THIS IS WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW

or this (Thanksgiving dinner)



or this! (Christmas dinner)

70th post

it's like i'm just sayin'.




winter needs to come asap. i'm not burning out, i promise you that. i know what it's like to burn out on work and school and i'm not there yet. no sharp chest pains. no random crying spells. i guess i am really just excited for the new year. i need to start fresh.

i guess things are just kind of dragging along at this point. a ton of papers, finals, more hours at work. i just feel like there aren't enough hours in the day and i've become increasingly sleep deprived. oh, and pooky (my cat) has been ill as of late. been in a constant state of worry and depression... i don't know what i'd do if he were to pass.

tomorrow i'm going to go see a friend's band playing. hopefully a few beers will help me relax just in time for the thanksgiving weekend.




i need more cold weather so i have more excuses to eat ramen. like this stuff right here... goma tei. i'm sure if you read my yelp review where i wrote something less than nice. but a few weeks ago i went there (by myself! *pats self on back*) and it wasn't so bad. meh. inconsistency isn't a good thing.

omg i need

so i saw a review for city cafe on yelp and i need this so bad.


(image courtesy of yelp)

NEEEEEED!!!

i'm broke!

because it was my mom's birthday yesterday. after work we went out to dinner at gazen! it was delicious. i should have ordered suntory yamazaki 12 year instead of the kirin... but it's okay. everything was great. i love the tofu from there way too much.

that's something i want to learn how to do, though. learn to make tofu at home. a simple google search produces thousands of recipes and guides on how to DIY. it seems simple enough if you do it the american way. that is, using soy milk and just curdling it. but for some reason i feel like the consistency wouldn't be the same as that of silken tofu (which is what i want!) made from soy beans. oh well.

there used to be this really great tofu place in manoa called Soy to the World. they used to sell their products and shirokiya and so i'd pick it up on my breaks from work and eat them in the office. so good. i like it when it's mildly sweet and more pudding like than firm. such a great pick me up, miss it so much.

so i guess if i'm going to do this, i'm going to use this video as a reference.



now i really want to eat unohana... haha. here's the blog that made me think of it! if you haven't had it before it's a really yummy side dish! they sell it at most japanese markets premade. my mom used to make it at home from time to time. love ya, tofu!

yaay work food

i bought this the other day. it was really good! strawberry and blueberry parfait. my coworker says the greek yogurt one is much better, but we're always sold out of it. i suppose that's a good thing, though.




my step mom gave me a new sutorappu (cell phone strap) and it's not a manapua-- it's an anpan!!!




filled with azuki beans. so delicious! see the difference?

sorry that i look so wretched in these photos. i've been only able to get on the computer when i'm eating breakfast and... yeah.

brownies and rusk

my mom used to bring these home all the time. i got them as a birthday gift from my step-mom/dad's friend sachiko. i love this rusk. it's really light and not too crunchy and perfectly sweet. i wish it came with larger portions, though.



last night i ate dinner at my dad's house. i've been promising him desserts for a while. he thinks of me as a really great baker (i think i kind of am, too). so i made a trip to the grocer and made these from scratch.



mac nut brownies
(recipe from hilaire walden's "the great big cookie book")

ingredients:
1 and 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, unsalted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
6 oz white chocolate
6 oz semi-sweet or dark chocolate
6 oz milk chocolate
1 and 1/2 cup unsalted macadamia nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9in. springform pan (a regular circular 9in cake or pie pan will do). Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the butter, sugar, and white chocolate until it's smooth. Cool, then mix in eggs, vanilla extract, and the sifted mixture into the pot. Then stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into baking pan, making sure the mixture is level.

