Hawaii "Odds and Ends": I-naba Soba, Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, Me's BBQ and More

Ok - last Hawaii post, I promise!

Here are some odds and ends of food we had on our trip that didn't make it into a post of their own. Above is the cold soba lunch at I-naba Soba in Honolulu. We had never had soba served this way before, and we really enjoyed it. Rather than being served as a soup, you dip the noodles into the sauce. The soba was fantastic, as was the tempura.



Although we had Oahu's north shore locked in as a shrimp destination, our first shrimp of the trip was at Savage Shrimp in Koloa on Kauai. We had the place's namesake "Savage Shrimp" dish. Served in a spicy broth with bread on the side for dipping, it was hearty and flavorful.

Later, on Oahu, we made it out the north shore. We had a hard time deciding which of the shrimp spots to hit up. In the end, we settled on Giovanni's Shrimp Truck - mostly because we were on the bus and it was near a stop.



We shared a batch of Giovanni's Garlic Scampi:



Simple fare, but good. There was a ton of garlic in the sauce - which we really liked, but if you aren't a garlic fan, this wouldn't be for you.

One night, we were wandering out from our vacation rental at the south end of Waikiki and Sherry spotted Me's BBQ. A tiny little Korean joint tucked away on a side-street, the feel of the place immediately appealed to me. They have a small indoor area with a counter where you order, and a few tables outside.

We ended up eating there twice, and our favorite item was the Fish Jun - delicate, thin pieces of fish coated in an egg batter (sorry for the bad, low-light photo):



We like the Jun so much that we made our own version as one of the dishes in our Feast of the Seven Fishes last Christmas Eve. We also really liked their Kalbi and Kimchi.

There was an Izakaya place, Tokkuri-Tei, not far from where we were staying, so we went there for dinner. It had a pleasant atmosphere and friendly knowledgeable waitresses. The dishes we had were hit and miss, but more hit than miss. This beef tongue skewer was one of the better ones:



I had decided that I needed a teriyaki burger. Teddy's Bigger Burgers was just a block away from where we were staying and seemed to be pretty well liked. Not by us, though, as it turned out. The burger didn't look bad:



Unfortunately, it was dry and uninteresting. One of my least favorite burgers I've had in quite some time. And pretty expensive, to boot. Not recommended.

We also cooked with some local ingredients while we were visiting the islands. I saw Redondo's Portuguese Sausage in the grocery store and couldn't resist picking some up:



It was very tasty for breakfast - sliced up and fried with eggs.

And, of course, we couldn't leave out the Hawaiian staple:



Spam and eggs made a lovely breakfast one morning on the tiny balcony of our vacation rental in Honolulu.

I-naba Soba
1610 S King St.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-953-2070

Savage Shrimp
Kukui'ula Village Suite K-158
2829 Ala Kalaikaumaka
Koloa, Kauai

Giovanni's Shrimp Truck
56-505 Kamehameha Hwy
Kahuku, Hawaii
808-293-1839

Me's BBQ
151 Uluniu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-926-9717

Tokkuri-Tei
449 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-732-6480

Teddy's Bigger Burgers
134 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-926-3444

Food Photo Round-Up

When we make a good dish, but I don't really have enough for a blog post, I often post a picture on twitter instead. For those of you who don't follow along with those tweets, I figured I'd do a round-up of some of the pictures here on the blog.

The picture above is a homemade Sicilian sausage (one of our favorites - we need to do a post on making them sometime) with Hasselbeck (or is it Hasselback?) potatoes and a black kale salad.

Mapo Doufu


Fuchsia Dunlop's version of "Pock-Marked Mother Chen's Bean Curd", from her book "Land of Plenty" is on our regular rotation.

Chawanmushi


This was our first attempt at making Chawanmushi, and it turned out really well. I love savory custards.

Shoyu Ramen


Not quite homemade ramen - I call it "home-assembled". We buy packaged ramen noodles and add the trimmings - fish cake, pork slices, greens, nori and, of course, a soft-cooked egg.

