What We Ate In Honolulu (2023)

For the third straight year, the kids curated a wonderful selection of meals in Honolulu.  Previous write-ups cover our 2021 trip to Hawaii, our 2022 trip to Hawaii, with separate descriptions of our 2022 meal at Senia, and our 2022 meal at Yung Yee Kee.

 

Arriving in Honolulu Saturday afternoon, we checked into the newly renovated Outrigger Reef Hotel on Waikiki and shortly thereafter headed for dinner next door at the House Without A Key Restaurant in the Halekulani Hotel.   Dinner had to be reserved weeks in advance and there were no reservations available when we called in, but it was suggested that perhaps there might be walk ins right when they opened at 5 pm, so we tried that route.  After an initial negative push back, indeed we eventually got our table.  Interestingly, the restaurant never did fill up completely during the two hours that we were there.  The main attraction at the restaurant was the spectacular view from the terrace, particularly as sundown approached, as well as the live music which turned out to be nothing out of the ordinary.  

 

Dinner started with the coconut ribs with charshu sauce, which I thought was the best dish of the night and probably the best thing I've eaten so far this year.

 

The signature steamed pomfret, fine but not worth the $48 charge.

Catch of the day was sea bass, again OK but not worth the $46.

The herb crust skirt steak was a winner.

 

Purple dinner rolls were actually excellent.

Double so for the purple mash.

And for dessert, the signature coconut cake.

 

The first meal on Sunday was in Waikiki Plaza, directly across from the Hyatt Centric where we stayed the previous two years.  When we came here in 2021, signs pointed to an Asian food court in the basement, except that the entrance was chained off and the food hall was closed by the pandemic.  Returning last year the basement area remained closed, and by now I had frankly forgotten about it.  However lunch was scheduled for Lobster House, which happened to be in Waikiki Plaza, though not in the basement area, and when we walked in on the ground floor I saw that there was a stairway downstairs and the area was buzzing with activity.  Indeed, Stix Food Hall was in full operation with 16 Asian restaurants, including a dedicated wing dubbed Noodle Street.  Meanwhile, Lobster House had emerged as a highly popular purveyor of lobster rolls, $28 for a regular roll, with $12 for extra lobster.  

 Then I headed to take a look at the Stix Food Hall, where I picked up an order of curry fish balls.

 

Directly across Kalakaua Ave. from Waikiki Plaza is the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and shopping complex, and right in front is the Island Vintage shaved ice kiosk, I noticed that the line was relatively short, with about 10 people in line, so I jumped on it.

 

After waiting about 10 minutes we entered our order for a Heavenly Lilikoi . 

A little too sweet this time, But still refreshing.

Dinner was at Basalt, downstairs from the Hyatt Centric, where we once had takeout breakfast, but a couple of planned dinners ended up not panning out.  As such, it didn't seem like a terribly exciting choice at the time. However, it turned out to be a very nice meal starting out with black Filipino dinner rolls.  

 

There were several fine entrees--Hawaiian salt and herb crusted prime rib.

 

Braised short rib loco moco. 

 

Kurobota pork chop. 

 

Miso pork belly. 

 

Yuzu Carbonara fettuccine.   

 

Desserts of Basque cheesecake.  

 

 

And lillikoi and berry creme brulee.  Both were tops.

 

Monday lunch was at Wagaya, where we reprised the prior year meal. The garlic tonkatsu ramen was as great as last year, duplicating the best bowl of ramen I've ever eaten.

 

The tempura corn was so awesome we did two orders.  I don't understand why this dish isn't more common.

 

And an order of agedashi tofu.  

This was such a great meal that we did it again for Friday's lunch.

Wagaya was followed by a trip for my four year old granddaughter Jemma to the Taiwanese based Ice Monster for a strawberry monster ice.  Even  two years ago, after tasting her first Ice Monster, she knew exactly where the shop was located, and she remembers every time we walk by.

 

Monday dinner was at Duke's, at the other Outrigger Hotel well past the Royal Hawaiian complex.  Reservations have to be made three months in advance, and despite that we still had to wait a half hour after we arrived to be seated.  The manager apologized for the wait and comped us drinks and appetizers.  The setting near the patio was really nice, as was the Hawaiian music.

 

The ahi tacos were fabulous.  

 

The panko calamari was also a winner.  

