Mixed Plate Friday

Breakfast Bento | $4.77

Sushi Robot is located outside of the Kaheka Don Quijote – they been there forevers and sell all kinds of good grab and go foods. I got this bento one morning after an early shop. Can’t lose with a $5 meal! And it’s definitely filling. I would get it again!

Okinawan Soba | $13.00 (or $14.00)

Raysam Hawaii is a cute little Okinawan food truck that comes onto the UH Campus! I like to support him when I can, it seems like a one man operation. I enjoyed their handmade omusubi and decided to try their okinawan soba this time. It was delicious! And I love that he serves it separate from the broth, no bloated noodles!

I saw this bag of turtle chips at 711 and couldn’t resist because I love truffle. Bugga was expensive, $6.09 and how is it? Junk brah, no get it. It’s still too sweet and the truffle taste is minimum yet artificial and just tastes like MSG or something. No waste your money.

Mixed Plate Friday

For those who know, know! Gateway Cafe is located in the Gateway Student Housing for UH students but their cafeteria is open to the public! For $12.25 at lunch – you can get a pretty good buffet! They put up daily menus every week so you can take a look and see if you are interested. Here’s a sampling of a recent lunch I had. The pasta is hit or miss but on this day, it was a hit! The pink vodka sauce is chef’s kiss. I can’t forget to eat my hot dog. They also advertise their in-house baked bread but I am pretty irked that the last few times I’ve gone…no bread!!! I would pay just to eat that bread. Give me the bread!

Jajangmyeon | $12.95

Is it time for me to compare the different black bean noodle restaurants in Hawaii? This dish is from Dowon Chinese Restaurant, it was alright. To me the sauce was a bit watered down and kind of sweet. A bit odd. I guess I gotta try On Dong again to compare. Also, I don’t know if they give it for dine in but when you order take out, they don’t give you the raw onions and black bean paste as a side. Boo.

Pan Fried Dumplings | $5.00

This is a funny story. I am usually the runner for food pick-ups in Chinatown. This time, my coworker helped do the run and boy did she get a sweat. I ordered pan fried dumplings from Heaven Chinese Noodle and BBQ Cafe. This place is a super hole in the wall Chinese place at the Chinese Cultural Plaza. And when you find it, it’s hit or miss if you are able to communicate with the staff. I gave an easy enough order, pan fried dumplings for $5.00. They go and ask my coworker how many dumplings. Like what??? How many pieces. So she’s texting me asking and I’m like…whatever comes in that order? I was so confused. I think they eventually said it’s 5 pieces, okay that works great. She got super flustered because they weren’t that friendly too lol.

Anyway, the dumplings were really good and they ended up giving I think 7 dumplings so thank you. I really enjoy their food, very home cooking kine and their prices are good! If you’re curious where they are, they are right next to Royal Kitchen.

Mixed Plate Friday

Bobo Chicken with Red Chili and Mixed Vegetable Skewers | $24.99

Just wanted to share a new dish I tried at Chengdu Taste, not new for their menu just new for me. It was pretty good. It’s a pure spectacle to see each piece of meat or vegetable on a skewer. It comes with plenty of that “soup” but unless you like burn a hole in your tummy, I wouldn’t eat it over rice. I tried, I couldn’t hack it. Good dish though! Got a good mixture of vegetables, chicken and quail eggs.

Poke Nachos | $17.95

Aloha Cones started offering up Poke Nachos so I treated my brothers to lunch there. Gotta support local but also look at the price. LOL, I’m a broken record about price. What I will say is…they give a good portion and I am pretty sure they fry the chips fresh when you order it. They really enjoyed the dish and I guess this is the running price for poke now so I guess I would recommend!

