1-2-Bite-Cut-Chew

While we do have a significant number of Mexican restaurants, other Hispanic cuisines aren't so readily represented here in the islands.   In particular, I really have no inkling what South American cuisine is like.   I have naturally always assumed that the cuisine would be very similar to Mexican food, but this is a huge fallacy. French food and Italian food have next to nothing in common.   Chinese food and Japanese food are just as dissimilar.   In fact, I really hate the term "Asian".  At least when we were called "Oriental", there was some exotic, mystical appeal to it.   But, when I'm on the mainland and they call me "Asian American", I always feel like, "Chinese and Japanese are so different, what you cannot even tell us apart??".  I would much rather be called, "local Chinese", or more simply "Pake" will do.   It really annoys the hell out of me.   So by the same token, thinking that all the Latin American cultures are the same does them the same discourtesy.  Unfortunately, since they have very little representation here in the islands, we don't really get the opportunity to explore and get acquainted with their various cultures.

While there are few South American restaurants, we cannot say that they have had no influence in our culture.   In fact, it was gauchos and Mexican vaqueros, who came over to train our local paniolos when cattle was first introduced to the islands.   Because of this, the paniolo methods and tools are very still more similar to the gauchos than to the cowboys of Texas.  Because of their excellent training, the original paniolos (like Ikua Purdy) would consistently out-rope the Texas boys in competition (something they don't like to talk about). 

Fittingly enough, when the Ward 16 complex first finished construction, we had a restaurant called Gaucho Grill.  Like Compadres, it was actually part of a small California chain.  Unfortunately, also like Compadres, most of that chain has closed including the one at Ward.   But for a while we had the opportunity to enjoy Argentina style asado in our own backyard.   Of course, being part of a California based chain, I always questioned the authenticity of the Argentine flavor.  But then again, being steak, it isn't exactly a complex dish.  I'm pretty sure the steak itself was not imported from Argentina, so that leaves only the seasonings to convey the true Argentine flavor.  When I visited Gaucho Grill, the skirt steak that I had was as tender and juicy as expected.   But I was a litlte disappointed in flavors weren't all that distinguishable from any other Western style steak place.   For the most part, steak stands on its own, and unless you're doing teppanyaki, the beef flavor doesn't change all that much.   Of course Argentina is famous for its vast quantities of flayed carcasses being grilled over open flame, so the skirt steak was probably representative, if not entirely accurately, of their cuisine.   When I think of gaucho cuisine though, I just can't help but think of Goofy describing gaucho lifestyle in his 1942 short, El Gaucho Goofy, a segment from the Disney classic Saludos Amigos.   With bread and meat protruding from each side of his hand, and naught but a knife in the other to eat with (1-2-bite-cut-chew), Goofy simultaneously conveyed both humor as well as the mouthwatering nature of the food.  To me, that will always be what Argentine cuisine is all about.

The only other major South American cuisine that we had in the islands, was in the form of a Brazilian barbecue, otherwise known as a churrascaria.   If you've never been to a churrascaria, it is basically a buffet, where a never ending line of waiters come to you with huge rapier like skewers loaded with meat.  They slide you off a piece or cut you off a portion to enjoy until the next waiter comes along with the next type of meat.  It's a huge meatfest, with different cuts of steaks, chicken, sausages, pork, and lamb, enough meat to gorge any voracious carnivore.  You're left feeling really heavy, stuffed full of meat, meat, and more meat.   In Hawaii, this meatopia could be found in McCully Shopping Center, at a place called Tudo de Bon.

Tudo de Bon was brightly lit and clean, but not really adorned with Brazilian decor.   Instead, they focused letting the food convey the authenticity.  Going to the bar for the side dishes, the most unusual (and very Brazilian) thing they had was a ground up powder called farofa, that you would sprinkle on your rice or dip your meat into.   To me the farofa didn't really add much flavor, so much as a powdery, mealy texture which to be perfecty honest I didn't really care for.   But it was the most authentically , and uniquely Brazilian thing that they offered.   The rest of the bar included various pastas and salads, which may or may not have been really Brazilian, but certainly weren't as memorable.   Of course the most memorable thing at Tudo de Bon was the meat.   There was tons of it.   Like the skirt steak at Gaucho Grill, I really didn't taste seasonings that really differentiated it from any other grilled meat, but it was all very succulent and tasty.   I tried to find similarities to Mexican food, but there really weren't any in any of the spices.   I tried to find similarities to our local Portuguese food, knowing how big an influence the Portuguese had in Brazil, but the closest thing they had were sausages that were similiar but not really the same as our own Portuguese sausage.  They really just grilled it to bring out the natural flavors of the meat itself.   While they had so many different types of steak, it was really the chicken drumettes, the sausages, and when they had it the bacon wrapped turkey that I liked the best.  After eating sirloin (picanha) tri tip, ribeye, filet mignon, and even lamb, all the red meats kind of blur together.   But it was a great experience just to have them bring everything by on those huge skewers.   The only problem was that they were really slow.   Whenever we went, it seemed like they only had one waiter (who actually bore a striking resembalance to Sylvester Stallone) going back and forth with different skewers.  I think it was this lack of proficiency in running an efficient restaurant that lead to their closing.  Sadly, they took with them our only window into Brazilian cuisine.

Latin America has never been really high on my travel list, so I don't know that I'll ever taste the truly authentic cuisines of this region.   But, the absense of Gaucho Grill and Tudo de Bon did leave me curious for more. If only my Brazilian friend, Simone, knew how to cook, I'd be all set.

It's a Wrap!

Burritos have always been traditionally Mexican, but since the 80's, people have been trying to wrap all kinds of things in a big flour tortilla. People wrap up cold cuts and cheese to make a pseudo-sandwich.   People wrap up salads.   These days McDonald's and KFC even offer snack wraps that have hamburgers or fried chicken in them.   Ever since the trendy low-carb diet craze, people have been substituting tortillas for buns and trying capitolize on the wrap craze.   But only certain places do it well.

Gutbuster Burrito (with Carnitas) from BC Burrito

The traditional predecessor to a wrap is of course the burrito.   So named for the way the farmers would bundle their wares on their "little donkeys", or from the backs of which they would sell food from (like lunchwagons from the 1800s), burritos in Mexico are considerably smaller than the mammoth purses in the U.S.. There is some debate about what distinguishes a burrito from a soft taco, but the general consensus is that a burrito is a little larger, may feature more ingredients, but most characteristically the way that it is wrapped.  Tightly tucked in on both ends and rolled like a sleeping bag, burritos are much less messy than a loosely folded or cigar rolled soft taco.  It is this tight wrapping technique that distinguishes the best burritos or wraps.

Gutbuster Burrito (with Carnitas) from BC Burrito

There are quite a few Mexican places on the island, each with their own burrito offerings.   However, while places like Maui Tacos, go for the wet approach of making a huge, plate-sized, overstuffed burritos, swimming in Mexican red sauce, this approach, which really requires a knife and fork, is not extremely condusive to the portability that has made wraps so popular.  For me, the best wrapped burrito on the island can be found at a little place called BC Burrito on Waialae by Koko Head.  For one thing, the tortillas they use are more fun and colorful than most places, with flavors like spinach (for a pretty green burrito), jalapeno & cheese, and tomato & chipotle.   Not only do they add flavor, but the texture is a little softer, more doughy, more elastic, and a little more sticky than the traditional flour or corn tortillas.   The result is a very tightly bundled wrap that retains strong cohesiveness and does not fall apart while you're eating it.   For an addtional level of structural integrity, they wrap your burrito in  aluminum foil, which you can peel off, one circle at a time, exposing only what you're going to eat while the rest of the foil continues to hold everything together.  This tight cohesion not only enhances portability, but compresses the ingredients together into a much more unified food item, rather than just a hodge podge of separate flavors.

Gutbuster Burrito (with Carnitas) from BC Burrito

BC Burrito uses their excellent wrapping technique to envelope just an entire Tex Mex meal into a single handheld monstrosity.  While their Super burrito is more than large enough to feed any really hungry sane individual, I opted to try their enormous Gutbuster burrito.  This gargantuan thing is as long as my forearm, and thick as the thickest part of a wine bottle or softball bat.  It is also extremely packed with rice, meat (their carnitas have a wonderful smokey taste), cheese, sour cream and guacamole, and salsa (of which my favorite is a very tasty chipotle & corn mixture).  It is so tightly packed with stuff, that just holding it you can feel the incredible weight of all that food.  It's a bit much, even for me, and I left the place feeling as overstuffed as the burrito itself, but immensely satisfied and happy.

