Much Mahalos : Part IV - Lucious Leftovers

I love leftover Thanksgiving turkey.  Yes you're eating turkey for the next week or so, but with my mom's turkey you don't really get tired of it.   Some people may complain about all of the leftovers.   I, on the other hand, see it as a wonderful sign of prosperity.   With these tough economic times, it is a luxury and a sign that we're still doing okay when an excess of food is seen as a dilemma.  Thanksgiving is supposed to remind us to be thankful for what we've got, but to me it is the abundance of leftovers that should make you appreciate having so much food to eat.  

My favorite memory of the day after Thanksgiving was back in high school.   I had invited the guys over to hang out, play some video games, and just chill.   What's important to keep in mind here, is that I said "the guys", not just "my friends".  This being a guy's hang out, we were naturally raiding the kitchen for food, and being the day after Thanksgiving, the leftover turkey was the star attraction.  So we were all sitting there, hanging around the kitchen table, with a huge dead bird in the middle, and a very very large knife.  There's something primordial about hanging out with the guys, feasting on the carcass of a very large dead animal.  Just carving off big pieces of meat and eating with your hands.   All we needed was a little bit of fire, and the caveman like, testosterone filled, male bonding would be complete.   Needless to say, my parents were quite shocked when they came home and found that we had completely devoured the leftover turkey.

It will be a while still before my sons are at that stage of mass consumption.   So meanwhile, there are so many possibilities for that leftover turkey.    A lot of people on the mainland, like to make a nice turkey a la king, with a creamy sauce, and celery and carrots and peas and serve it over pasta or rice.  It's a fairly simple dish.  But the classic American approach is of course the turkey sandwich.

Turkey Sandwich on Japanese Bread from St. Germain's

As I've said before, the key to a good sandwich isn't what's in it but the bread that holds it together.  It's a baker's mantra that good bread will make up for bad filling but good filling will not make up for bad bread.  Since my mom's turkey is so incredibly awesome, even cold the next day, I would only want to pair it with the best bread I could find.   For me, there are 2 candidates.   My favorite sandwich bread is of course the classic Japanese style bread at St. Germains.  Japanese bread just has the ultimate uniformity and density of texture for a sandwich bread.  It can hold together a big sandwich where other breads would get really thin, smashed, or fall apart in your hands.  As a purist, sometimes I don't want a lot of other fixings on my sandwich.   My mom's turkey is so awesome, that I often just want turkey, bread, and a little mayo.  Like with sushi, and all other Japanese food, when you're looking at the starkness of very few ingredients, then each ingredient must be of excellent quality enough to shine alone.   My mom's turkey is like that and really only St. Germain's bread can accompany it like that.   Japanese bread is a little pricier than any other loaf of sliced bread you'll find on the island, so it is always a luxury to me, but for my mom's turkey it's way worth it.

Turkey Sandwich on French Bread from Foodland

Alternatively, if you go to Foodland, you can pick up a loaf of their fresh baked French bread for about $2.  That's really cheap for a 2 foot long loaf of such great bread.  I would cut a slice down the entire length of the loaf and open it up.   Inside goes a layer of provolone cheese, a layer of turkey, and a layer of cheddar (muenster or havarti cheese also goes really well with the turkey but they are more expensive).  Then the entire loaf goes into the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.   What comes out is a melty, gooey, deliciously hot sandwich which re-invigorates the turkey taste.   But what's best about it, is that the crust on the French bread gets super crunchy, just about the most perfect crunch you can get on a French bread.   It's just awesome.

Turkey Jook with Char Siu at Zippy's

While the leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwich is an American tradition, in Hawaii, no Thanksgiving would be complete without having some turkey jook.   Even after devouring all of the turkey meat, no Oriental family in Hawaii would feel comfortable wasting those magnificent turkey bones.   Oriental cultures waste no part of anything, and discarding such tasty bones would be paramount to a cardinal sin.  Some people in Hawaii even look forward to the turkey jook at Thanksgiving more than the turkey itself.  Turkey jook tastes so much better than any other jook at any restaurant.   The primary reason is that in order to be economical, most restaurants boil a huge pot of plain white rice jook, and then add ingredients to it at the last minute when you decide what kind of jook you want.    Thanksgiving turkey jook on the other hand, is boiled with the remains of the leftover turkey, so the entire stock imbues that strong turkey flavor.   The difference is like night and day.   Of course it just wouldn't be economically feasible for any restaurant to do all of their different types of jook that way normally, but at Thanksgiving a few restaurants (not necessarily Chinese restaurants, but mainly those local places who cooked a lot of turkey for Thanksgiving in the first place), would feature turkey jook afterwards.   Such was the case when I found it served at Zippy's, with a side dish of char siu.  

Of course, there are many instances when home cooking far exceeds restaurant fare, such as with my mom's spaghetti or my aunty's pho.   No restaurant in the world could ever come close to making jook as good as my Po Po used to.   When I was very little, one of my favorite memories of the day after Thanksgiving would be running down the hill with my dad to go to Po Po's house for jook.   My mom would have to go to work, and my sister wasn't born yet, but I would have the day off from school and my dad (as a State worker) would have the day off too.  So he and I would go down to Po Po's house in the late morning for a jook brunch.  Inevitably, when we would open the door, the big pot of jook would be bubbling on the stove and you would walk through all of that heavenly turkey scented steam as you walked in the door.   Po Po would be standing in the kitchen washing dishes or cooking something else.   Her brother, my grand uncle, would already be seated at her old 50's still kitchen table starting on his bowl.   My dad would sit down across from him, and I would sit between them.  The warm jook would taste so good on the slightly chilly, crisp November mornings.   They were really happy memories.