Lamb Shanks Braised in Red Wine


Is there is anything more comforting than a braised lamb shank? We do a red wine braise based loosely on a short rib recipe from Daniel Boulud's "Cafe Boulud Cookbook".

Romanesco


The first time I saw a picture of Romanesco I was amazed - it is such a cool looking vegetable. Sherry has had great success growing them this winter, and we've been eating a lot of it.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara


Perfectly cooked spaghetti coated with egg is a thing a beauty. We make ours with homemade pancetta, which I prefer to the traditional guanciale.

Green Chile Cheeseburger


We've posted a number of times about green chile cheeseburgers in New Mexico, but we also make them at home, using hatch green chiles that we buy by the crate when they are in season. Yes, that is American cheese on the burger. I make no apologies.

Gougères


Light, puffy and cheesy - Gougères may be the perfect snack. They are made with the same choux pastry technique used for cream puffs, but go a savory direction instead of sweet.

Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Green Beans and Potatoes


Rosy pink meat and succulent skin - what more is there to say?

Homemade Bacon


It has been over three years now since we started making our own homemade bacon, and we're still going strong. Store-bought bacon is a thing of the past for us. We're almost out of the last batch we made - time to make some more!

Malasadas at Leonard's Bakery in Honolulu

After poke at Ono Seafood, we were ready for some dessert, so we headed up to Leonard's Bakery for some malasadas. Malasadas are a style of yeast doughnut brought to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants.



Leonard's Bakery is all about the malasadas. They are made hot and fresh to order, come with a variety of sugar toppings, and can be filled with an assortment of fillings.



The bakery does sell items other than malasadas, however. We tried one of their sausage wraps - a Portuguese sausage encased in Pão Doce (Portuguese sweet bread):



It was tasty, but nothing particularly special.

The malasadas, on the other hand, were very good. Our favorite was the original, plain sugar version:



Hot, fluffy soft dough topped with sugar. Simple, but perfect.

We also tried a malasada "puff" stuffed with custard:



I love anything filled with custard, but in this case it was a bit too overwhelmingly sweet.

To round out our malasada sampling, we tried the cinnamon sugar flavor, which we weren't too fond of, and this version with "Li Hing Mui" (salty dried plum) sugar, which we liked:



But the real winner was the "original" malasada with plain sugar. Sometimes simple is the best.

We had a few left over the next day, and the were pale shadows of their former selves - you really need to eat them hot out of the frier. If you go to Leonard's (and you should!), be sure to only order as many malasadas as you can immediately consume.

Leonard's Bakery
933 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-737-5591

Ono Seafood - Poke in Honolulu

We'd had a few pokes already on Kauai, but we still wanted more when we got to Honolulu. Research indicated the Ono Seafood was a good bet, and it was in easy walking distance from where we were staying.



Ono Seafood is a little shop tucked away on Kapahulu Avenue with the entrance faceing sideways rather than out onto the street. We had walked right past a number of times previously and never noticed it.

The place was being run by two ladies - one taking orders, and one filling them:



We got a two-poke bowl with Hawaiian Ahi and Shoyu Taco:



The Hawaiian Ahi was easily the best poke we had during our trip. Beautiful, rosy-red color. Soft, but not mushy texture. Great flavors. We also liked the generous quantity of Limu.

The Taco poke was less good. It was better than the Taco poke we got from Koloa Fish Market, but was still pretty chewy.



We also browsed through their cold cases full of goodies and got some smoked marlin, which provided a very tasty snack as we waited in the airport for our flight home a few days later.

Ono Seafood
747 Kapahulu Ave. Apt 4
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-732-4806

Char Hung Sut - Manapua and More in Honolulu

One of the things we knew we wanted to try while in Honolulu was Manapua - the local take on a Char Siu Bao - so we hopped on a bus to Chinatown to visit Char Hung Sut.

It doesn't look like much from the outside:



but once we got inside, the tiny shop was a bustle of activity. We crowded into the line of people waiting to order, and watched the assembly line at work.



They definitely do a good business here, as evidenced by the large stacks of boxes waiting to be filled:



The line moved quickly, and soon we were at the front and a bit bewildered about what to order - even after finding the little menu tucked away on a side wall:



Fortunately, the lady taking our order was nice and patient with us and we were soon off with our little box of treasures.