Potato Burrito from BC Burrito

The most original and tasty thing at BC Burrito however is departure from the traditional Tex Mex form.   It is their signature potato burrito, filled with seasoned potatoes, grilled onions, cheddar cheese, salsa,  and a nice creamy ranch.  Their potatoes are prefectly seasoned, diced and fried, and surprisingly full of flavor.  As my wife would say, they're full of potatoey goodness.  It really says something that my wife, who really despises Mexican food in general, likes their potato burrito.  They've replaced the Mexican flavor with something a little more universal.   But if you want to add that Mexican flavor back in, they've got a big bar with several dozen different exotic types of hot sauces.   Of course, the only hot sauce that truly has the authentic Mexican blend of flavors and spices, is Cholula (which they have in large quantities).  Add a little Cholula to anything and it tastes authentically Mexican, right?

The potato burrito is a great example of how wraps have evolved beyond the traditional Mexican burrito.  On the mainland, even Chinese food gets wrapped burrito style in something called moo shu pork, which is pork, julienne black mushrooms, maybe some bamboo shoot slivers, some egg, and hoisin sauce all rolled into a crepe.   In Hawaii, with all of our Chinese population being decended from Cantonese farmers, this dish is almost unheard of.  I, myself, had clue what this dish was the first time I went to the mainland, where it is a common "Chinese" menu item.  Luckily, I had experienced this dish once by the time Disney named their little dragon, Mooshu, so I could catch the reference in Mulan.  But I'm not sure that everyone here in Hawaii (or in China for that matter) did.  Regardless, it just goes to show how just about anything gets wrapped up these days.

Turkey Bacon Wrap from Salad Creations

Since the advent of the low carb diet, wraps have become very popular, especially salad wraps.  Now, I have never understood the point of low carb diets.  Supposedly, you can eat something as fatty as a hamburger (smothered in gravy even), but throw it on a bed of shredded cabbage instead of white rice or a bun, and suddenly it becomes healthy for you, and you can even lose weight by eating it?   Yeah right.  But I will say that salad wraps are tasty enough.   These days if we're craving a salad wrap, we head over to Salad Creations in Koko Marina.   They chop their salad, so the mixture of small chopped up pieces fits better in the wrap than other places where big leaves of lettuce in your wrap can get unruly and cause the whole thing to fall apart.   The other nice thing is that they add just enough dressing to bind the salad together within the wrap, adding a little more of that necessary cohesion.

My very favorite place to get different types of wraps on the island though, is sadly gone and way before it's time.  It was a little place in Manoa Marketplace called Pili Wraps Cafe.  They used to use tortillas that were very similar to the ones served at BC Burrito, resulting in the same tightly packed, cohesive goodness.   However, instead of filling those wraps with just Mexican flavors, Pili Wraps put all kinds of things in their wraps.   They used to make a chicken caeser salad wrap that would put Salad Creations to shame.  It had the full caesar flavor and crunch of a real salad, but tightly bound in handheld form.  They also made a terrific spicy Thai peanut sauce chicken wrap and an Indonesian chicken wrap that really captured the flavors of Southeast Asia.   But my favorite was always their Cajun chicken wrap.   Instead of the Mexican rice you would find in most burritos, this wrap had real Cajun dirty rice.   The chicken was perfectly tender grilled white meat chicken.  Everything was then smothered in a wonderful creamy, spicy Cajun sauce that actually had the right blend of spices.  Sinking your teeth into this warm soft wrap was a great combination of textures from the ever so slightly chewy doughy tortilla, to the tender meaty chicken, to the soft beads of rice.  It was warm and filling and utterly delicious.   I was very sad to see Pili Wraps close before they got the chance to establish a following and make some lasting memories.   BC Burrito may wrap the perfect burrito, but Pili Wraps used to dominate the non-Mexican wraps.

Wraps are still changing and evolving, but when people wrap them as expertly as BC Burrito or Pili Wraps, they should be more than just a passing food fad.

Viva La Raza!

I spent my college years in the sprawling heat of Los Angeles, a city with a very strong Mexican influence.  I used to really enjoy going down Olivera St., listening to the mariachi bands and eating Mexican food.  But for all of the time that I spent in L.A., I still don't really feel that I know what authentic Mexican food really is.  Yes, I've eaten my fair share of Mexican food, but I've always felt like it was Tex-Mex.  Mexican food, as interpreted by or watered down for gringos.   Watching Anthony Bourdain only served to amplify this apprehension, because he has been so vehement about his love for "real" Mexican food and his dislike of "fake" Mexican food, like Chilis.   Have I only ever been exposed to the fake stuff?  Have I never tasted the true Mexican flavors?  Even I know that hard shell tacos, and anything slathered in sour cream or nacho cheese certainly isn't real Mexican food.   I want to know what Mexican food tastes like, if it were made by a grandmother in Puebla.  What I really need is a Mexican friend who would take me home for a family meal, to get the true flavors (of course the same goes for Filipino food and Indian food).   Until then, I'm stuck eating whatever the restaurants deem fit to serve, regardless of how authentic it is.

Hawaii does not have nearly the same level of Mexican influence that L.A. does.  Whereas on the mainland, it is really beneficial to have all the signs and instruction booklets in English and Spanish, in Hawaii it is much more practical to have them in English and Japanese.  However, my friend Marie at the Latin Business Association, would kick me if I said we had no Hispanic population whatsoever.   We certainly have a number of Mexican restaurants, but without a large Hispanic population, there really isn't anyone who would notice if they got it wrong.  Nevertheless, they certainly are popular enough. 

My favorite Mexican restaurant used to be Compadres in Ward Center.   They were always a little more upscale than any other Mexican restaurant, and were part of a California based chain (both things which always made me wonder if this wasn't more oriented towards gringos).  But their food was always fresh and tasty to me.  I particularly liked their taco fiesta platter for two, which gave you a nice warm stack of tortillas, some beef, some chicken, some pork, some cheese, some guacamole, some sour cream, some jalapenos, and a few different types of salsa, and let you build whatever combinations you wanted.  I think the variety of little dishes just appealed to me, as did the ability to assemble whatever I wanted.  But, was this really how families in Oaxaca eat?  Since our Compadres abruptly closed (as did most of the chain), I will never really have the chance to compare.   I've also needed to find a new place of my Mexican fix.    I know that Jose's on Koko Head has been around for a long time, but somehow they've never clicked for me.  Residents on the Aiea side certainly swear by Banditos, but it's a little far to go just for a burrito.  But I found a small little watering hole, right in Market City Shopping Center, called Torito's Mexican Food, that not only serves what I perceive to be authentic Mexican, but definitely some of the best Mexican food I've ever tasted.

Tortilla Chips & Salsa at Torito's

To begin with, instead of bread and butter, like any good Mexican restaurant they give you tortilla chips and salsa.   But this is not your ordinary bag of Tostitos and a bowl of Pace Picante.  The chips at Torito's have an extraordinary texture.  They're perfectly crisp, but do not any hint of oiliness to them.  They don't have all of the bumpiness and salt of a tostitos, and are overall thinner and lighter.  They have an amazing crunch for something so thin in fact.  They are so totally addictive, your hand just seems to pass them to your mouth on automatic.  But it is the salsa that, to me, is out of this world.  They only have one type, not a long bar like some other places, but with salsa this good, all you need is one.  Whereas Pace has the consistency of ketchup with some chunks of vegetables in it, the salsa at Torito's has the texture of finely minced fresh crisp tomatoes.  It's similar to the texture of the green onion and ginger that you get with good cold ginger chicken.  It's not so much a sauce as it is a relish.   Like good lomi lomi salmon, it is served nicely chilled, which conterbalances its spiciness.   To me, it is also the perfect blend of spiciness that doesn't overpower the fresh taste of the other vegetables in it. I have had a lot of different salsa, but the one at Torito's is my favorite.  Of course, if it isn't spicy enough for you, you can ask them for some of their special "hot" salsa.   It's a green salsa made with jalapeno peppers and habanero peppers (infamous for being on the very hot end of the Scoville scale).  It is so hot, it will be burning your tummy for the next 2 days.