My Aunty's Turkey Jook

Since my Po Po's gone, and my mom makes the turkey, it's my aunty who now makes the jook.   She makes hers ever so slightly different from my Po Po.   She adds just a bit of grated carrot that gives it a slight sweetness.   My wife and I have a disagreement going whether she should add peanuts or not, as I really don't care for peanuts messing up my nice smooth jook, but my wife likes the crunchiness.  Of course we all agree that turkey jook must absolutely be garnished with a sprinkling of salty, crunchy, minced chung choi (or salted turnip).   Both her jook and my Po Po's are boiled so well, that you hardly see individual rice grains.   Unlike those places that don't cook it nearly enough, and the jook is more like a rice soup, my aunty's (and my Po Po's) are cooked so that the rice seems to combine into a nice smooth uniform texture.   But the biggest difference from Zippy's jook is the amount of turkey flavor in it.  Even Zippy's needs to have a cost effective turkey to water ratio to turn some kind of profit.   My aunty's on the other hand maintains a much stronger turkey to water ratio and thus a much stronger turkey flavor.   Ultimately though, no restaurant turkey could compare to how good my mom's turkey tastes.   Therefore no restaurant jook would be able to compare to my aunty's jook, which takes on all of the flavor of my mom's turkey. 

Having a nice bowl of turkey jook is the perfect way to cap off the Thanksgiving holiday.  Despite the excess of the feast itself, using all of the remains reminds us to be true to the spirit of being thankful for what we've got.

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.

Ramen to the Rescue

While the art of making udon and soba have given them an almost elite status, ramen is a much more commonplace noodle.   Indeed, ramen is so pervasive, that when people think of Japanese noodles, they're usually thinking of ramen.  However, I given the choice, I would always prefer our local crossbreed saimin, to Japanese ramen. 

To me, ramen always seems kind of simple in comparison.   Whereas ramen broth is a simple thin shoyu and dashi mix, saimin broth to me has a much more full bodied flavor, especially true saimin which imbibes the shrimpiness of ha mai (dried o'pae), blending with the ginger and green onion flavors.   To me, the slightly curly saimin noodles have a more interesting texture than their much straighter cousin.  To me, the local myriad of toppings you get with saimin from all the different cultures of Hawaii, eggs, kamaboko, won bok, spam, char siu, green onion, maybe some shrimp or won ton, are much more satisfying than the scant few pieces of meat and vegetable you usually get with ramen.   Maybe it's just because of what I grew up with, but generally, I just like saimin much better than ramen.   Ironically, this is the exact opposite viewpoint of my fellow blogger, Pomai, who considers himself a ramen connoisseur.   To each his own, even amongst fellow kamaaina I guess.

But there are times when I have been down and out, and good ramen has come to the rescue.  Back in high school, there was this girl.   All the boys in the class had a crush on her.   It wasn't like on the mainland, how the object of everyone's desire is the perky outspoken buxom blonde cheerleader.  In Hawaii, it's the highly intelligent, gentle and demure, kinda shy but genuinely warm, pretty oriental girl with the long silky black hair that turns everyone's heads.    She's the kind of girl that all the geeky local guys drool after, but while they may be academically commanding, they're not so romantically brazen.  So she just has a lot of guy friends, but no real romances.   I think every class in Hawaii has someone kinda like this.  Well, for weeks I studied with her, and hung out with her during free periods, and tried and tried to work up the nerve to ask her out.   Over and over in my head I tried to figure out the right words, the right circumstances, the right timing.   Finally, after weeks and week of nervousness, I somehow succeeded in asking her out (although my memory is a bit hazy on exactly how).   Anyway, the date was set.   It was simple enough, after one of our school assemblies, we would meet up and go out to dinner somewhere.  Well, this of course lead to more nervousness, an overwhelming sense of anticipation, and a racing imagination, with frequent bouts of giddiness. 

Finally the time came, but after the assembly, a group of our friends asked us if we wanted to go grab a bite to eat with them, and she said sure.  Suddenly, my happy little bubble just burst.   Did she completely forget about our date?   Did she not want to go out with me anymore?  Did she think that us having dinner with the gang was the same thing as having dinner with me alone?   Obviously if she did, she didn't have anywhere near the same romantic intentions that I did.   So rather than subject myself to sharing her company with everyone else, I decided to wander home alone.    I must've looked really miserable, or at very visibly shaken, because another friend of mine asked me if I was alright, and if I wanted to go have dinner with him.   Not knowing what to do, just kinda numb, kinda spaced out, and completely heartbroken, I must've blindly followed his lead (again my memory fails me on just how).  Where did he take me?  Well, it was just a little ramen place in the Samsung Plaza on Keeaumoku called Daruma Ramen.  

I really can't remember very much else from that night, except the warmth of the ramen.   It was the first time that ramen tasted so good.  Yes it was a simple thin shoyu based broth, but it just sort of flooded my body with warmth, replacing the bitter numbness that I was feeling.   I'm sure my friend gave me a good pep talk about girls, and how there were other fish in the sea, but honestly all I can remember is drowning my tears in the warm ramen broth.  

Daruma Ramen has long since closed, and no other ramen shop has ever really tasted as good.   But when I was working near Ala Moana, and I was feeling kind of sick, my co-worker took me to another place on Keeaumoku called Goma Ichi Ramen.   There I tasted for the first time a Japanese / Szechuan variation called tan tan ramen.   It's a spicy, sesame flavored ramen which actually tasted pretty good.   But it wasn't until I tasted the same dish at their rival restaurant, Goma Tei Ramen, that I was really hooked.  Goma Tei has two shops, one in Ward Center, and one in Ala Moana Center.   Originally, Goma Ichi had partners, and when the partners split, the other partner opened Goma Tei leading to a bitter rivalry between the two.  I really hate to pick sides in such a rivalry, but honestly I like Goma Tei better.  

Char Siu Tan Tan Ramen at Goma Tei

First off, the reason that I like tan tan ramen so much better than regular shoyu ramen, is that it is a mixture of shoyu and a spicy sesame oil.   The sesame oil gives it a much fuller smoother flavor than you could get from a regular shoyu based broth.   My sister will inevitably tell you, that's because oils are fats and that's what fats taste like, but that's not necessarily an unhealthy thing depending on the type of oil.   In any case, the broth has much more richness than regular thin ramen.   Because it's sesame, it also adds slight nutty flavor.  Secondly, the piece of chashu that they give you is nothing like the tougher red-rimmed Chinese char siu.  It's a very thick, extremely soft, full flavored piece of pork.   It's out of this world soft and delicious. 