Bake this for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Sprinkle the milk chocolate on top and bake for another minute. Take it out of the oven and with the back of a spoon, spread the milk chocolate evenly. Sprinkle macadamia nuts and then press it into the chocolate. Let it cool. With a knife, run around the edges of the pan to loosen.

anyway. the brownies are AMAZING. shocked at how good of a job i did. :)

komeda + opening at starbucks + foooood!

i haven't listened to komeda in so long (probably because i've been filling my ears with too much noise) but i kind of really like them. i don't really care the implications of that statement, or how you'll judge me, blah.



on wednesday i opened at starbucks for the first time. it was kind of exciting! i get the feeling this whole "she's the newbie" thing is an excuse to be curt, somewhat rude with me. but it's only temporary. once i get to know everyone i'm sure they'll be close, warm, and friendly. just gotta keep at it.

on the way there was a bit of trouble. i rode my bike. i was riding down royal hawaiian ave, towards the shopping center and i rode onto the side walk and dismounted. "HEY. YOU!" came from behind me and i turned around. a cop was running towards me, some 200 ft away, waiving frantically. "YOU'RE BREAKING THE LAW." she shouted as she slowed towards me. "i'm sorry? what's the problem?" "you're riding on a sidewalk." "um, no, i got off my bike when i got on the sidewalk." "yes, exactly." "then what's the problem?" this woman went on to explain to me that had there been a pedestrian trying to cross the street, i would have hit him with my bicycle and caused him serious injury, possibly killing him. "could you live with that?" she asked. "well, obviously i can't. but there was no one there." i replied. she glared. "don't get smart with me. you're supposed to dismount on the street before getting onto the sidewalk." okay officer, i get it, i totally understand. "if i see you around here again i'll cite you." "what?" "you heard me. i'll cite you." "for what?" "chances are you'll be doing something illegal and i'll get you for it. you can bet your life on it."

when i got home later that morning and told my mom this story she said to me, "women cops are the worst. they're so hysterical and crazy." hahaha. she's probably right. but i've met some nice women cops before. this one was just nuts. gah.

these last few days have been such a blur which saddens me because today is my last day at satura. i doubt i'll have time to get nostalgic because i have to hustle over to starbucks and work the closing shift. last night after i got off there, mom and i got kotteri ramen at tenkaippin. my mouth still reeks of garlic as a result.

the other day i ate at that plate lunch place next to rainbow mart in palolo. i haven't been to the newly renovated one so i thought i'd give it a try. it was pretty good.



chicken cutlet with gravy. portion was amazingly perfect. saw a guy eating hamburger steak so i might have to give that one a try next time. pretty reasonable prices. got my drink at the convenience store, too.

anyway. not much else to say. boobs.

pizza rant

MAN. so i really really love papa john's pizza. i don't really know what it is about the garden fresh pizza (maybe the deliciously sweet tomatoes, or maybe it's the crunchy bell peppers?) but i am hooked. absolutely. and guess what? i really really love papa john's because they allow online ordering. AND they post all their specials up there. gasp! the internet has officially made me fat.

i guess i'm excited because i do not like ordering over the phone. i always get way too caught up with the specials that the employee kind of barfs out at the beginning of the phone call. this leaves me feeling overwhelmed with options that i haven't had time to consider, and me being indecisive makes it all the harder. i can't even tell you how many times i've hung up on pizza places which in the end made me opt to not even get pizza because i was afraid if i called back they'd recognize my voice.

anyway, the internet has oversimplified this dilemma and has eliminated what was really preventing me from ordering delivery. now i don't know what i'm doing but i'm eating pizza three times a day several times a week. yes, this is horribly unhealthy (hence garden fresh, i figured the veggies make up for something) but god. i can't help it.

which is what brings me to this point. they're onto me, papa john's that is. i got this in the mail today, just after i had ordered pizza.

oh man. THEY KNOW THAT I'M HOOKED! i know for sure now. i only have till august 28th to take advantage of this deal (which is an amazing deal). even if i can't eat more than two slices in one sitting, i can always freeze whatever the second pizza is and eat it over time.

what is wrong with me?!