Taquitos at Torito's

Once you've gotten past the chips and salsa, Torito's makes a mean taquito.  When I was little, the taquito was always my favorite Mexican dish.   I think it was because I didn't, and still don't, like the texture of refried beans.  While most places put refried beans in just about every dish, a taquito is just a cigar shaped roll of meat.   With just meat and nothing else, except a little guacamole or sour cream to dip in, and a shape that is just perfect for little hands to hold and little mouths to wrap around, it's no wonder I loved them as a kid.  The taquitos at Torito's are fantastic because, at a lot of places the taquitos are crispy on the ends but the middles get soggy with oil or soaking in guacamole.  At Torito's the taquitos are crunchy from end to end, but the meat is still juicy inside.  What more can you ask for?

Chimichanga at Torito's

As I grew older and learned to tolerate a little bit of refried beans, my favorite Mexican dish became the chimichanga.   I know, with the amount of sour cream and jack cheese on both my taquitos and my chimichanga, I'm really only wading into gringo fare.  I'm sure that no real Mexican grandmother from Veracruz would ever deep fry their burrito.  But they just taste so good, especially the one at Torito's.  I especially like my filled with carnitas or roasted pork.   In fact, Mexican carnitas aren't too dissimilar from kalua pig, except for a difference in seasoning.  Diving into layers of juicy pork, cheese, rice, guacamole, sour cream, and other goodies, my mind shuts down and I just never want to stop trancelike shovelling it into my face.  

Tacos Al Pastor at Torito's

As good as the standard Tex-Mex fare tastes, watching Bourdain made me really want to experience more authentic south of the border cuisine.  One of the most enticing things he ate was a specialty of Mexico City called tacos al pastor.   He said that they were so good, they became the preferred meal option for the entire crew for the entire trip (which really says something).  So imagine my surprise when I saw it on the menu at Torito's.   Just looking at them, you know you're geting something different from the usual ground beef, refried beans, sour cream, lettuce, jack cheese, tomatoes and olives that pretty much defines Tex Mex food.  This was a fresh, soft, tortilla that actually had a lot of corn flavor.  Atop was some tender, juicy sliced pork, topped with a superbly fresh salsa.   However, as delicious as it was, it was a little disappointing too.   My understanding was that tacos al pastor was a Mexican version of the meat that you get on a gyro or shwarma in Greek cuisine.  But the meat in the tacos al pastor was more similar to thinnly sliced pork chops, than it was like the super soft, super savory shavings of beef and lamb that you find in a gyro.   This was one dish that, albeit tasty, left me wanting something more.

Chicken Mole at Torito's

If there was one dish though, that I thought was truly authentic Mexican grandmother food, it would have be mole.  Mole is a spicy, chocolate based sauce that I first found out about reading a webcomic called Wapsi Square, whose lead character Monica is part Mexican.  The fact that I had never even heard of it before, lead me to the believe that this was something truly authentically Mexican.  For one thing, you hardly ever see it on the menu at a regular Tex Mex place.   For another, it is a spicy savory blend of chocolate and chilis.  For most of the country (or the world for that matter), we have a hard time thinking of chocolate as anything other than a sweet confection.   Therefore the idea of chocolate covered chicken seems kind of repugnant.  But originally, raw chocolate (which isn't sweet until you add sugar to it) was used by the Aztecs in the same way that chilis and other spices were.  So a savory spicy melange made with chocolate would be very uniquely and authentically Mexican.  When I first got to taste it at Torito's, I was really floored.  Although chocolate may seem familiar, and Mexican spices may seem familiar, the mole had a flavor that I had truly never experienced before.  It was at once firey and earthy.  The fragrance of the chocolate danced around all of these different heady, picante spices.  The chicken, while moist and tender, really was nothing more than a vehicle for this savory concoction (to call it a gravy or sauce seems almost degrading).  I had finally tasted something, I could thoroughly imagine a Mexican grandmother cooking for me.

Enchilada Plate at Torito's

Torito's has a number of other goodies that I have yet to try which are also classically Mexican.   They've got a fish ala veracruz.  I have always wondered what authentic Mexican seafood dishes taste like, and I'm not referring to the fish tacos you get at Taco Del Mar.  Veracruz is famous for being Mexico's seafood capitol.   Torito's has tamales, which are sort of a Mexican version of joong, and equally as beloved by its constituents.  I have never been a big fan of the masa (or corn meal) and corn husks that they use instead of rice and lotus leaf as in joong.  But then that may be because I've simply never tasted the authentic homemade thing.    They've also got huevos con chorizo (or a Mexican style eggs and sausage).   It's also something I've never tried authentically, although I understand that good chorizo is not too different from good Portuguese sausage.

Salsa at Torito's

I don't know that I'll truly ever be able to distingush the truly authentic Mexican cuisine from the gringofied Tex Mex that is so pervasive around the country.  While Torito's has their fair share of deep fried, sour cream, and jack cheese dishes, they also have things like tacos al pastor and mole, which may be as close as you can get in Hawaii.   I don't know that they're truly authentic, but I do know that they taste really, really good.

Legendary Lunchwagons

I grew up visiting my dad's favorite lunchwagons and hole in the wall restaurants.   As a State worker, he was somehow always privy to all of the best little eateries and greasy spoons in town.  I was indoctrinated into the history and legacy of the lunchwagons, how they evolved from worker's lunches during the plantation days, to become some of Hawaii's best eats available only when they magically appeared.   My dad shared with me some of the best places in town, like my beloved Kanda Lunchwagon at the pier at Kewalo Basin, my favorite lunchwagon of all time, and they became some of the fondest memories of my youth.   So when I started working full time on my own, I really wanted to explore and find some of my own places.   Maybe even return the favor and take my dad to some really awesome little places that he'd never been to.

My very first day on my first (full time) job, I was just getting to know my co-workers and get oriented in my new company.  So when they decided that it was about time to grab some lunch, I followed along like a little lost sheep, trying to make friends.   Fatefully, they brought me to what I would consider one of the greatest lunchwagons of all time, second only to the Kanda Lunchwagon at the pier.   It was the Kanak Attack lunchwagon, parked in the back of a nondescript parking lot, adjacent to a strip club on Kona Street.  Now, I had seen Kanak Attack before, driving past the restaurant they used to have on Kapahulu Ave., but I had never visited them or known that they had a lunchwagon.  Naturally, I was quite excited to be trying a new lunchwagon that I had never heard of before.  Everyone ordered mini-plates, but as it was my first time and I was curious I ordered the full size, and I quickly figured out why everyone ordered mini's.  I ordered a hot turkey sandwich, and the plate was just plain huge.   Not only were there about 4 slices of bread, but a good 2 lbs of turkey, and it was stuffed with mashed potatoes and stuffing, and covered with perfect turkey gravy, with even some cranberry sauce on the side.   In Hawaii, we've got an expression, "Local boys don't eat til they're full, they eat til they fall asleep."   The ensuing nap that follows is referred to as a "kanak attack", and the lunch from this little lunchwagon was quickly living up to its namesake.   It wasn't just huge either, the turkey was just about the best turkey that I had ever gotten from a restaurant.  Of course it didn't compare to my mom's Thanksgiving turkey, but it was real slices of turkey breast, and not the pressed turkey that you normally get from a diner (like Kenny's or Like Like), and it was really tasty.

The Kanak Attack lunchwagon quickly became my favorite place to go for lunch.  Not only were their portions huge, but they were really cheap.  They remain, to this day, the only place I ever found you could get a full plate lunch for about $5 + no tax (and a mini plate for $3.50).   Often their plates were so huge, I would eat half one day, and save the other half for the next day, making them even more economical.  This of course made a huge difference for a newlywed, living on his own budget for the first time.  I quickly became a regular there.  The food there was awesome.   They were the only place I knew of that even put tuna in their potato salad, making it much more of a real side dish, than a cheap filler.   The lunchwagon had a different menu every single day, and you needed to pick up one of their printed menus for the month, to plan ahead what you're going to order.   You had to be quick, because often the best stuff would be sold out by noon.   Fridays were always Hawaiian food days.   But my favorite days were Tuesdays.   In addition to their other specials, Tuesdays would regularly feature my two favorite dishes from the lunchwagon, their roast pork, and their braised shortribs.   Their roast pork was thick, credit card sized pieces of  supremely tender pork, swimming in some of the best brown gravy I have ever had at a restaurant.  But it was their braised shortribs that were the ultimate order.   In my life, I can count on one hand the places where I have ever had short ribs that tender, among them the kal bi chim at Sorobol and teri short ribs at Suehiro's.  But while those were more Oriental tasting, Kanak's was more local tasting.  Covered in a different gravy from roast pork, but equally as delicious, I often wonder if I will ever have short ribs like that again.