Gyoza at Goma Tei

Finally, just like no self respecting bowl of saimin should go unaccompanied without a stick of bbq beef or chicken yakitori, no ramen should be without a plate of gyoza on its arm.   Their gyoza is perfectly crispy on one side, and soft and yummy on the other side.   The way good gyoza should be.

Ban Ban Ji Chicken at Goma Tei

But not only is the gyoza good at Goma Tei, they have a fantastic side dish called ban ban ji chicken, which shares the same wonderful shoyu/sesame oil flavor as the tan tan ramen.  The chicken is tender and lean, a perfect breast meat cut, and works fantastically together with the cold refreshing cucumber below.

Life is inevitably full of heartaches and hard times, but I've learned that a nice hot comforting bowl of ramen is the perfect thing to drown your sorrows in.   When you've hit the bottom of the bowl, and drunk every last drop of broth, you may look up and see something better.  A sexier, more intuitive, more devoted, more insightful local girl might just be waiting for you a few months away.

The 50's, Hawaii Style

It is juke boxes and fuzzy dice.   It is leather jackets, white T-shirts, and blue jeans.   It is the classic Chevy convertable with the big tail fins.   Images, of course, of the 50's.   Now, not having yet been conceived of in the 50's, I can't tell you for certain if that's really the way it was, or if it's just a figment of our collective dream of the 50's.  When I asked my dad if that's really how it was, he said that it was either a highly romanticized image, or that it's not exactly how it was in Hawaii during the 50's.  

The piece of Americana that we imagine the 50's to be is, of course, epitomized in the classic sitcom, Happy Days.   Henry Winkler's Fonzie has surpassed the status of pop culture icon and found a place in American history.  Ironically, the series was made in the 70's, already 2 decades after the era it portrayed and glamourized.   So I remember watching it as a little kid and imaged myself hopping in the car with Richie and Fonzie and heading off to the ultimate 50's location, Arnold's.  Arnold himself was portrayed by the late and great Pat Morita, who was not originally from Hawaii, but who was here so often and who had so much of our character, that we adopted him as one of our own and never knew the difference. 

So you're in the mood for a patty melt and a milkshake and you want to envision yourself sitting at Arnold's with the gang and listening to the juke box.  If you're on the mainland, you can easily go to a Johnny Rockets, but what about here in Hawaii?    If you're on Maui, you can head down to Ruby's Diner in the Kaahumanu Shopping Center.  When I was in college, my friend took me to the original Ruby's all the way at the end of the Balboa Pier.  It was so sublime to have this 50's style diner all the way at the end of the a long pier, with nothing in sight but the beach and the ocean.   But the one on Maui is unique.  Not only do they have the 40's/50's motif, they've got many posters of old airline and travel advertisements for Hawaii from that era.  That in itself is worth the trip.

But as my dad said, the 50's diner image perpetuated on the mainland isn't really how it was here in Hawaii.   So what was it really like?   The Hawaii equivalent would have to be the soda fountains from that era.   Not only did you have the typical cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes, but you would have saimin, okazu food, and  true fountain drinks.   Soda fountains then meant that the proprietor would mix the drink and the carbonation for you, as opposed to the automatic mixing that goes on in today's soda fountains.   So, if you were a pretty girl for example, you could get a slightly better syrup to carbonated water ratio.  The mix was an art, not the hit or miss that you get from soda fountain machines of today.  I really hate it when the machines are off and you get a drink that's way more carbonated water than syrup, which not only burns your mouth in carbonation but has that sharp metallic taste.  The soda fountains back then even had drinks we hardly hear of anymore.  My dad's favorite was the green river, which was a bright green, lime concoction.   For me though, I used to love the chocolate cokes that my dad used to make.  Never heard of a chocolate coke you say?   It's absolutely awesome.  The chocolate mellows out carbonation, and blends well with the caramel taste of the coke (like a liquid Rolo).   Try it for yourself, all you need is ice, some Coke, and some Hershey's syrup to make it at home.   I never understood why they decided to can cherry coke, and vanilla coke, and even lime coke, but decided to forego my favorite flavor.

So do those soda fountains still exist?  Can they still be visited for a taste of 50's nostalgia, Hawaii style?   A few of them have withstood the test of time.  But the one that best captures that era for me, would have to be Sekiya's across the street from Kaimuki High School.   Poor Sekiya's ran into some trouble a while back, with an e. coli outbeak that shut them down while they had to clean everything up.  Since then, they've been struggling to reclaim their image as people, like my wife, were scared to go back there.    However, with their long history, pre-dating World War II, some fans, like my dad's best friend Keith, were back within a week of their re-opening.   Having been back there myself, I can assure you, it's cleaned up and the food is as good as it always was.

Chicken Sukiyaki at Sekiya's

While 50's on the mainland means cheeseburgers and shakes, 50's here means saimin and okazu.   However, while Sekiya's saimin is good, their sukiyaki is absolutely fantastic.   It is ever so slightly sweet, with all of the flavors of the different vegetables coming through.   The tofu literaly soaks up all of the flavors.  Not only do you get standard vegetables like won bok and shiitake, but you get nice julienne cuts of gobo.   It's so rare to find nice cruncy gobo served anywhere.  I especially had the craving to have some of their awesome sukiyaki after watching a marathon of the Rurouni Kenshin anime, where the characters frequently hang out at the Akabeko Restaurant for gyu-nabe (or beef sukiyaki).

Macaroni Salad at Sekiya's

While I tend to favor St. Louis Delicatessen , Sekiya's is also my dad's favorite okazu-ya.  He adores the bentos that they serve there.  The flavor difference between the two restaurants is very subtle, but he and I are pretty steadfast in our favorites.   I do like Sekiya's bentos though, and I have to admit, that they have some of the most flavorful mac salads in town.