things i miss eating but cannot eat anymore

so for those of you who know me (or even met me and may have made this comment off hand), i can't eat certain types of shellfish. mainly, i can't eat shrimp, lobster, or crab. not even eat things that have come into contact with any of those three. it's made my life a bit more difficult, especially since i'm japanese and most dishes are prepared with or in contact with any of these three. but i've managed, had a few slip ups here and there, but nothing that forced me into the hospital.

lately, because it's summer probably, i've been craving shrimp more than usual. red lobster commercials kill me. i die almost every time i see any menu that has a "seafood special" because it usually means an orgy of things waiting to kill me. i know, i know, i'm being dramatic. there are people out there with way worse food allergies than mine (i.e. gluten, peanut, lactose intolerance). but i suppose the fact that i've gone from being able to eat ANYTHING to now having a restriction, i can honestly say that i'm a little disappointed with my body. thanks, genetics! (side note: several family members on my father's side of the family have a shellfish allergy, including my father whom is allergic to only certain types of crab).

so in my spiteful attitude, i am making a list of things i really want to eat but can't. i know this will not make me feel better but i'm drunk and i don't give a fuck.

1. everything at bubba gumps.

2. tempura

3. seafood risotto

4. shrimp scampi pizza

5. shrimp chips

6. thai style snow crab

7. shrimp sushi

8. lobster tail

9. shumai

10. shrimp cocktail

11. crab cakes

12. lobster bisque

13. fish & chips (deep fried in the same oils as shrimp, sad)

14. crab croquettes

15. teppan style lobster

this list would probably be longer but i'm too hungry/angry to type on.

edit: here's something i'm glad i can eat. bread! me and shokupan man. he lights up!!

me and my illness

I suppose this has been the worst week to be hit by the stomach flu. Something I ate on Friday or Saturday has been bothering me since Sunday. This week I've been surrounded by so much delicious food (my dad's birthday dinner, mom's home cooking three nights in a row, pizza at J.J.'s) and it saddens me so much that my body is refusing it and just simply expelling it from my body. I'm sorry if this is TMI for some of you but I feel the need to talk about it.

When I was a kid I remember not understanding what it meant to get sick. I couldn't really grasp the idea of being perfectly well one moment then feeling like the world was ending the next. I remember someone once trying to explain to me at the age of eight or nine what the stomach flu was. "It's like, you ate a bunch of really bad men with guns and they're inside guarding your stomach, kicking all the yummy food out." And really, that's all it really is.

I'm lucky, of course, that I'm not vomiting. I feel like food exiting the body that route tends to be unpredictable. For the most part, my life is the same. I just sit on the toilet longer and have probably used a months worth of toilet paper in the last five days. I'm fine, really. I think I'm able to handle most solids again. But... quite frankly... I'm too afraid to try.

None the less, I've somehow been able to subsist on liquids. Soups, gatorade, jello. Quite the menu! I still feel hungry all the time. Not so much right now... which is worrying me. Am I getting used to not being able to eat? Is this normal?

This is such a scattered blog and I guess that's the point. Lack of food has made me loopy. On the bright side, I've lost five pounds in the last five days and while that isn't a fact to be really proud of I guess I'm trying to stay positive! Screw exercising. I'll just keep eating somewhat bad food and keep getting sick until I'm a size zero again.

Kidding, of course.

supermarket finds!

a few weeks ago my mom and i made an unusual trip to salt lake to visit the carpet store. afterwards, we stopped by target which was right next door. salt lake/that whole area of aiea, pearl city, mililani, ewa, etc is such a strange place. i'm so unfamiliar with it... but to be honest everything looks exactly the same. maybe i am really a townie since i can only establish where i am based on landmarks around me. this cannot be so when you're out there. there's just houses. a TON of houses. i can officially say that suburbia scares me.

because there was only a pizza hut and a starbucks to eat at... we became desperate for decent food. luckily target has food in the form of a freezer aisle and this was on sale for $4. frozen pizza this cheap? unheard of! plus it said that the ingredients were "imported from italy." really?! i was excited.