Kanak's was more than just nourishment for me though, it was like a confidant.  Unfortunately, in my new job, I had a coworker that just totally had it in for me.  He would criticize, with great hostility, every single little thing that I did, to the point that I went home depressed every day.   I really wanted to quit, but as I was a newlywed who really needed to provide for his new family, I desparately tried to tough it out.  Lunch was my only reprieve from his relentless onlaught of degredation and scrutiny, and I would find myself wandering over to Kanak's, picking up a plate and hiding away on some stairs in the back alleys on Kona St.   It was my only moments of quet and solice, enough to give me back some of my composure.  Kanak's was a much needed respite and for that they would always hold a special place in my soul.  Much later, when my son turned 2 years old, I had a big picnic at the zoo for his birthday, and shared my beloved roast pork and braised short ribs with all of my friends and family, and with them some of the warm fuzzies that Kanak's gave me when I so needed it.  Unfortunately, the Kanak Attack lunchwagon has long since closed on Kona St.   They no longer have their Kapahulu location either, but for a while they were serving lunch out of the St. Louis Alumni clubhouse on Isenberg St..   That location has also disappeared, and I am not sure when or where they will magically reappear again, but when they do, I will certainly be one of the first in line.

As time went on in my office, I eventually found a working relationship with my co-worker (largely due to the patience and tolerance that I afforded him, which no one else in the office did).  I began going out to other clients and wandering around town.  This, naturally, gave me more opportunity to continue my quest for little local places.   One of the places I found, was the Tsukenjo's Lunch House on Cooke St.  A little ironically, I became familiar with their actual restaurant, and not the red lunchwagon they were famous for on Ward Ave.  But I quickly came to know what everyone liked about them so much.

Roast Pork from Tsuekenjo's

Their most famous dish is their also their roast pork.   However, unlike Kanak's which featured big tender pieces of pork, Tsukenjo's roast pork is sort of like kalua pig with gravy on it.   Of course, this gives it all of the tenderness and smokey flavor of good kalua pig, with the addition of terrific brown gravy.   It's not quite as good as Kanak's was, but at least they're always there (every day) for you to enjoy.

Shoyu Chicken from Tsukenjo's

Tsukenjo's also makes some terrific shoyu chicken.  Their chicken is smaller than the big pieces of chicken thigh that you normally expect from shoyu chicken.   But the chicken is literally fall off the bone tender.  In fact, it's somewhat difficult keeping it on the bone, as it falls apart at your touch.   But it is infused with a delicious gingery shoyu taste.   The stronger ginger taste makes their shoyu chicken stand out, and show you what's so great about Tsukenjo's.

As I began to do work for more State agencies, I found myself coming full circle, to find places that State workers like my dad, went to eat.   Perhaps the best downtown lunchwagon, is the famous, yellow, Nicky's Lunchwagon & Catering, with 2 locations, right between the State Library and Honolulu Hale, and right next to the King Kamehameha Statue across from Iolani Palace.   This little lunchwagon is where I would go whenever working downtown, and on the right days, I would pick up lunch and head over to the Iolani Palace bandstand to hear the Royal Hawaiian Band play.   Recently, I brought my wife and son downtown for just that experience.

Shoyu Chicken & Chicken Long Rice from Nicky's Lunchwagon

The shoyu chicken I had at Nicky's is more like your traditional shoyu chicken.   The mark of a perfect shoyu chicken is of course how buttery, melt in your mouth, the chicken skin is, and the one at Nicky's is up there with the best of them.   My only complaint was that they didn't put enough of the shoyu sauce over the chicken to keep it moist, and so the rice can soak up all that wonderful shoyu and oil.  But of course, I never asked for them to give it to me that way either.   Conversely, their chicken long rice has a very light, clean taste.  It is almost too bland, and doesn't have enough of the ginger or broth that makes for a good chicken long rice.  In retrospect, I would have gone for just a shoyu chicken plate, rather than the mix, but I'm just compulsive about having a little variety.

Beef Stew from Nicky's Lunchwagon

My wife ordered their beef stew, which was very generous in all of their ingredients.   Lots of tender, if a little fatty, beef.   Lots of big hunks of potato (which she loves).   Lots of tender pieces of stewed celery (which she doesn't, but which I do).   Lots of everything in fact, which is the mark of a good lunchwagon.   Not having a permanent venue, with the overhead of rent, gives the lunchwagons more room to do the food just right, with lots of quality ingredients.  This is exactly what she found in her beef stew.  For my taste though, their stew had a little too much of that tomato tartness.   It didn't compare with the salty, savory, stew from Fresh Catch, but it was tasty nonetheless. 

The lunchwagons are as dear to our culture as hot dog carts are to New Yorkers.   They serve more than just fantastic local cuisine and fantastic value.   They serve the workforce of Hawaii, with the warmth and strength to get through the work day.   They are the hidden jewels in our society that my dad shared with me, and which I was so happy to share back with him in his retirement.

Our First Date

My wife and I enjoyed a very long, if complicated, courtship before getting married.   We were the classic high school sweethearts.   But more than that, we were friends long before we were a couple.  Other couples have great stories about how they met.   Being classmates, we really have no idea when we first saw each other, or when we first spoke to each ohter, or when we first got to like each other.   We just were just casual acquaintances who said hi to each other in the hall. Then we were casual friends who spoke to each other during breaks between classes.  Then we were really good friends who sought out each other's company at friends' parties.  Until finally, after a span of several years, we started to realize how attracted we were to each other.  In the Summer before our senior year, when our friends from the class above us were all having graduation parties, we found ourselves finding each other at every party and flirting.  When school started again, we found each other, for instance, in front of the campfire at senior camp together.   We found ourselves holding hands in the halls between classes.   We found ourselves calling each other on the phone.   Until finally, at my 17th birthday party, I found myself paying more attention to her than to any of my other friends, and I got the nerve to ask her if she wanted to be more than just friends.   A good 2 weeks later, she finally gave me an answer, one that I wasn't expecting.   She said yes.

It was such an interesting relationship to me.   Because in the past, whenever I wanted to call up a girl and ask her out, I was always overwhelmingly nervous.   I would need to rehearse everything I would say in my mind, and work up the nerve, before calling.  Yet with her, I felt different.   It felt, easier.   It was really exciting seeing our relationship grow, from friendship to something much more intimate.   But at the same time, it wasn't nerve racking the way it was with other girls, because we were friends first.   It was also, at the beginning, just an easy casual relationship.   We were together, we were attracted to each other, we were flirting all the time, but we really weren't posessive or obsessive.  We didn't hog up each other's time.  Whenever we had time to be together we would, and we would enjoy it thoroughly.  But when we had to do work (and I was studying really hard in my senior year, being in both the full International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement programs), we would give each other space without any strings.   It was because of this, that I found myself in the predicament of being in a relationship with someone, without having yet taken her out on a real date.   In fact, we were together one month, one week, and a day, before we actually went out on a date.

With all of this build up, I wanted to take her out somewhere really special.   I wanted to take her someplace really fancy.  Someplace elegant, and romantic, and kind of more "grown up".   I wanted to really sweep her off her feet.   I didn't just want to do the standard dinner and a movie.   I didn't want to take her to someplace like Zippy's or McDonald's.   I didn't want to take her on any high school type of date.   I wanted to take her on a real date.   The kind you see in the movies.   The kind that you hear music playing in the background the whole night through.  The kind that you never forget.   There was only one problem.   I was a poor little high school kid with no money, no car, and no real means to create this awesome extravaganza.   So what was I to do?