Maki Sushi at Sekiya's

Sekiya's even came through on my little mini-quest to find the good old style maki sushi I used to have as a kid.   Nowdays, with different types of sushi being so popular, it's so hard to find the original Hawaii style maki sushi, with the (canned) shoyu tuna, tamago, kampyo, kamaboko, and the distinctive red and green hana ebi powder.  The filing to rice ratio is a little small at Sekiya's, but it is nice to just have that old flavor that I remember. 

Chicken Sukiyaki Meal at Sekiya's

Rather than the romanticized 50's from Happy Days, I think I prefer the honest true to life 50's that still lives on in Sekiya's.   I am really glad that they're still around, as I would hate to lose the true, classic flavors, that my dad grew up with.

Taken Further South

How is it that Vietnamese food can be so exotic and yet so familiar at the same time.   Vietnamese restaurants weren't really around when I was little, so how come when Hale Vietnam first opened back in the late 80's, the food was instantly familiar.   It was like something my Po Po would've cooked... but not.   Well, we don't really think about it because of the political border lines, but Vietnam is actually pretty close to GuangDong.  GuangDong (Canton), means the "vast eastern" province.   Right next to it, is it's pair, GuangXi, the "vast western" province.  GuangXi is the province of China that directly borders Vietnam.  The name "Viet Nam" (or in Cantonese yuut nam), literally means further South.   As with any border areas (the U.S. Southwest and Mexico for example), there is a great deal of cultural interchange.   Just because the borderlines are drawn on the map today, doesn't mean that it was always like that.   So while the 2 cuisines and cultures diverge, they would have influenced each other very greatly.

My Aunty makes the best pho in the world, better than any restaurant pho could ever be.  But really, what she's using to make it isn't pho noodles, but Chinese ho fun noodles.    Ho Fun is essentially what you stir fry to make chow funn.    And where does she get these fresh, handmade noodles, but in Chinatown, from places like Ying Leong or Yat Tung noodle factories.   Because they are fresh and never dried, the texture is just perfect.   As a rice noodle, it's much softer than say egg noodles or wheat noodles.  In her broth, they are (as Chinese would say) so slippery, which makes them perfect for slurping up with soup.    Because there is so much crossover in cuisine, it is not surprising that Vietnamese food should taste kinda familiar.

While they are similar, Vietnamese versions of Chinese dishes are always herbier, more aromatic, and more intensely flavored.  Vietnamese cooking in general has probably the most complex combination of distinct flavors of any cuisine.  Even Indian food, which uses several dozen spices for every dish, usually has the spices blend together.   But in Vietnamese food, the various fresh herbs, like basil, lemongrass, mint, and Chinese parsley, and the other ingredients are always kept distinct, so ther flavors really play off one another.   It is almost the opposite of Japanese cuisine, which uses stark simplicity to draw out singular ideal flavor.   So even though you can go to a Vietnamese restaurant and find familiar Chinese things like, spring rolls and won ton mein, they always taste pretty different. 

Duck Leg Noodle at Golden River Restaurant

Probably my favorite Vietnamese interpretation of a Chinese dish, is ngap tui mein (or stewed duck leg noodle).   My favorite place to get it was a restaurant called Ho Bien (which literally just means "by the river").  It was on the very edge of Chinatown, right on the corner of River St. and King (across from Nuuanu Stream).    I have been going to Ho Bien since I was in high school.   It was one of the first Vietnamese restaurants I really liked, and eating ngap tui mein there was like dipping my feet into the shallow end of the pool.  I could even speak Cantonese to the staff there.  It has since changed owners, and is now called Golden River Restaurant, but the food is still basically the same.   As soon as it is served, their ngap tui mein hits you with the scent of star anise, and mushrooms, and almost a cinammon like spice.  The duck, is fork tender, and obviously has been stewed for enough time that the broth has just been infused with intense duck flavor.  It is the intensity of these spices and duck flavor that separates it from its Chinese counterpart.

Mixed Drink at Golden River Restaurant

After eating any broth at Golden River, it really needs to be followed by one of their fantastic desert drinks.   My favorite is the "mixed drink", again a mixing of familiar and not so familiar flavors in complex combination.   Let's see... Coconut milk, very familiar (to anyone who's eaten haupia).   Azuki Beans, very familiar (to anyone whose ever eaten mochi or shave ice).   Pomegranate seeds, not so familiar around here, but they're crunchy and mild tasting.   Translucent red and green noodles, uh.... not so familiar, but they're like long rice only firmer, kind of odd to be eating them in a drink though.   Mung beans, very distinctly Vietnamese, used in a lot of their cooking, and leads a very thick smooth texture to the concoction.  Separated, it is just a thing of beauty.  Look at the colors! The colors!!  But once it's stirred and mixed together, the combination of all of these flavors and textures playing off of each other is just a barrage of sweet goodness in your mouth. 

Do the Vietnamese interpretations outclass their Chinese counterparts, certainly not.   But they are a wonderful variation, making the familiar into something exotic and enticing.   To put it simply, "sometimes you feel like a nut... sometimes you don't..."

The Culinary Boon

The Chinese have been in Hawaii for 220 years, since they came to work on the sugar plantations in 1789.   The Japanese followed suit in 1885, enjoying 124 years of prosperity here.   Given these terms, the Vietnamese are relative newcomers to the islands.  They mostly came to escape the terrible civil war that ravaged their country.    Given our country's involvement in the war, it's taken just about my entire lifetime, for bitter and hostile feelings on both sides to ebb, and for people to look at the Vietnamese people and their culture without prejudice.    As usual, one of the keys to breaking down barriers, and giving people a fresh start, is to taste what they're having for dinner.

Though only being here for a relatively short time, one look at Chinatown these days, will tell you that they have been extremely prolific once coming to our shores.   Lucky for us, since we get to experience a cuisine that is aromatic, intensely flavorful, and fresh.   For me, Vietnamese food is paradoxically at once incredibly familiar, and yet strangely exotic at the same time.  