(note to self: you can't fucking take pictures at 3ft distance. FIGURE IT OUT, GIRL!)

mom made caprese salad with cherry tomatoes and bits of anchovy on top! this ended up being much more delicious than the pizza which was a hot circle of garbage (thanks, kevin, from the office for this quote). why was it bad? there was no flavor! the goat cheese had the strangest texture... and since it wasn't evenly spread you'd just get huge bursts of goat cheese and then... dull... crappy... frozen spinach flavor. yuck. never again.

i've been trying to be more frugal lately but it's hard. i'm an impulsive buyer-- i'll admit it! so when i saw all these items on sale i could not resist. do i really need the equivalent of 20 servings of miso soup in the middle of the summer? ...no. but i might. plus this stuff doesn't go bad, right? right!

i'm really excited for the item on the far right, which is something i haven't seen before. it's just the miso paste except it comes with small baby clams inside! we will see how that actually tastes. i don't want to hype it up too much for myself (like i did for the pizza) only to be sorely disappointed. the miso ramen in the dead center is always good. the soup packets are delicious and the ramen is exceptional for the processed type. $1.50. i just wish it was a just-add-water kind of deal so i could bring it to work.

anyway~~ that's all for now. heehee.

i love omiyage

so the best part about being japanese is that my people have some sickening obsession with bringing back gifts from our adventures abroad. unfortunately, i don't have a ton of friends frequenting the motherland (japan) nor relatives that come visit me here in hawaii that often. but luckily, my mom has made friends with a new vendor for her company (she works in the tourism industry) and he is constantly flying back and forth. my mom asked me what i wanted from tokyo. my answer? this.

http://www.tokyobanana.jp/

my first encounter with a tokyo banana was in the fall of 2006. i was working at a restaurant in waikiki and one of my coworker's parents were in town. she brought some food gifts for everyone and was handing them out in the back office. i picked it up and said "what is this? a twinkie?" and everyone started laughing. "what, you've never seen a tokyo banana before?" i shrugged, ripped the plastic wrapper off and shoved the soft cake into my mouth.

oh. my. god. it's the softest sponge you'll ever EVER eat with this light, creamy (but not too much so) banana flavored filling. i know people are always skeptical when it comes to banana flavored things... apparently it's a hard flavor to replicate. but trust me, there is something just jaw-dropping amazing about this. i am in love.

a quick google search seems to show that most people have mixed reactions about my favorite little cake of all time. to them i say screw you. more fucking tokyo banana for me. i should also mention there is a choco-tokyo banana! except it looks like a poop because it's brown. still good! they also have a bunch of other amazing things. wafer-like cookies, strawberry banna, etc etc. the list goes on.

anyway back to my mom and this super awesome faceless nameless guy. hey, man, thanks so much. this is the third box he's brought back for me and well? to be honest? i think you might be a god or deity or something. thank you so much for your generosity. i owe you so much.

now excuse me while i gorge myself in what is so holy and right.

Raraya Review!

So at the beginning of this year, my mom had to find a new tenant for the studio she rents out. Among the applicants was Chef Aoki, a slender very a-typical asian man who had was looking for a more affordable place to live. My mom was hesitant to let him move in; she prefers quiet students. But when he illustrated his daily work schedule it became apparent that he'd be spending little time here because he owns a ramen shop on South King! MY DREAM COME TRUE. I was thrilled at the idea of a new ramen shop in Hawaii. And with the owner as my neighbor, I was so sure to get some serious deals (can you say discount?)

Situated on South King between Piikoi and Pensacola, Raraya is super easy to miss. They offer parking but it's relatively limited; street parking is always readily available. Aoki received his training in Yokohama, so his style of ramen is very unusual for the local scene, a type of broth and noodle I was unfamiliar with but so excited to try.