It was kind of serendipidous that it also happened to be Christmas time, and you just can't ask for more magical than Christmas.   So I decided, for our first ever date, that I would ask her to see the Christmas lights downtown.   It's kind of funny.  We live on a little island in the Pacific, where there isn't any chance of snow whatsoever.   It's chilly to us, but no one on the mainland would consider it cold.   It's nothing like the snow covered wintery scenes that you find on all the Christmas cards.  There are no snowmen.  There are no sleigh rides.  But our little city gets dressed up for Christmas like no other city I've ever seen.  I've even been to New York at Christmas, and seen the tree at the Rockafeller Center.   But the coordinated effort and decorations put up all around downtown Honolulu, as part of the Honolulu City Lights program, just seems to outshine all the other places.  Best of all, it was free.  So we walked.   We walked all over downtown.  Walking hand in hand under a starlight sky.  We snuggled against each other in the cool night breeze.   The Christmas lights glowed like the light of a million fairies, but they paled compared to the sparkle in her eyes.  It was magical.  It was romantic.  It was perfect.

But besides a leisurely walk around every block downtown, where was I going to take her to eat?   Well, when we were in high school, it just so happened that they had just finished a construction project that combined business offices, apartments, and restaurants, right near the Honolulu waterfront.  It was, of course, Restaurant Row, when it was shiny, exciting, and new.  So we walked around all of Restaurant Row, looking at the menus at each restaurant to find something that we both would like, something that didn't looke packed or reservations only, as well as something that I could afford on my meager high school budget.   We finally settled on a casual looking little Italian place, right in the middle, called Trattoria Manzo's.

Manzo's (or Mango's as my wife affectionately likes to call it), was small little place, kind of embedded in by the stairwell next to the parking garage.   It wasn't fancy looking.   In fact the seating was more like a little outdoor cafe, with tables in the open courtyard of Restaurant Row, a little thigh high wall separating them from the outside.  But it was still candlelit and intimate.   As an Italian restaurant, it was perfect, because ever since that iconic scene from Lady and the Tramp, no other cuisine evokes the same feeling of romance.   I can't say that I remember their menu precisely.   But I do remember talking her into having the lobster ravioli.  After all, how great, how impressive, how memorable would it be, to be able to say I took her for lobster on our very first date.  And their raviolis were really affordable too.  As for myself, I remember having the linguini with clam sauce.   Linguini with clams was always one of my dad's favorite dishes, at the finer Italian restaurants, like Andrew's.   So to me, it had a certain sense of sophistication to it, that I was really trying to convey and impress her with.  But besides that, I really do love the dish.  The sauce garlic butter sauce that it is traditionally made with, rivals the rich buter sauce that they use for escargot.  It is a buttery, yet not overpowering, perfect pasta.  The food and the ambiance were exactly what I was looking for.

Sadly, Trattoria Manzo's closed many, many years ago.   In the years since then, Restaurant Row has lost some of its glamour.  Going from a collection of the most exclusive restaurants, to housing a $1 second run movie theater (that was patronized by less savory, somewhat unwashed characters), to seeing that theater closed down and many of its other stalls lie vacant.   But while some places, like Ocean's, Ruth's Chris' Steakhouse, and Hiroshi's, continue to thrive there, Trattoria Manzo's was among the long lost bygones to its original glory.  Trattoria Manzo's was such a small little place to begin with, I wonder how few people even remember the place.  It was not a beloved Hawaii icon, the way that Andrew's was.  But,it was the perfect little place, on what was easily the most romantic night of my life.   No one else may even remember that it existed, but to my wife and I, it was someplace special that will never be forgotten.

My wife and I have now spent almost 2 decades together, and our life has been a wonderful rollercoaster of highs and lows, one that will hopefully continue for a lifetime more to come.   But every single year since that first one, it has been our tradition to visit the Honolulu City Lights at Christmas.   Of course, these days it has been transmuted from a night of romance for just us two, to a night of wonder with our two little boys in tow.  But every year we go to see the twinkling, colorful lights, what I really see is the sparkle in her eyes.

European Edibles (or Lack Thereof)

Hawaii has an amazing array of cultures and corresponding cuisines.   Every culture that came to work on our plantations added their uniqueness to our collective heritage.  However, while we have a greatly varied mix of cultures, they are primarily Asian cultures.   The European cultures, are far less represented, primarily because having only primarily British and American controlling influences in our history, the other European countries simply didn't have a major presense.   It's true we have our share of Italian food but that is mainly because Italian food has become so popular and pervasive, that it everyone across the country eats it.  Even then, our own style of Italian food is somewhat influenced by the Vietnamese restauranteurs who own these places.   Other major European countries, such as the German, Polish, Scandinavian, and Spanish countries have very little presence in our food scene.   Those that do exist are never really challenged in terms of their authenticity, simply because we don't have enough population from any of those countries to dictate authenticity.

Perhaps the most beloved European eatery that was on the island, was a little place in Niu Valley, called Swiss Inn.   For nearly 20 years, the Swiss Inn had a very loyal following in the East Oahu community.  It was only a small little neighborhood restaurant, but it is very fondly remembered by its clientele.  I only had the good fortune to visit the place once, just prior to its closing.   It was a few years after I had visited Switzerland on tour with my sister, so I was by no means an authority on authenticity, but their wiener schnitzel was absolutely delicious.  Weiner schnitzel, despite how the name sounds, has absoultely nothing to do with sausages of any kind (and certainly nothing to do with the hot dog chain on the mainland of the same name).   You could see the influence the dish had on things like chicken fried steak or chicken cutlet, but the herbs they used made it taste exotic and foreign.   Their tart, tangy, and herby potato salad, on the other hand, was just too tart for my taste (and of course completely different from the mac or potato salads that we're used to in the islands).   Even after just one taste, I could tell what drew such a loyal following to the restaurant.   Sadly, it's closing also meant that one of the islands' only true portals into European cuisine was lost forever.    Recently, also in the Niu Valley shopping center, a new little French restaurant called Le Bistro, opened up and I have heard good things about it.   Hopefully they are able to main the same degree of authenciticy, and attract a similar loyal following.

Besides the German influenced cuisine at Swiss Inn, the residents of Kahala always knew when proper European dishes would be offerred for dinner specials at the Patisserie in Kahala Mall.  When I was doing my doctoral program at UH, I had a great professor and mentor who was Hungarian by birth.  He was an incredibly tall, intimidating man, who swam 2 miles a day in Kailua Bay, and was never afraid to call a spade a spade.   Intrigued about his heritage, I decided to visit the Patisserie for dinner one night when they had Hungarian goulash as a dinner special.  Hungarian goulash is entirely different, from the hamburger macaroni that we're served in elementary school of the same name (although I really love that kind of goulash and my wife has perfected making it just for me).   Hungarian goulash is more like a tender but very herby stewed beef dish.  The big hunks of beef were quite herby, but tender and beefy.  On the other hand, I didn't care for the many types of saurkraut that accompanied the beef and potatoes.   Saurkraut may be one of those very definitive European things that just don't cross over into an Asian palate.   While the Japanese have tsukemono, saurkraut is just too tart for my taste and lacks the sweetness of its Japanese counterpart.   It was a great experience, but sadly the Patisserie closed to make way for the giant Whole Foods that has taken over that side of Kahala Mall.   There are other Patisserie locations, but the dinner specials were really a Kahala thing, and the other locations are much more strictly French bakeries.  Although when I was little my mom would occasionally buy eclairs from the Patisserie, I never really cared for the texture of their pastries compared to the Japanese pastries at St. Germains. 

On the other side of the island, Aiea residents would frequent the British fish & chips pub called Elephant & Castle.  There are a number of restaurants on the mainland with the same name, but I'm not sure that the one in Aiea had any affiliation with any of them.   Despite having a strong British influence during the days of the Hawaiian monarchy, stemming from the influence of Captain Cook, there really isn't that much British influence in our cuisine.  Kidney pie is as foreign and somewhat unappetizing to us as it is to our fellow countrymen on the mainland (somewhat ironic since na'au stew is on our Hawaiian menu).  So the fish & chips pub in Aiea was one of the few dominantly British establishments.   It's closing, again meaning a loss of representation in our food scene.