Rare Steak & Beef Ball Pho at Pho One

Talk about Vietnamese food, and people will automatically assume that you're going to be talking about pho.   By the way, it's pronounced "fuh", so it actually sounds like you're starting to say a certain 4-letter word and getting stuck, and NOT like you're beating down your "foe", despite how it's spelled.   However, I really don't think I will be addressing pho here at any time.   The reason for me, is that unfortunately, no restaurant can compare with the pho my Aunty makes at home.   For one thing, Aunty buys fresh noodles from the noodle factories in Chinatown, never using dried or frozen noodles, makes a world of difference in terms of texture (just like Jimbo's udon).   For the other, her pho is like the ultimate beef broth, simmering beef and bone for hours until the bone breaks down and all that yummy marrow infuses the soup, making it a little more akin (but way more intense) to ox tail soup.   No restaurant pho can possibly match it in terms of richness or beefiness.   My Po Po's kau yuk, my mom's spaghetti, my aunty's pho, and my own gumbo all have that same quality, something home made that takes hours to make that no restaurant can conceivably replicate or they would go out of business.

So if we're not talking about pho, what the heck are we talking about?    Well, if you go to a Vietnamese restaurant and actually decide to turn the page on the menu, you'll see they all offer a huge variety of other dishes.   Whenever I go to a restaurant, rather than having pho, I would prefer to have bun.   Pronounced "boon" like an economic boon, bun is the equivalent of Vietnamese vermicelli or somen.   It's served dry, or in broth.    You know what spring rolls are.   But what about summer rolls?   Summer rolls, are stuffed with bun and the rice paper wrapper is served cold and soft, rather than deep fried and cruncy, accompanied by yummy peanut butter like dipping sauce.   Probably the best summer rolls around, are at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Pho One (on the corner of Kaheka and Kapiolani).   What makes their summer rolls the best?   For one, they're wrapped really tightly.   Poorly wrapped summer rolls just fall apart when you eat them.   For another, when you order them, you get both pork and shrimp inside, whereas you usually must choose one or the other.

Summer Rolls at Pho One

It's nice to start in with a good summer roll, but my absolute favorite dish there, is another bowl of bun, called Bun Rieu.   I'm not sure what it is with the way Vietnamese is romanized, but it should be pronounced "Boon Zieu".   In any case, this dish is incredibly exotic and complex.   It starts out like a broth of fresh stewed tomatoes, but you hardly taste the tomatoes.   It's got pigs feet (which done at Pho One is so tender it's almost as soft as ox tail).   It's got little squares of coagulated pig's blood, (I kid you not!), which taste like a sort of smooth, iron tasting, jello.   It's got shrimps and Vietnamese pork sausage, called gio (pronounced "zaw"), which has a similar texture to fish cake but made with pork.   It's even topped with shredded, raw on choy (when have you ever been served on choy raw and not stir fried?).   But the piece de resistance is this omelette thing, made with crab meat.   The intense crab flavor from this thing just permeates the whole bowl  gives it a supremely rich crab roe taste.  The combinations of these flavors, plus the lemongrass and mint, is just intense and complex.  Colors upon colors, flavors upon flavors just layering upon one another.  It's like a symphony, with multiple vocal melodies and complex harmonies.

Bun Rieu at Pho One

My big problem, is that I love eating Bun Rieu so much, I hardly ever try anything else on the menu.   You know how it is when you have your favorite dish.    So I had to wait for my sister to come home, and order something else, before I could break away from it.   What did she order?   A spicier, herbier, broth from the central region of Vietnam, called Bun Bo Hue (pronounced "boon baw hwei").   The herbiness in this broth was so perfumey, I could feel the tingliness in the back of my head.  It's not the kind of spicy that burns your mouth, not at all in fact, but the kind that as you eat the whole bowl, you just start to sweat.   I liked it a lot, but it still doesn't compare with my Bun Rieu in terms of complexity.  

Bun Bo Hue at Pho One

The other nice thing about Pho One, is its decor.   Unlike most Vietnamese restaurants, it's incredibly well lit, clean, and modern looking.  The bright glass and shiny stone tables give it an element of class that you don't find elsewhere.   Coupled with a central location right outside Ala Moana, I love taking clients to eat at Pho One.   My clients get to experience a slightly more exotic cuisine, and we can talk shop comfortably.

So the Vietnamese did not grow up with us here.   They did not toil together on the sugar cane or pineapple fields like we did.   But they did have to endure turmoil and emotional upheaval to find a home here as well.  Lucky for us, they became part of our ohana and we can share and learn and grow together.

The Ultimate Udon

If there is one word that I would use to describe the Japanese character, it would be "perfectionist".   That's really what they're all about.   The Japanese are meticulous about everything, from their cleanliness, to their manners, to their work ethic.   They pay attention to every little detail.   Sometimes, I wish the Chinese were as obsessive/compulsive about cleanliness as the Japanese are.  Looking at how dirty Chinatown is (and all the other Chinatowns around the country), just makes me sad.   There are some things the Japanese just do really really right.

Generally, the Japanese aren't originators.   Their strength is to take things that other people have come up with and refine it to the point of perfection.   Just look at the automotive world and the electronics world.   So it should be no surprise that this applies to the food world as well.   And perhaps one of the most iconic Japanese foods is their noodles.  There are so many styles of noodles around the world.   While (thanks to Marco Polo) the Italians have spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, and vermicelli, the Japanese have ramen, somen, udon, and soba.   Of these, the one that I usually like least is udon.   

Udon is the thicker, rounder, chewier Japanese noodle.   Because of it's thickness and consistency, it generally does not cluster together the way that fine noodles do.   It's much easier to isolate an individual noodle than with thinner noodles.   The byproduct of this, is that it does not trap as much of the surrounding sauce or liquid than thinner noodles do.  Therefore, the texture of the noodle must stand out on its own much more.   The reason that I usually don't like udon noodles, is that they're generally too tough or chewy.   The thickness alone makes them firmer, since you've got more noodle to bite through.   This is especially so of dried udon noodles that need to be reconstituted.