Personally, if you're going to make me a bowl of ramen it damn better well be pork based broth. Tonkotsu ramen has an amazing flavor unmatched by it's miso and shoyu based counterparts. This just so happens to be Raraya's specialty. Boiling the marrow for three days to prepare the broth shows true dedication to amazing flavor. Two words: simply delicious.

I can see why most locals are hesitant to try this place. The noodles are thick, like saimin, but the restaurant allows you to really customize your ramen experience. Soup too oily? Get a little less. Noodles too thick? They offer thinner ones. Basically even if your first experience isn't mind-blowing like mine was I can assure you that whatever you didn't like can be changed for something you will.

My brother (who does not read/understand Japanese) struggled to understand the menu as it was a bit confusing for English speakers. So he chose to eat the Mini Loco Moco Curry. Very similar to the local staple, the only difference being that instead of gravy the rice was covered in beef curry with vegetables. Even for the mini, the portion was ridiculously huge.

In the top corner there, barely visible, is the gyoza we ordered as well! This paired really well with the ramen. Unlike most places, I believe Aoki pours a potato-starch mixture towards the end of frying, creating an extra crispy bottom that adds more crunch to the usually soft texture.

Overall, I was absolutely stuffed and barely managed to drink all of my soup. My brother wasn't even able to eat half of his meal. And while I wasn't given a discount as I had hoped, it didn't put a damper in my meal. Since the weather has been so gloomy lately, I've been dreaming of their thick soup and seriously can't wait till the next time I eat there. This isn't just a plug for my mom's tenant. Really. This ramen is just that good.

omg ice cream

SO FREAKING AMAZING. Cappuccino ice cream sandwiched between two oatmeal cookies then dipped in dark chocolate! New obsession. Half wanting to move to San Francisco just to eat these in an assortment of flavors. Such a shame that one sandwich is 49% of my daily recommended value of saturated fat. But sometimes it's the price you have to pay for sweet (edible) salvation.

because my mom said so

Thursday! So my mom had just finished cooking dinner. It was the first time I had been home to eat for over a week and I was excited to see what she had prepared. My mom is Japanese, so she spends way too much time making food look pretty and delicious. BUT she's American enough to spend just as much time making it taste amazing.


Not-beef stew, ocean salad + tomatoes, some kind of misozuke, and mugicha!
I told my mom at the beginning of the year that I was thinking about starting and maintaining a food blog. She said I should post all the meals she makes so she can get a fan base and sell a cooking book (jokingly, of course). But since that convo, she always asks me to take pictures of her meals. "What, it's not good enough for you blog?" So this post is for you, mom. Photos of meals you've made for me. Sorry there aren't as many as you thought there would be.

Tri-tip steak medium rare, grilled bell pepper and carrots, white miso soup with aburage and gobo, ahi poke, rice + this grain mix that my mom puts in it (i'll find out what it's called)



Hiyashi ramen with homemade chashu!



Tri-tip again! With stirfried gobo/mixed frozen greens, miso eggplant, and rice!

note to self: get a better camera.

internet + food = future shopping addiction

So lately I've been feeling a little depressed (probably because I've been stuffing myself with cakes from work) so I've been online shopping. My usual method is to add everything I want in the cart until I feel satisfied, then scroll up and down the list, deleting things until I come up with a reasonable sum. I did it on UO for about two hours and cut my $1K+ shopping total to some measly $380. I haven't bought it yet, but just illustrating... I'm kind of addicted to online shopping.

I guess I'm like most people. I absolutely hate the whole standing in lines, walking around searching through everything. It's like an awful scavenger hunt that I end up having to PAY for. Online shopping makes it easy because the computer knows exactly if the size exists or not! No searching! It's just there or it isn't!

If only grocery shopping were that easy.. but wait! IT IS!

Did you know if you type in "bacon" into Amazon's search bar this comes up?