Guava & Cream Pie ($2.19 for 1 | $3.19 for 2)

Hawaii McDonald’s has a limited time Guava & Cream Pie and it was all over social media so of course I had to try. The day I wanted to try it, all the locations close to me were sold out. I think they make a batch for the day and when they’re out, they’re out. So I went to a location and sent my brother in to buy it. I’ve had bad luck with online ordering sometimes and I didn’t want to order it online and then get there and get told no more. Well instructions were misunderstood and he picked up 4 pies instead of the 2 I wanted. Ha! Anyway, so how was it? Pretty good. Like a guava cheesecake! And I may be in the minority on this but I actually like baked pies, more so than fried pies.

Mixed Plate Friday

Just a super cute gift I got from my coworker for Girl’s Day! Isn’t this so cute and thoughtful??

Bi Bim Kook Soo | $14.49

I got this from Yummy Korean BBQ – the Moanalua Shopping Center location. To me it was pretty good! Everything was seasoned perfect so I enjoyed this a lot! One of the better take-out bibimkooksoo dishes I’ve had in a while!

Air-fried Roast Pork

Did you know you could make chinese style roast pork in an air fryer? I didn’t. Okay, well I’ve never made chinese roast pork ever in my life but take a look at this! Look at the skin and how crispy it is! I don’t have a recipe lol but it was delicious!

Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

My favorite Arare and Peanut Mix

I got this pack from Family Mart and regret not getting more. I got a pack from their 7eleven and boy it was not the same. So I only recommend the family mart one!

Random Natural Lawson dinner one night. We were both baus tired from Disney so we just got dinner in. Luckily our hotel was located next to some restaurants! I still went the combini route and enjoyed it. I got my friend McDonalds, lol.

This is the airline I took from Tokyo to Osaka. It was a bit cheaper than the shinkansen and we didn’t want to worry about how to store our luggage in the train. Would I do it again? Ehhhh, I don’t know. I feel like your entire day is wasted traveling. The check in for this airline was wild, not once was my identification checked. It was hilarious. Also, since the tickets are cheap, they nickel and dime on everything else. While the check-in and luggage check was easy going from Tokyo to Osaka. Coming back from Osaka to Tokyo was crazy. They were seriously measuring and weighing all bags (including carry-ons), checking ID, etc.

Anyway, some miracle this trip was. I fell asleep through every plane ride. Yes, even this short domestic ride. The travel gods were with me on this trip!

Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

We were so pleased that our hotel in Tokyo and Osaka had laundry rooms! The machines were cool because you can wash and dry in the same machine. A few things that were off. You have to know how much your clothes weigh before you wash them. Secondly, it DEFINITELY DOES NOT DRY IN ONE CYCLE. And well, you have to pay for every cycle you use right. We were washing some thick clothes cause it was winter so I wouldn’t recommend using these machines unless you have choke time to wait for your clothes to dry.

Mandatory visit to Ikea in Japan and mandatory swedish meatballs meal. It was good! It’s the same everywhere lol. Japan has a slightly different menu but it was good! I also liked that their store isn’t a maze and that they have cuter stuff made for Japanese audiences I think.

I feel like I mentioned these tarts already but I’ll mention it again since I found the name of it in my pictures. So good fresh out the oven. Eating this in the cold weather was perfection. We found this place in Osaka.

Mixed Plate Friday

You folks ever make a soup that called for pasta? I’m sure you have. I don’t like my pasta to get too gummy so I actually cook up the pasta al dente separately…then when I finish the soup, I put it into my container to cool it down. I then dump my pasta on top (in this case, a chickpea pasta) and store it like this. As I scoop out servings to eat, I mix it with the pasta to heat up. It works perfectly and the pasta maintains it’s texture!

Just a quick pic of a lazy Sunday breakfast. Toasted everything bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers and homemade jalapenos and red onions. Delicious!

Tots Flight | $16.95
From top, left to right: spicy cheese & bacon tots, bbq chicken tots, and parmesan truffle tots.