We do have a few Irish pubs, namely Murphy's Bar & Grill, and Kelley O'Neal's. But while they are prominent watering holes, I wouldn't stake much claim on the authenticity of their Irish food.   Sure on St. Patrick's day, everyone will crowd into either place for a pint of Guiness and some corned beef & cabbage, but corned beef & cabbage is really the adaptation of Irish Americans that found beef to be plentiful in the new world.   While this doesn't necessarily make the dish less Irish (that's something I would base on its popularity with Irish Americans, and not just the mainstream populace who think it's Irish food), it's not really a dish you would find in celebrations in Ireland itself.  For myself, I find that I like the corned beef and cabbage made by the Chinese cooks my favorite little plate lunch place, Regal Diner.   I would much rather go there to have their savory (if somewhat fatty) corned beef, rather than cram myself into a noisy pub.  It's actually one of my favorite dishes there.   I guess it just says something about our island when my favorite place to go for an Irish American interpretation of an Irish dish is at a plate lunch place run by Chinese cooks.  

Corned Beef and Cabbage from Regal Diner

European food is something that really is foreign and exotic to me.   Even in this day and age, geographic differences still do separate and isolate us from some parts of the world.  But that just means, there's more out there to explore and enjoy.

A Little Touch of Heart

When I was in high school, one of my best friends found an old picture of himself in a swimsuit that made him completely disgusted with himself (which he nicknamed "the whale").   He ultimately took the drastic action of eliminating virtually all fat from his diet.  He began subsisting almost entirely on bread, rice, and more than anything else cereal.   He took his diet and athletics extremely seriously, and he transformed into one of the most lean and toned individuals I've ever seen. 

Because of him, we always had to keep Costco sized boxes of cereal at our house.   Whenever he would come over (which was pretty frequently), cereal would be the only thing that we could enjoy together.  Although I'm a huge fan of Frosted Flakes, everything would have to be the fat and sugar free cereals (meaning no nuts or dried fruits either).  You'd be surprised at the cereals you THINK are healthy, but actually have a lot of sugar or fat in them, like Cracklin Oat Bran.  But there is still a surprising variety in this criteria; Cornflakes, Cheerios, Chex, Special K, Wheaties, Mini Wheats, Kix, and Grape Nuts to name a few.   Out of all of them, I never really liked Grape Nuts.  Although they withstood milk the best, they were just hard little pebbles that tasted way too earthy for my taste.  But I found that I really liked mixing Grape Nuts with Prego spaghetti sauce.  Don't ask me how that got started, but something about adding a little savoriness to the mix just made them a lot tastier.

Although we kept huge boxes of cereal at our house for our frequent guest, I've never really liked having cereal for breakfast.  To me, it was always a late night snack with my friend.  Something about having cereal with cold milk in the morning upsets my tummy.   Breakfast to me, has to be a warm and yummy thing.  Actually, cold cereals themselves are only a century old phenomenon.  It wasn't until the Kellog brothers invented Corn Flakes and granola, that such a product even existed and became popular.   Prior to their innovation, everyone ate oatmeal or porridge.   In the old world, porridge or gruel was made with oats, barley, or wheat.   Most people think of porridge as a European peasant food, but in actuality, all of the Asian countries also had an equivalent.   But there the porridge is made with rice.   Here in Hawaii, we know this dish for it's Chinese name, jook.

Sau Yuk Pei Dan Jook at Royal Garden

If you go to Hong Kong, or pretty much any other country on that side of the world, jook is the defacto breakfast item.  But here in Hawaii, jook has never really had the same connotation.  I was pretty surprised to see jook being eaten for breakfast everywhere I went in China.  Here, jook is most frequently associated with 2 other things.   It is the most popular way of dealing with Thanksgiving leftovers (something I'm very much looking forward to next week).  And it is the end all cure for the common cold, similar to the way that chicken soup is perceived on the mainland.   I remember whenever I got sick when I was younger, my Po Po would make me the best jook in the world.   After she passed away, and my mom had no time to make it for me, they would always stop at Kwok's Chop Suey on Waialae and pick up a container for me.   Unfortunately, when Hung Won took over from Kwok's, they no longer maintained a supply of jook on the menu.  But these days whenever I get sick, my wife will stop off at Mini Garden on the way home and pick up a bowl for me.   It really does make you feel better when you're sick and miserable.

Besides "Thanksgiving turkey" jook and "chicken soup for the local boy" jook, you can find nice steaming bowls of jook at dim sum.    Dim sum in Hawaii also has different connotations from dim sum in Hong Kong.   Originally created as a snack food for travellers visiting roadside inns, "dim sum" translates to a little touch of heart (although there is some debate as to whether it is touch as a verb meaning "to touch", or touch as a noun meaning "just a touch").  In the Orient is eaten all day long, but frequently enjoyed as "siu yeh" or a midnight snack.   Dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong serve dim sum 24 hours a day, and frequently at 1AM you can find a dim sum restaurant packed with people.   Here in Hawaii, dim sum is primarily a brunch occasion.  For a Chinese family, dim sum is the traditional Sunday brunch, and that is when you'll find most the most people at Chinese restaurants.

My favorite dim sum restaurant when I was very little was the Oceania floating restaurant.   It was a gorgeous Chinese restaurant built on a boat and docked at the harbor near the Falls of Clyde.  As I recall, the ship was built as a sister ship (or a clone of) the famous Jumbo Floating Restaurant in Hong Kong.   Unfortunately, it didn't do well, and it's bankruptcy financially devastated and marred the reputation of the late great Sen. Hiram Fong.  I was very little at the time, but distinctly remember how cool it was to be eating nai dan bao and grass jelly rolls on such a gorgeous boat.   As I was growing up, I would always favor Sea Fortune (whose chef moved on to build Happy Days), and of course the always crowded Legend Seafood Restaurant in the Chinese Cultural Plaza (probably the king of all dim sum places in Honolulu).   But these days, I also look for a little bit of ambiance, someplace a little nicer to take visitors and clients alike.   Although it isn't as cheap as eating dim sum in Chinatown, a little bit of elegance, and very high quality food, make the difference worth it.    For this extra touch, I like visiting Royal Garden in the Ala Moana Hotel.  

Baked Char Siu Bao at Royal Garden

Just walking in to Royal Garden, you're greeted with a beautiful display case of some of the more exotic dried Chinese delicacies.  They've got enormous dried doong gu (black mushrooms).   They've got some really expensive dried birds nests.   They've got dried abalone the size of softball, and dried scallops the size of golf balls.  Most impressively though, they've got one of the largest pair of shark fins that I've ever seen, that look to be taller than my baby boy.  Around Moon Festival time, they also bake an enormous mooncake which is the size of about 200 regular mooncakes and takes up an entire table.

Sau Yuk Pei Dan Jook with Yau Char Gwai at Royal Garden

When it comes to jook, Royal Garden has some of the best in town.  It's not as thick as my Po Po's was.  It's a little thinner, but it's got a nice smooth consistency.   There are some places where the jook is way too watery and the rice kernels still too distinct, so it's more like a rice soup than a jook.  Royal Garden is also one of the few places in town that serve it with the crispy fried dough (called yau char gwai).  For the Chinese in Hawaii, being originally farmers, jook was a working man's breakfast or lunch.  They really didn't have the little extras that Hong Kong style dim sum brought on, like the crispy fried dough.  Although not having it growing up, I really like dipping the cruncy little things in my jook.   It's similar to dipping saltine crackers in your soup, having the crunchiness play off of the flavorful soup trying to make it soggy.   It's a nice contrast of textures.   My favorite jook at Royal Garden has to be sau yuk pei dan jook (or pork with preserved egg).   The thousand year old egg (which is actually only several months old, preserved in clay and ash), has such a strong, salty flavor.  I once made the mistake of entering a pei dan eating contest, where I had to devour 2 straight whole pei dan, and it was quite overwhelming.   It tasted like putting pure salt and ash in my mouth, and I wound up gagging.   But in the jook, the flavor mellows and blends perfectly well with the rice.  People from the mainland may find it disturbing to eat a jet black egg, but to me the dark sheen of the egg "blacks" and the marbled greenish tinge of the yolks is just a beauty to behold, like black onyx agates.