I didn't really start to appreciate the udon until I was travelling to Guam on business one year.   It was an extruciatingly long flight, almost 18 hours total.   The only stopover I had was in Narita Airport, just outside of Tokyo.   Tired, cramped, and jet lagged, I hobbled around the airport looking for something to eat, and what did I find, but a udon noodle shop.   Figuring I was in the country of it's inception, I thought I might as well give a bowl a chance.   Because I was tired and hungry, the warmth of the soup really perked me up.  And the noodles, were a much better texture than I was expecting.   Because they were thicker, they were also a little more substantial to a weary traveler.    Having found udon that I actually liked, I decided to try to hunt for it at home.   After much searching, I finally found what may be the perfect noodle, at Jimbo Restaurant, on S. King just before McCully (next to where King's Bakery and later Machino Chaya used to be).

Hot Udon and Okayko Donburi Combo at Jimbo Restaurant

Jimbo is a perfect example of the Japanese perfectionism.   They focus on basically one thing, their udon noodle.  It is entirely handmade by themselves, and because the noodles are fresh and never reconstituted, the texture is absolutely perfect.   The udon is softer than any other I've had, but still has enough chewiness to satisfy your appetite.   But to me the best thing is their slight variation, "hoso udon" or skinny udon.   Here are the same classic udon noodles, but just slightly skinnier, so it alleviates some of the trappings of the thick noodle.  

Zaru Udon and Tempura Combo at Jimbo Restaurant

Udon is classically served hot.   The pairing of the udon in broth with another dish like an okayo donburi makes for a fantastic meal.   But Jimbo also balances it out by serving them cold (zaru udon) as well.   Usually, the cold serving is done with soba noodles, not udon, but somehow the with Jimbo's hoso udon it works really well.   The hoso udon is more slippery than soba traditionally is, so it has a wonderful mouth feel slurping them up.

Zaru Udon close up at Jimbo Restaurant

When looking for the perfect noodle, Jimbo's udon just may top that list in the islands.   That really says something, considering I generally like udon noodles the least.   That just goes to show what an obsession with perfectionism can do. 

The Little Garden of Beef

As the descendant of Cantonese sugar planatation workers, I tend to favor the flavors that I grew up with, that my Po Po cooked for me.   I'm also very protective of these flavors, because I always worry that they could easily be lost to time and history.   However that doesn't mean that I don't like other regions or other flavors.  Indeed, if you were looking to find the best most definitive Chinese food in the world, I would probably recommend that you wander out from the rice paddies of Guangdong, and towards the little peninsula and island just outside called Hong Kong.  Hong Kong takes Cantonese food, indeed all Chinese food, and kicks it up a notch.   The reason for this?   Hong Kong has long been the central hub of activity, China's interface with the world.   It's a jam packed city filled with hungry people who have no time or space to eat at home.   So naturally, they've taken the best of Chinese food, and refined it to it's most polished and sophisticated state.  The excess is trimmed.    The flavors have are made much more intense, and they have a much more metropolitan and worldly air about them.  

Being a British posession for such a long time, Hong Kong has always been much more open and accessible than the rest of China.   So it is no wonder that the Hong Kongese have also made their way to the islands, much later than the original Cantonese transplants, but for quite a long time now.  As such, many of our Chinese restuarants also have a more Hong Kong influenced cuisine.    Some are more modern and glamourous, others reflect tastes that were established by an older generation.  If you were to ask me which restaurant would be my favorite among these, it would easily be Mini Garden.

Mini Garden, or Ming Yuen (as it's called in Chinese), is definitely not a new restaurant.    It was established a lifetime ago on Smith Street in Chinatown.  I was having lunch with an old friend there one day, and she reminised about how her father would bring home Won Ton Mein, late at night when she was a little girl.   But the Mini Garden of today is not nearly the same as it was 30 years ago.    The original Mini Garden, was a typical dingy dirty Chinatown establishment with old tables, worn down floors, and a weathered exterior.  However, they've semi-recently remodeled, to a more modern Chinese look.   Rounded faux wood paneling, and shiny fancy glass everywhere.   While it may look new and shiny, the food was defintely not the same.   I went there several times to discover that the food overcooked and tough, and at times undercooked and potentially stomach upsetting.   It wasn't until later that I realized why.    Mini Garden had sold that location (along with their name), to new owners who did not take nearly the same care as the original owners.    And the Mini Garden Express over at the 99 ranch food court is not nearly as good (it is fast food after all).   But fear not, I found the true Mini Garden, which moved to a shiny new location on Beretania Street just before McCully.

Beef Brisket/Tendon Noodle at Mini Garden

The new location Mini Garden, is still much more chic than the old school classic I remember.   Shiny nouveau porcelain plates, a white leather couch, and a big plasma tv will do that for you.    But the food is just as good.  If there is one thing that Mini Garden has always done the best, it's their noodles.   Their noodles, are the thinner firmer Hong Kong style of noodles, which because of their thinness have a wonderful feel in your mouth.  My favorite dish there would have to be their ngau lam/ngau gun tong mein (or beef brisket/beef tendon noodles soup).  They make perhaps some of the best beef brisket on the island.   It is so incredibly soft you cannot believe beef can get this soft.   Because of the softness, the soup soaks into it and permeates it.  At the same time, the richness of the beef melts throughout the broth.   But the real kicker is the tendon.   Admittedly, tendon is not for everyone.   But then that may be because most people have never had good tendon.  When done wrong, it's hard, kinda crunchy, and has a very unpleasant mouth feel.  When done right tough, as Mini Garden consistently does, it is soft to the point where it tastes almost like a beefy gelatin.  Doesn't sound appetizing?  Trust me, taste it and you will know what I like about it so much.   The beefiness, broth, and noodles just harmonize perfectly in this dish.  

