s got to have her breakfast. Without it, I get cranky from hunger and wobbly from lack of energy… I can’t possibly be much fun to deal with. (Poor Son, he has to deal with me every time I don’t get breakfast! Thankfully not often…) Lucky for me, I’ve got a darling boyfriend who will look up places we can go find breakfast while we’re on vacation. I’m such a lucky girl to have him.
On the Tuesday while we were in Hawaii, we had decided to go to the botanical gardens on the east side of the island of Oahu, and then head to the Byodo-In temple afterwards. (We didn’t make it to the temple until later in the week, but only because we managed to miss the turn-off… oops! Found some nice beaches and awesome tide-pools though, so it was a worthwhile mistake.) Since we were going to be in the Kailua area anyways, we decided to head over to Boots & Kimo’s Homestyle Kitchen. They are famous for their pancakes with macadamia sauce, so we figured it would be hard to go wrong there.
We ordered the pancakes with macadamia sauce of course, and also a spam omelet. We had hoped to try their fried rice as well, but they were unfortunately out of it by the time we got there. The pancakes were amazing – it’s not difficult to see why they are known for their pancakes! The flapjacks were sweet, soft, moist… really nothing I could find wrong with these. I believe three or four came stacked on a plate and smothered with the macadamia nut sauce. The sauce… delicious. Sweet but not overpowering, with a definite macadamia nut flavor.
The spam omelet was delicious as well. As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up with spam scrambled with eggs, so this was a pleasant blast to the past. The omelet also contained cheese, which made it just a wee bit too rich. Son and I shared an order of pancakes and the omelet (which came with a side of hash browns), and we were unable to finish all the food. Just a bit too much for us.
If for nothing else, go to Boot’s & Kimo’s for their pancakes… it’s entirely worth the trip.
Pancakes smothered in Macadamia Nut Sauce
Note: To all TWD visitors, so sorry I can’t post the creme brulee quite yet! My local grocery store had a power outage, so the dairy shelves were next to empty. No whole milk or heavy cream means no creme brulee for me. 
I’ll be posting as soon as I can get the ingredients, I promise!