 

For some reason, the main dishes didn't arrive until an hour after we were seated.  Duke's $36 garlic with baked fish with lemon and sweet basil fish was not notable.

 

And the sauteed macadamia nut crusted fresh fish was not any better.

Somehow I missed photographing the Margarita flatbread, though there was nothing special about it.  I did find it interesting that we had pizza twice on the trip, and both times it was on the menu as "flatbread."

The hula pie, a chocolate ice cream pie was good, though.  But all in all, for such a tough table to get, Duke's was not cheap, the service was not good, and overall the food was ordinary.

 

Tuesday lunch was at Fun Station, in the Market Place Shopping Center on Kapiolani Blvd.  Fun Station was known for their gimmicky beef brisket flying noodles, which when delivered to the table appeared to be suspended in mid air hanging from a pair of chopsticks.  Besides the gimmick, though, the noodles were great.  The owner explained that the noodles were knife cut rice noodles, a Cantonese take on knife cut noodles found in Northern China.  Interestingly, when I got back to Los Angeles and posted this picture on the local message board, it created a furor as some commentators said it was impossible for these to be rice cut noodle, based either on the appearance of the noodles, or that it was impossible for rice noodles to be knife cut because of their density.

 

The look funn with pork belly wasn't quite as good.   Look funn is like chow fun and cheung fun, but is the thinner Hawaiian version.

 

The extra bonus was that there were two other Chinese restaurants in the same shopping center as Fun Station where I could buy myself some breakfast and snack food.  At Duck Lee, I was able to snag some manapua, similar to but not exactly the same as large bao we're used to seeing, and something I had been unable to do the previous visits to Chinatown in 2021 and 2022 since by the time we got there at lunchtime, the bakeries and restaurants were sold out.  Nothing was particularly great about these baked and steamed buns.  I did notice that the manapua differed from regular charsiu bao in that the bread in the bun was like traditional white bread, even in the baked version, though sweeter.  

 

And at Yi Xiang Cafe, I got an order of on choy for only $13, the only thing I saw in Hawaii that was cheaper than back home.
 

After lunch we headed to Kamakee Street to pick up goodies at Lin's Hawaiian Snacks and It's Tea.  We found Lin's Hawaiian Snacks two years ago when looking for mui, particularly those seasoned with Li Hing, a plum skin, licorice type powdered seasoning closely associated with Hawaii.  Also all sorts of gummies and other snacks, with and without Li Hing.  (Li Hing has been banned from sale in California in the past few years, so this is a chance to stock up.)

Coincidentally, previously we found a boba shop on the same block as Lin's Hawaiian Snacks, It’s Tea, which has such different drinks not found in Los Angeles, such as this lilikoi Earl Grey drink, that it's become a destination for us.

Tuesday dinner was a real highlight, at the oddly located M W Restaurant, located on the second floor of a luxury car dealership that sold most every high end car around, including Mercedes, Land Rover, Lamborghini, Jaguar and more.  

 

 This was a real highlight of the trip, starting from the appetizers like the unagi butterfish arancini.

 

The fried pressed jidori chicken was a real surprise.

And the equally fabulous ahi tacos.

 

 To the main dishes, like mochi crusted kanpachi.

 

Miso honey glazed butterfish, 

 

Truffle short ribs.

 

 And seafood paella.

 

The excellence extended to dessert, like the lilikoi brulee.

 

 Mango ice.

And their "candy bar" dessert.  What a meal.

 

Wednesday lunch was a return visit to last year's Pig and the Lady venue.  The Pig and the Lady might be the most popular restaurant in Honolulu Chinatown, serving sort of a Vietnamese fusion. I didn't like their signature pho last time, so I had their signature French dip instead, which I had eaten two years ago at the sister Piggy Smalls restaurant.  Bread and meat were fine, but I didn't particularly like the hoisin sauce or the spiciness. 

 

The Burmese salad was interesting, like a papaya salad but a little sour and a little crunch.  

 

 

And the restroom is a must see.

 

 A quick trip to Chinatown provided an opportunity to buy more snacks.. At Jacky's Macau Cafe they had steamed manapua that was fresh and warm.  It was so good, with a great ratio of filling to bread, particularly compared to Duck Lee. So great to finally have a legit manapua. 

 

At Hannah Bakery I got what looked like a baked manapua, but which was a taro bun instead.  

 

Wednesday was back to the Stix Asian Food Hall to get ramen at Akatsuki Ramen.  We had both the shoyu ramen and the salt ramen.