The other thing that Mini Garden has going for it, is a second, entirely vegetarian menu.   This is not just a few vegetable dishes, but a really fantastic faux meat substitute.   They have dishes like sweet sour fish, barbecue spare ribs, and beef broccoli, which are entirely made out of gluten, soy, and mysterous vegetables.   Again, that doesn't sound very appetizing.  It sounds like hippie, tree hugger, granola birkenstock food.   But trust me it's not.  It's done the way that Buddhist monks have done it for hundreds of years.   When you're a vegetarian THAT long, you find a way to make your way to taste good.  If you close your eyes and eat them, especially the fish, the texture is almost exactly that of fish.  What's missing, is the essential fattiness that real meat has.  But then, if you're looking for a healtier diet, that may work for you.    In my life, I've had classmates, a sister, and most recently a niece who have embrassed vegetarianism for various reasons.  So it is nice to have a place to take them that is vegetarianism taken to a higher level, and really done right.   When my niece was recently visiting this summer, I took her there as a special treat, and I think she quite enjoyed it.

The food at Mini Garden is the kind of food that my Hong Kongese friends grew up with.   It's not quite the same as what my Po Po made, but is probably similar to what their Po Po's did.  It's still Cantonese food, but you can taste the subtle distinction.   It's even there in the language.  The accent is slightly different, the way that British English is different from American.  Case in point, when I ordered my "ngau lam" (beef brisket), the proprietor repeated it to me as "au nam".  Not so different that we couldn't understand each other, but different.   Hong Kong is like the big city to the farmers that my ancestors where.   I imagine it's the way that upstate New Yorkers feel about Manhattanites.  It's the story of the country mouse and the city mouse.   While I love the excitement and glitz that is the big city, I'll always be a country mouse at heart.

1 Ton of Flavor

While lamenting the loss of places like McCully Chop Suey, we need to celebrate all of the great Old Hawaii-Style Chinese restaurants we still do have.  Restaurants which serve the classic old school Cantonese dishes the Chinese workers brought with them when they came to work on the sugar plantations.  Among these classic dishes is a local favorite, won ton mein.

When I was little, won ton mein seemed so boring, so ordinary.   I remember sitting in Chinese school, and one of the little girls was excitedly telling her friend how she was looking forward to having won tons for dinner.  And I remember thinking to myself... what's so great about having won tons?   And of course, I was being a snotty idiot.  I failed to appreciate, just what magical little treasures won tons can be, and just how much care and effort goes into making them.   Whenever you eat them, you must remember that they are always made by hand, one by one.   The people that make them for you sit for long stretches doing nothing but shaping and molding the little dumplings, one at a time, by hand.   When done right, with care and attention, each one tastes like a little bit of Heaven.   More precisely, "won" means clouds and "ton" means to swallow, so each one is like swallowing a little cloud.    BTW, they should be pronounced like they weigh "1 ton", NOT like you just "won" someone's "ton"sils.

When I got married, my wife and I took our honeymoon on an Alaskan cruise.   While on board ship, I came across won ton soup as a menu option in one of the restaurants.   Out of curiosity, I decided to try a bowl.   What I was served, was a small rice bowl sized bowl of plain chicken broth with nothing else but 2 little dumplings in it.    Could this be right??   Is this really how they serve them on the mainland???  Apparently yes, on the mainland, won ton soup is like a starter course, the bowl of soup you get before your meal.  The plain chicken broth was nothing to speak of, and the won tons were almost all "pi" (the wrapper), with just a tiny hard chunk of meat in the middle.   Needless to say, I walked away extremely unsatisfied.

Lucky, my wife makes the absolute best won tons in the world.   It is perhaps the best dish she makes, and she makes them absolutely perfectly.   Her filling is always generously overstuffed, with pork, large pieces of ha mai (the small dried shrimp), chopped up waterchestnuts and shin choi (salted picked vegetables).   Okay, I don't really know what she puts in her won tons (and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you her secrets).   But I do know that each one of them is meaty and filling.   The pi is never tough, but floppy and slurpable and seems to trap the broth so you get this gush of flavor when eating them.  They are just perfect!

Making won tons, however, is a very time consuming process.   Since she's busy with other things, like trying to take care of all of us in this house, she only makes them on special occasions.  So if she's not going to make them, what restaurant would we go to to get won ton mein that is up to her standards?   Why, right on Waialae, at Hung Won Chinese Restaurant!   They make an absolutely fantastic, old Cantonese style, wor won ton mein (wor being the deluxe version of the dish).   Their won tons are almost (but not quite) as good as my wife's.  Their noodles, are not those thin Hong Kong style noodles, but the heartier, starchier, thicker Cantonese style noodles (the kind the farmers needed to eat to stay full while working the fields).   Their deluxe wor won ton mein is filled with all kinds of vegetables, both Chinese (like won bok and bak choi) and Western (like carrots and broccoli).   Everything blends together to make a hearty, balanced, substantial meal (unlike that dinky bowl on the cruise ship).

Wor Won Ton Mein at Hung Won Chinese Restaurant

If you're not in the mood for won ton mein, Hung Won also makes a fantastic siu yuk (or Roast Pork).  Everyone always says that good siu yuk is all about the skin.   But theirs is so much more than that.   Bad siu yuk is really tough and fatty.  The skin on it would be hard to chew and get stuck in your teeth.   Good siu yuk has, like good kau yuk, has all of its layers work together in harmony.  The skin is crunchy, the meat is tender, and the small amount of fat between the layers would just melt in your mouth moisten everything else.   With really good siu yuk, you don't just want to eat the skin, but eat all the layers in combination to have them work with each other.  And good siu yuk has this fragrant porkiness that lets you know you're eating pork and not some other meat.   Hung Won doesn't always do it right.  If it's old or cold, then it doesn't taste that great.   But when they are on the ball, theirs is among the best.

Roast Pork Rice at Hung Won Chinese Restaurant

Whether having wor won ton mein or siu yuk fan, Hung Won, has that really old school Chinese taste that reminds me of home.   Best of all, the owner always greets us happily and has watched my son grow from a tiny baby to a little boy.   Someday when he's much older, maybe he will reminice about Hung Won and how their won ton mein reminds him of his mom's cooking.