Spicy Cheese & Bacon Tots: crispy tots, Paul’s signature Wahl Sauce, pickled red onion, bacon, spicy cheese sauce, Parmesan cheese
BBQ Chicken Tots: crispy tots drizzled with BBQ sauce, topped with BBQ chicken & roasted corn, jalapeno & red onion salsa
Parmesan Truffle Tots: crispy tots tossed with Parmesan cheese, truffle oil and chopped parsley, served with Chef Paul’s truffle aioli

Have you folks Wahlburgers at Ala Moana yet? We’ve gotten take out twice from here and I hate to admit it but they make some pretty dang good burgers and fries. Here is a small preview of their tots flight. I love tater tots. LOL, I think the spicy cheese and truffle ones were good, I would pass on the BBQ chicken ones!

Mixed Plate Friday

Steamed Tapioca Pearl Dumplings Stuffed with Peanut Pork

I know nothing about this dish. All I know is it was delicious and I would probably never attempt to make it, I found it at Lao Asian Market and would absolutely get it again.

Vietnamese Steamed Dumplings | $11.95
marinated shrimp, pork and onions wrapped into a thin layer of tapioca flour dough, then steamed – served with special House fish sauce

Absolutely banger of a dish from Bac Nam – I don’t see these dumplings in a lot of Vietnamese restaurant menus so I was ecstatic to try it! They did not disappoint.

Braised Mackerel with Radish

I don’t have much information on this. I got it from Palama Supermarket and ate it hot with some white rice at home. It really hit the spot, a real comfort dish.

Mixed Plate Friday

Crab Curry | $24.95
French Bread | $3.00

Bac Nam has great crab curry. That is clear. The restaurant is very popular. That is clear. The crab curry is freaking $25 and comes with no rice or bread…so we had to pay $3.00 for one french bread. No ma’am. But was it good? Oh yes. The nicely toasted crunchy bread with the crab curry was delightful. We had leftover curry so I went to Bale the next day and paid $4.00 for 3 FRENCH BREADS which we toasted up to eat with the leftovers. So good. Next time just sneak in your own french bread like you from France (lol).

Fried Saimin Bento | $11.39
fried saimin, 2 pieces garlic chicken, egg omelet, 3 pieces portuguese sausage & rice with furikake

Mitsu-Ken Okazu and Catering reminds me of childhood days. Remember their old location? How popular they were even with zero parking? Well their current location get choke parking so no worry but for me, they are located completely out of the way. Also, they pack a lot of MSG into their food. Tastes ono but if you’re not good with MSG, avoid!

Roast Duck & Chicken Rice Plate | $13.50

Remember Mini Garden Express in Ranch 99? They re-opened by the Airport and they have online ordering for pick-up! Here is the website for the online ordering site. They are still located Salt Lake side so I can go grab food when I go out to Target. This is one of my favorite dishes, love it! It’s actually served over a simple fried rice, I love roast duck and chinese style shoyu chicken so it’s a winner. Give them a try if you’re in the area! I highly recommend ordering ahead, we had to wait quite a while.

Mixed Plate Friday

Ichiran Ramen Home Kit (5 servings) | ¥2000

You’ve seen this kit sold at Don Quijote. Too rich for my blood, they charge around $30 yeah? I bought a pack home for family members to try and eat. I don’t think I would buy it for myself – I rather have an excuse to go Japan to eat it fresh there!

I made my own soy marinated eggs, the char siu is from Marukai. They have a high quality pack of sliced char siu in their meat section. Was worth it! Family enjoyed the ramen.

Jenny style Cobb Salad

Just made any kine cobb salad at home. Chopped up some romaine, fried up some bacon, baked up some chicken patties, red onions, cucumbers and hand-shredded cheese (again). Served it up with some ranch, I had some leftover ranch from Wingstop (omg the best ranch) and it was divine! Kids love this salad because hello, bacon and chicken patty!

Instant Yakisoba with Soy Marinated Eggs

Bad cheat meal. I did this at least twice in Japan, I love that instant yakisoba cup noodle…and who can resist these eggs from the combini? I took full advantage! You know, I could probably eat the majority of my meals at the combini and be fine with that. I’m not picky. I miss this meal.