Now for the unboxing!



The big guy on the left is the headliner - the manapua. As mentioned before, it is a style of Char Siu Bao - a steamed bun with a pork filling.



Super good. The bun bread had perfect texture, and the pork filling was a satisfying mix of savory flavor with a hint of sweet.

Next up, the Half Moon:



The flavor of the filling was similar to the manapua, but with a different texture - more chopped pieces rather than shreds. Also very good.



The "Pork Hash", seen below, is a purse-shaped bun with a much denser filling than the previous two.



Next we had another pork-filled bun - Ma Tai Soo. This one was baked rather than steamed like the others, resulting in a more flaky dough. I enjoyed it, but both the filling and the dough were a bit sweet for me.



Now onto dessert. First up, Rice Cake:



It had a fun, squiggly texture and was sweet, but not too sweet.

Our final item was the Black Sugar Mochi:



I was pretty texturally challenged with this one - it just isn't my thing. Still, it was fun to have tried it.



After going through our box of goodies, we were still a bit hungry so we stopped back into Char Hung Sut to get a couple more manapua - much to the amusement of the woman taking our order for the second time. She thought we were crazy for having only gotten one to share the first time around, and she was right!

Char Hung Sut
64 N Pauahi St.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-538-3335

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2011

Each Christmas Eve, we go a bit mad and cook up a multi-course "Feast of the Seven Fishes" - just for the two of us. It is fun, and gives us the inspiration to try out some new recipes.

This year our dishes ranged throughout the globe - from Italy and Spain to Vietnam, Korea and the Middle East.

Bay Scallop and Tomato Gratin


Our feast started out with a bay scallop and tomato gratin - a simple recipe from Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud Cookbook. The tomato and the breadcrumb topping added great flavor, but still let the sweet scallops shine through.

Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes


This dish, from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, has become a favorite of ours. Shrimp and egg go so well together. Dipped into some salty fish sauce, these pancakes are pure heaven.

Sculpin Jun


We paired the shrimp pancakes with a similar dish, but from another country. Jun (or Jeon) are Korean egg pancakes. We had our first Fish Jun last month at a little Korean joint in Honolulu, and we immediately fell in love. The way the texture of the fish and the texture of the egg compliment each other is fantastic. We served the Jun with a vinegary garlic-soy dipping sauce.

Gary's Smoked Alaskan Red Salmon Dip


Sherry's sister lives in Alaska, and she and her fiance sent us the makings of this dish (the key ingredient being smoked sockeye salmon they caught themselves). The salmon gets mixed with jalepeños and cream cheese (we used homemade cream cheese, of course!).



To eat it, you put some on a fork, dip it in Worcestershire sauce and put it on a Ritz cracker. It is a pretty crazy combination of flavors, but it works.

Quilcene and Malpeque Oysters


Roughly midway through our feast, we paused for a palate cleanser of oysters - Quilcene and Malpeque - from The Fishery. In past years, we've done a variety of mignonettes, but this year we had them simply plain.

We slurped as we shucked, but I managed to snap a quick picture before they were all gone. Both varieties of oysters were good, but I preferred the Quilcene - they were sweeter and less briny.

Swordfish with Romanesco and Romesco


For me, swordfish has historically been uninspiring - I picture boring, dry steaks coming off the grill. The swordfish we get from Catalina Offshore Products is a different story altogether - consistently beautiful pieces of fish that cook up nicely moist and full of flavor.

For this dish, we paired it with Romanesco cauliflower from our garden, and a Romesco sauce. It was our first time making Romesco. A blend of almonds and roasted red pepper, it is interesting stuff - very rich and intense. A little bit goes a long way.

Fish Stew with Onions and Saffron


This dish is from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, a cookbook that is getting increasingly used in our kitchen lately. The fish is Mahi Mahi from Catalina Offshore. The caramelized onions and saffron gave the broth a lovely burnished color.

And that was our Feast of the Seven Fishes for 2011. Our numbers came out right on the nose this year - seven dishes, seven fishes.