I guess it's really no surprise that online food shopping is becoming more and more common. Google's top searches for 2009 includes a food list. Globally, the top searches are as follows:

1. acai berry
2. picnic
3. クックパッド
4. tesco direct
5. senseo
6. peanut butter recall
7. nespresso commande
8. habibs delivery
9. mocktail
10. masterchef australia

The ease and accessibility is making my life a nightmare. While hanging out with the boyfriend at home just after shopping for Japanese chocolates, I found an ebay user selling Coffeebeat. It's this candy made by Meiji and it's my absolute favorite candy of all time. I've been searching all over Hawaii for it and to my astonishment, the internet has a number of websites I can order it in bulk! The shipping is a bitch, but I think it'd be worth it.

Twenty of these for $23 + $9 S&H? I THINK IT'S WORTH IT. Try and convince me otherwise!

THINGS I WANT TO EAT RIGHT NOW

So I have this awful tendency to shop for groceries when I'm absolutely starving. Although I obsessively think of food, the whole brainstorming process doesn't start until I feel that itch in my belly. Because of this, I become incredibly indecisive. And the supermarket is the worst place to be. I find myself pacing the aisles, pausing in front of cans of sauces, marinades, frozen dinners, often overwhelmed by the number of choices I have. But then I end up making something I've grown accustomed to, never really branching out and making new things.

Well hopefully after this post things will change.

Truth be told, despite the fact that I often consider myself quite the connoisseur of international cuisine, I still tend to eat the same dishes, the same meals. I suppose that I've convinced myself that because I've eaten agedashi tofu so many times, I can tell exactly how it should taste and have created these false expectations in my mind. I'm getting off track here, but you know what I'm trying to say.

1. Chocolate dipped bacon



Sara Jayne Photography

Don't get me wrong. I am not a real big chocolate eater. I've always seen it as sort of a savory snack, far from the typical Hershey's bar or mocha frappe. It's apparent that most of the world is a big fan of cocoa and refined sugar so it's no surprise that someone decided to start dipping things in it. Fondue, anyone?

There's something incredibly intriguing about dipping bacon into chocolate. Not only will there be a contrast in flavors, salty versus sweet, but the oilyness of the bacon would probably (i'd imagine) create a melt-in-your-mouth feeling. Plus, who doesn't love pig fat anyway?

I've read a number of recipes to make it and it's really not that difficult. I guess I just haven't felt adventurous enough to finally go through with it!

2. Jelly fish

The last time I went to Japan was nearly seven years ago. I remember sitting at the table just after New Years with my family around when my grandmother presented us with a salad. Garnished at the very top was shiny, slimy, and sliding down the lettuce leaves. "Gerri-fishu" my grandmother enunciated to my brother and I, to which we both pursed our lips and shook our heads in silence.

I really regret not eating it.

I want to try it cured, but my understanding is that most jellyfish that is marketed is already processed, otherwise it cannot be consumed. My curiosity kills me! Does it taste like fish? Like the sea? Perhaps its own distinct, unusual flavor? I must know! I cannot seem to find it here in Hawaii and perhaps what little kanji I know fails me, but hopefully I can cross this off my "Must Eat" list.

3. Olive Garden



OKAY OKAY I KNOW. THIS ISN'T A REAL FOOD. But effing-A man, they play the commercials here in Hawaii all the time and we don't have one here! I want to eat EVERYTHING, I don't even care if it sucks. I just need to get it out of my system.

4. Pad Thai



I love Thai food. I can't get enough of it, really. But despite the numerous visits to Bangkok Chef in Nu'uanu or Chiang Mai in Moili'ili, I have never tried pad thai. Perhaps it's because it reminds me of an omelet of thai foods, a mish-mash of various dishes and flavors. And because they're a real family style restaurant like most Asian cuisines are, I can't imagine sharing something like that and eating something else too. Maybe I'm over-thinking the dish, but I'm desperate to try it now. I'll just have to make a mental note to remind them no shrimp!

Okay I'm kind of tired of talking about food for today. More updates to come!