Jellyfish Salad at Royal Garden

Besides jook, Royal Garden has a huge variety of dim sum.  But besides the regular dishes like char siu bao, lo bak gou, and noh mai gai, they've got some of the more elegant dishes.   They have nice cold appetizers like their jellyfish salad.   Jellyfish actually a little crunchier than you'd expect it to be.  Kind of like daikon or cucumber in it's crunch.  But it's almost tasteless.  Instead it imbibes the flavors of whatever you dip it in, in this case a slightly spicy sesame oil.  It's such a beautiful light taste, just the thing for whetting your appetite.

Yuu Jyuu at Royal Garden

They also make an amazingly killer roast pork.   But this is NOT siu yuk as we're normally accustomed to here.   This is yuu jyuu, or suckling pig.  Because it's such a young pig, it doesn't have layers of fat that you get with siu yuk.  However, also because it's such a young pig, the meat is so amazingly tender, you don't need the fat to moisten it.   Instead you're left with an extremely crunchy (but not oily) skin, and some tender lean meat, with a very delicate flavorful pork taste. 

Roast Duck at Royal Garden

Probably my favorite thing at Royal Garden though is their roast duck (or siu ngap).   Their duck may possibly be the best roast duck in town.   It's first of all quite lean, yet still tender.   It's also quite meaty, not just all bones.  The skin is crisp, not oily, and intensely flavorful.   But what it really has is an incredible duck flavor, which is kind of hard to describe in English.   In Chinese, we say a flavor like this is very "herng" or fragrant (this is also the first word in Hong Kong or herng gong meaning "fragrant harbor"), as if the smokey flavors of the duck transcends your sense of taste and intoxicates your sense of aroma as well.   This duck is certainly the most fragrant in town.  To top it all off, it's served on a bed of candied azuki beans, that just sit there and absorb all of the fantastic duck juices and flavors.   So you've got this amazing combination of candy sweet azuki bean flavor mixed with the smokey duck flavor.  My son will sit there and just pop them in his mouth, one by one, with his little chopsticks and be perfectly content.

Whether it is just a simple bowl of jook, or a full dim sum brunch, having a Chinese breakfast is such a nice change of pace from bacon and eggs.  A little touch of heart that fills you up for the rest of the day.

The Breakfast of (Local) Champions

It's a bright beautiful morning in the islands.   The sun has just risen over the Koolau's.  The birds have started their daily song.  You've got a full day ahead of you.   So you wake up, brew a cup of 100% pure Kona coffee, and start thinking about what to make for breakfast.   Being in Hawaii, there's a pretty good chance that your breakfast is going to involve rice.   This is where we differ from the mainland a great deal, because to us, a piece of toast or a bagel is just not going to give us the energy for the day.  Certainly, we've got the only McDonald's in the world where Portuguese sausage, Spam, eggs and rice, is served as breakfast, and is such an incredibly popular item.

Our dependence on rice in the morning started during our plantation days.   Plantation workers needed something substantial to fortify them throughout the day.   Being from all Asian countries, oats or wheat certianly weren't as common as rice.   So they started each morning with a bowl of rice.   My Po Po ate the same thing for breakfast every morning, as long as I ever knew her.    She would have a bowl of rice, a few pieces of yellow takuan, and half a fried egg, (and of course a cup of very strong coffee).    I have no idea how she made her eggs.   All I know is that I have never, ever tasted eggs with that wonderful texture ever since.  They were not scrambled eggs.   They weren't full of air and fluffy.   They weren't exactly simple fried eggs either.  Because whenever I try to make fried eggs, they come out relatively thin (as the egg spreads itself over the pan).   Her eggs were always thick and full tasting.   They never had those tiny air bubbles you can get in a fried egg.   They weren't airy, but had much more substance to them.   I could hardly believe that much meatiness could come out of a single egg.   And they had so much egg flavor too.   The only thing (as far as I could see) that she put in them were ha mai (dried shrimp).   They were fantastic.  

When my Po Po made coffee, she always made the old Plantation way too.   She would take her coffee grounds (usually Hill Brothers) and just throw them into the pot and boil them.   She had no perculator.  She had no coffee maker.   There was an old tin cup that she used to drink her coffee out of, that had tons of little dents in the the rounded bottom after years of use.   She would pour our her coffee in this cup and drink from it all day long.   Naturally, boiling the grounds themselves yields an incredibly strong cup of coffee.   A working man's cup of joe.  My dad used to just sit on the porch, drink the coffee and spit out the grinds.   So when he got married to my mom, and she first made coffee for them in a perculator, he thought that it was so weak it tasted like water.   

As she got older, she would only eat half the egg with her breakfast, and save the other half for me to make a sandwhich out of when I got home from school.   They were the best.    I will probably never have eggs that good ever again.   And she was an incredibly hard working woman, she did all the yard work, trimmed the trees, everything, right up til she passed away.  Every morning, what kept her going was just a simple breakfast of rice, takuan, coffee, and a single egg.

As I grew up, eggs and rice were my favorite breakfast too.   But I liked having them the old paniolo way, of having fried rice instead of regular rice.   To this day, fried rice, 2 eggs over easy, and a few slices of Portuguese sausage is my absolute favorite breakfast in the entire world.    But since we're talking about fried rice, therein lies a great deal of variation.   The very mainland form of fried rice with diced carrots and peas with a few bits of egg, simply will not do.   While I, naturally, love Chinese style chow fan, with lup cheong or char siu, that's not exactly what I'm craving in the morning either.   I want the real local style fried rice, which even then is difficult to define. 

My absolute favorite place to get this breakfast used to be the good old Columbia Inn.   Despite the baseball looking logo, the restaurant was named after the bags of Columbian coffee that they would sell.   Columbia Inn to me was like a comfortable old shoe.  Normally, people talk about comfort food, but to me Columbia Inn was like a comfort "place".   Just sitting in the bouncy orange booths overlooking Waialae Ave, was like being home.  It was like literally being in Mel's Diner, on Alice.   The fried rice there was just the perfect local style fried rice.  There was of course, the Chinese and Japanese influences in it, with char siu and green onions, but the flavor was entirely local flavor.   I'm not sure how to describe it.   Maybe it was the fact that they used nice plump, moist and sticky calrose rice, instead of the smaller grain and harder Hong Kong style rice that you find in Chinese restaurants.   Whatever it was, it was my favorite.   Whenever my sister would go back to the mainland after visiting here for vacations and breaks, my family would have breakfast at Columbia Inn, just before taking her to the airport. 

Besides Columbia Inn, the other place with some decent local style fried rice was Yum Yum Tree over in Kahala Mall (where Chili's is now).   Whenever I thought of Yum Yum Tree though, the first thing that would come to mind is their awesome cornbread.   They had some of the most moist, and dense yet soft, cornbread I had ever tasted.     Unfortunately, both Yum Yum Tree and Columbia Inn have faded away into Hawaii memories.   So now that both restaurants are gone, I have been on the hunt to find a new local haunt with the same old local style fried rice, eggs and Portuguese sausage.

The June Jones Special at Hungry Lion

Being on the way to the airport (with a freeway onramp just a block away), we once decided to try Hungry Lion as an alternative to take my sister to breakfast before her morning flight.   While I absolutely adore their Aloha Bowl, their breakfast platter just wasn't the same.   Their "June Jones Special" was huge and had all the elements I was looking for, even adding Spam and corned beef hash.    Unfortunately, their fried rice was kind of on the dry side, and not as flavorful as I was hoping it would be.   I had to break the egg yolk over the rice to moisten it up a bit. 

Fried Rice, Egg & Portuguese Sausage at Big City Diner

After searching a bit more, I found that Uncle Danny's Fried Rice over at Big City Diner was actually pretty good.   It's actually the only thing that I really like at Big City Diner.   Somehow, as popular as they are, and as many local items as they do feature, I never really cared for their taste that much.   But the fried rice was the exception.   It's so far the closest that I've found to my beloved fried rice at Columbia Inn.   It's got a great local brew shoyu taste (you know how our local shoyu tastes different that the one from the mainland or from Japan), and the green onion flavor comes through as well.  So for a while, we would take my sister there in the mornings before heading off to the airport.   But unfortunately, we suffered some bad service there once, and my dad has since decided he didn't want to patronize the Kaimuki location anymore (although we do pop into the Ward location once in a while).   However, I've been back there a couple of times, even taking some visiting collegues from the mainland for a business breakfast.  They absolutely adored the place, and relished the chance to try real local food rather than being confined to Waikiki.