Saimin: The Ultimate Comfort Food

If you ask anyone from Hawaii what their favorite comfort food is, there is a high probability that saimin will top their list.    Saimin is to us islanders, what mac and cheese is to mainlanders.    It is perhaps the single, most quintessential, make you feel right at home, relaxed, thinking back on simpler, happier times food there is to us.   And just like there is a world of difference between a $0.99 hamburger from McDonalds and a gourmet 80/20 ground sirloin you would find at a fine steakhouse, there is a huge range of quality when it comes to saimin too.  

Before we begin, let's get one thing completely straight.  True saimin is a dish that is completely unique to Hawaii.   It is NOT Japanese ramen.   Nor is it a Chinese tong mein.  Despite the cravings that we get as college kids for a good cheap pack of Sapporo Ichiban or Cup Noodles, they're not really the true saimin that we're thinking of.    Saimin is a Hawaii born dish, a sort of blending of the different noodle soup dishes from the different cultures that worked our sugar plantations; Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino.  They all kind of contributed to the pot and created something new and unique to these islands.   Saimin noodles are square cut, not round (like udon).   They're actually slightly curly, not entirely straight (like ramen).  The toppings that make a traditional bowl of saimin are also a blending of whatever each culture had on hand, Korean Won Bok (leftover from kim chee making), Chinese red rimmed char siu, Japanese kamaboko (the red and white fishcake), some eggs, green onion, and of course Hawaii's great love, Spam (leftover from our days as a warzone in World War II).  If you eat enough of the noodle soups from the various East Asian cultures, you can recognize the differences between each, and the unique blending that true saimin is.

As I mentioned before, Saimin comes in all different grades and quality.   At home, the gold standards for saimin are the fresh frozen (not dried) packs from S&S or Okahara.   If you're going out, it's on all the menus all over town, at carnival events, even at McDonalds (the first localized product McDonald's ever offered).   While I love eating a good Saimin and McTeri burger combo from McDonald's, and as much as I (like all other Hawaii kids) freaked out when I couldn't get it from McDonald's while at college on the mainland , it's not the everyday common saimin that I'm pursuing here.   The quest I'm on, is for the truest, most uniquely Hawaii, most classic form of tthe dish.    In other words... the perfect saimin.

The first saimin that I really truly loved was from a place called Tanouye's on Waialae Ave (currently the home of Super Pho).    My dad said that when he was in elementary school, Tanouye's was just a lunchwagon, and that he could buy a bowl of their saimin for just $0.25.   When I was a kid, he would take me there, and we'd have a table next to the stone wall which was up to table level.  Practically the whole wall above it was a giant window that they would open so you could watch people pass by on the street, while tucked away behind their willow tree.   It was the kind of feeling feeling you would get if you took a streetside cafe in Paris and dropped it into the middle of Kaimuki.  It was charming.  But it closed, and a number of restaurants have tried to take its place.

When Tanouye's closed, my quest for the ideal saimin was on.   We went all over town, trying different ones.   Some were too salty.  Some too watery.  Sometimes the noodles weren't right.  Some were variations thereof, and not the classic taste that I was hunting for.  Then, I found one that really fit the bill.   It was Washington Saimin, right on King Street just past McKinley High School.   Theirs was just wonderful.   The right kind of noodles, the right texture, the right flavor, the right broth, and such a cheap price too.   Okay the seats were a little too stiff (they were straight 90 degree angles, it was worse than a church pew), but who cared when the saimin was so good.   Whereas Tanouye's was a Japanese family, Washington was a Korean one, which again spoke to how true saimin was a blend of all of our cultures.   But again, sadly Washington Saimin closed a few years ago as well.

Here I was, again without a classic old style saimin that would be there to comfort me and warm me up when I needed it.   I already knew that the other contenders on island just weren't the same.   The thought was completely dismaying.  If I couldn't find anyone else in town that did it for me, and it was exclusively a Hawaii dish, would I never again taste the true saimin?   Was it going to be a memory I could never revist?  Thankfully, I found a new love...  it just so happened not to be on the same island.

X-Large Deluxe Saimin at Hamura's Saimin

 
I happened to be vacationing on Kauai with my sister and her friends, when they brought me to the place where I found not only my new favorite saimin, but one that frankly was better than I had ever had anywhere.  Period.   The place (as you may have figured out already),was, of course,  Hamura Saimin in Lihue, Kauai.  Just walk through the doors and you feel like you've been transported back to a Hawaii of 50 years ago.   There of course will be dozens of people waiting in line to get at seat at their one super long winding communal counter.   And when you finally order, you must get the biggest bowl of their super deluxe saimin with everything in it.   Of course, true saimin, must be accompanied by a yakitori chicken or beef stick on the side.   It would be like ordering a hamburger without fries.   And when you finally get your bowl, you taste all of the history and warm comforting grandma like cooking they put into each spoon.    The noodles are the perfect texture, something you can always tell from handmade, fresh (not frozen or dried) noodles.  The broth, doesn't taste like any ordinary shoyu or dashi based soup, it tastes like ha mai (you know those small dried shrimp) that's been boiled for hours to make the perfect stock.    Not spicy enough for you?  They've got some classic Hawaiian chili pepper water sitting there for you to kick it up.  Every spoon tastes like Heaven.   And when you're done you can top it off with their famous lilikoi pie.   This was like really like meeting the perfect woman and saying "where have you been all of my life??"

Okay... so I'm not going to fly over to Kauai just so I can have a bowl of saimin.   And yes, I still haven't found a saimin place on Oahu that I think can compare.   But just knowing that it's still there is comforting.   Knowing that this treasured piece of our history and culture is still alive somewhere is somehow enough.   Somehow the knowledge that it is still kept safe and hopefully won't be forever lost eases my tormented soul.   If ever Hamura's were to close, I think I would shed enough tears to fill their largest saimin bowl.   But for now.... for now I am happy and comforted.