A lot of places make fried rice, but old local style fried rice is actually kind of hard to find.   Still, when I can get it, Portuguese sausage, egg, and fried rice is always my favorite breakfast.   Having it, makes me feel empowered throughout the day, and somehow as strong as my Po Po was.

Fit for a King

Welcome to my 50th blog entry!   For my 50th, I really wanted to capture something extra special.  Something more than just a good restaurant or good cuisine.  I wanted something with a history and legacy in Hawaii.   Something that transcends all of the various cuisines in our heritage.   Something so extraordinary that it has become iconic of epicurian luxury.   So I decided to visit arguably the premier restraurant in Hawaii, John Dominis.

Firstly, you have to understand that I am a child of the '80s.   The '80s were the era when big business and economic success were paramount ideals.  Reaganomics were in full swing.  Michael Douglas had expounded on how "Greed is good" in the award winning film, Wall Street.   Michael J. Fox was an icon on the small screen as the money crazed Republican, Alex P. Keaton.    Everyone had dollar signs in their eyes for pupils.  We were all obsessed with achieving the posh, decadent, luxurious life characterized by sitting in the back of limousines, wearing fur and Armani suits, nibbling on champagne and caviar.   The dot com bubble had not yet burst.   No one ever foresaw an economic recession.   The fear and cautious worldview of the post 9/11 world were non-exisitent.

So as I was growing up in this era of rampant capitalism and fairly lucrid times, dining at John Dominis to me was like the symbol of success and luxury.   They were the Cadillac of restaurants.  They were the Donald Trump.  They were the caviar and the oyster (quite literally in fact).    They were the symbol of the chic, the haute, and the elite all rolled into one.   They were THE fine dining option for birthdays, anniversaries, and all other major milestones.   And for a young impressionable boy with dreams of ruling the world, they were the ultimate expression of oppulence and wealth.  Since that time, I've been exposed to a lot more of the world, both extravagant and humble.   I've found many other fine dining restaurants, some of which are actually much pricier than dining at John Dominis.  Chefs have become celebrities in the own right, and haute cuisine has become much more accessible to a lot of us.   But the image of John Dominis, remains in my mind.    The image of success and class and luxury persist in my mind.

So who was John Dominis actually?  Well, the original John Dominis was a sea captain, who frequently sailed from America to Asia and stopped in Hawaii during King Kamehameha III's era along the way.  But the restaurant is not named after him.   His son, John Owen Dominis was actually the husband of Queen Liliuokalani (which made him a prince consort), and an extremely influential man in Hawaiian monarchy.  But the restaurant is not named after him either.    It was actually named after John Dominis Anderson, who was the father of the well known politician, Andy Anderson, who actually founded the restaurant (and who ironically isn't Republican at all, but a Democrat).   But the Andersons and the Dominis' were close friends and John Dominis Anderson was named for both families.  The legacy of John Dominis as a restaurant is just as influential as that of its namesakes, celebrating 30 years in Hawaii.

I have never understood how such a beautiful restaurant could have been created in such a non-descript and industrial area.  It's really odd how to get there you must bypass what I think are defunct shipyards and fish packing warehouses.   At night the area is cat central, with the majority of Oahu's strays congregating en masse.   But beyond that is the beautiful Kakaako Waterfront Park.   I always have trouble giving my out of town friends directions to get there, because you're essentially heading into Kakaako Park and making a left turn on some nondescript street.   In this sense, I guess John Dominis is like another icon of fine dining, Tavern on the Green, in New York's Central Park.   

Stairs at John Dominis

For me, any evening at John Dominis must begin by watching the sunset at Kakaako Park.  There is a perfect corner, where you can sit and look one way and see the sun setting, and turn the other way and have a perfect view Diamond Head and the lights of Waikiki just lighting up.   Once inside, you cross the stairs over their indoor waterway, teaming with local fish.  My parents love to tell the story about how when I was a little boy (maybe around 5 years old), I stood at the top of those stairs and proclaimed to the whole restaurant at the top of my lungs, "I want to eat a stingray"  (or lobster depending on the teller).   The whole dining room has all these beautiful green vines dangling from the ceiling, and they have the most fantastic view of Waikiki and the ocean beyond. 

The Royal Platter (for 2) at John Dominis

You can actually enjoy a great meal at John Dominis for about $30 - $40 per person (much cheaper than going to some steakhouses on the island).   However, my favorite thing there is something so extravagant that they've even taken it off the menu.   But if you know about it, and you order it ahead of time, they're perfectly happy to make it for you.   It's basically the equivalent of John Dominis' mixed plate, a sampler of the best things on the menu, appropriately called the "Royal Platter".    It is pretty pricey, at $75 per person for 2 people, but if you can afford to splurge, it's so worth it.

One Serving of the Royal Platter at John Dominis

The most unique thing about the royal platter is the presentation.   They've got incredibly smooth mashed (actually whipped) potatoes separating each of the entrees like a very fancy bento box.  They bake the plates, so that the potatoes have a beautiful browned crispy crust over them.   It's one of the little touches that just makes everything taste so good.

Oyster Rockafeller on the Royal Platter at John Dominis

First up on the plate, and one of my favorite things, is the oyster rockafeller.   The thing I dislike about most places that cook oysters, is that they overcook them, and the once plump juicy oyster has shrivled into a little raisin.   But at John Dominis, the oyster is plump and unabashedly briney.  It's got the full on oyster flavor.  So much so, that the cheese and spinach (which can sometimes overpower the oyster taste) have also imbued the oyster flavor.  

Filet Mignon on the Royal Platter at John Dominis

John Dominis is a seafood place, not a steak place.   Yet the perfectly cooked medium rare filet mignon is remarkably tender.   You can really taste the beef on this steak.

Sauteed Mahi Mahi on the Royal Platter at John Dominis

As a seafood restaurant, the sauteed mahi mahi is second to none.   It's got a moist, tender texture.   The flavor of the fish is perfectly balanced with the sauce its simmered in.

Macadamia Nut Crusted Veal Piccata on the Royal Platter at John Dominis

When I was little, I absolutely adored their macadamia nut crusted veal piccata.  I never really cared for the little capers on it.  They were too tart for a little kid.   But as I grew older, the little buds really brought out the lighter taste of the veal.  As you would expect from veal, it is unbelievably tender and incredibly tasty.

Lobster Thermidore on the Royal Platter at John Dominis

But the best thing on the platter (except for maybe the oyster), is lobster thermidore.   In other places where you order it, they've got tiny little chunks of lobster and they let the sauce do all of the talking.   At John Dominis, you've got huge pieces of very succulent lobster, an entire tail probably.  The sauce is incredibly rich and creamy.   But it accentuates, and does not overpower, the taste of the lobster itself.  This is perhaps the finest dish at John Dominis and worth it all by itself. 

My wife really likes the mud pies at John Dominis as well.   It's got a really fantastic thick oreo cookie crust, and all the dark chocolately flavors come out.   Once when we were dating, and we wanted something special (but of course I couldn't afford it at the time), we went to John Dominis just for desert.   We sat in the lounge and shared a piece of mud pie.   It was so special just in and of itself.   But of course, who can eat mud pie after indulging in that enormous royal platter.

Througout the years, even after visiting other fancy steakhouses, celebrity chefs creating Hawaii regional cuisine, and other very nice fine dining restaurants opening, John Dominis has always persisted in my mind as the creme de la creme of all restaurants in Hawaii.   But it isn't the '80s anymore.   And after struggling through an economic recesssion, visiting a exclusive restaurant is not exactly on everyone's agenda.   Maybe it's because John Dominis is perceived as so luxurious that their tables aren't always filled.   Maybe the image of being an exclusive place for celebrations has, in time, worked against them.  Maybe they seem too extravagant or too inaccessible for these tough and lean times.  But sadly, John Dominis, like so many other Hawaii institutions, has sold its lease, and will be closing at the end of March 2010.   After 30 years of feeding us like royalty, John Dominis will only be happy memory as well.    So, when we found out, my wife and I had to go, on our 18th anniversary, one more time.  Just to enjoy and to remember.

There is really no better way to celebrate the success of my blog, than with a visit to John Dominis.  They were, and are for a little longer, the epitome of fine cuisine in Hawaii, the very best we had to offer.