 

Thursday lunch was at Sweet, a breakfast and brunch specialty restaurant.  Breakfast is the main attraction while lunch is an afterthought.  We had the tuna melt.  

 

Also the chicken bacon pesto flatbread pizza, both being large servings and modestly priced.  

 

Thursday dinner was at Sushi Izakaya Gaku on King St., where we had a great meal in 2021. First came the seared toro.

 

Then the kanpachi.

Our favorite dish from our prior visit, miso butterfish.

 

But something was wrong.   There seemed to be something missing from this year's visit.  The misfires continued with the nigiri plate, another overwhelmingly good dish last time.

One real winner was the fish cake.  We had two orders.

 

My only true breakfast was a last minute decision on Friday to walk to Kapiolani Seafood for dim sum, since the only curated meals on the trip were early lunches and dinners and I was tired of only having leftovers or snacks in the morning.  Also, Kapiolani Seafood opened at 9am, and this also enabled us to have a repeat lunch at Wagaya.  The dim sum was pretty good and the har gow was steaming hot.

 

The crispy baked bbq pork buns were excellent.  Strangely this dish, a personal favorite of mine, is easier to find in Honolulu than Los Angeles.

Most of us recognize this as beef cheung fun.  As noted, in Hawaii, it's called beef look funn, with a thinner rice noodle wrapper, and look funn is also used to describe what we call chow fun, again a thinner version that what we're used to.

Final meal was a return to Senia, and it was another great meal.  As I wrote after last year's visit, if Honolulu were a Michelin rated city, Senia would be a top contender for Michelin Stars.  The 007 cocktail (gin, chili vodka, yuzu and egg white) was highly visual.  

 

But nothing compared to the Freddie (blood orange smoke with turkey bourbon). 

 

The creative lineup of dishes included potato croquettes with cheddar smoked ham hock.

 

Pine cured hamachi.

 

Sea scallops with bacon creme.

 

Burrata and melon salad.

 

 

Maui venison tartare with pickled elderberries.  

Cauliflower truffle gratin.

 

 Charred yuzu snap peas.

 

Ravioli bariguide ulu (breadfruit).  

 

Roasted bone marrow with oxtail marmelade with Hawaiian bread.

 

Spinach cavatelli.

 

For dessert,  chocolate pistachio sorbet.

.
And lastly, a fruit cookie--a sweet ending to a glorious final meal on the trip.

Do They Really Dice Fish, Shrimp and Noodles Into Tiny Cubes?

Introducing!  French style chicken at The Bay Cafe in Alhambra. 

I guess it’s been roughly 20 years now since Hong Kong style chefs took a page from Vietnamese shaking beef and started serving a dish called French cut filet mignon.  French cut meaning the meat was diced into small cubes, with the beef prepared with a savory sauce, often using Maggi sauce, pepper, and perhaps wine.  

Somehow, the term “French cut” beef morphed into “French style” beef, though the dish itself didn’t change.   But then French style fish started to appear, but as you can see from the  Bay Cafe French style fish picture, the meat is definitely not cut into small cubes.  

 

 

Rather, restaurants were assuming that “French style” described the savory Maggi sauce based seasoning, and the accompanying vegetables (often raw lettuce, onions and tomato) which garnished the French cut filet mignon.  Then soon there was  French style shrimp, French style chow mein, French style short ribs and French style chicken tenders, obviously none of which were diced into cubes.  

 

But this is the first time I’ve seen French style chicken.  And this time they got it right with the small pieces of meat.

Chinese Food Hits Close To Home

Having lived my entire life within 10 miles of downtown Los Angeles (and predominantly in a 7 to 9 mile range to the south or west), I have never been convenient to really good Chinese food.  This has especially the case for the last 30 years living in the Hollywood Hills, as Hollywood has always been one of the biggest wastelands for Chinese food, in a Los Angeles metro that has historically no lack of Chinese food wastelands.  Fortunately, there recently have been a few authentic Chinese restaurants that have opened up in Hollywood maybe within 2 to 3 miles, specifically iXLB, Northern Cafe and  Hui Tou Xiang, which led me to write HURRAY FOR HOLLYWOOD Chinese Food on this blog, which I'm pretty sure is the only article in existence on Chinese food in Hollywood.  But these new restaurants are in the heart of Hollywood with no parking in sight.  

But then in the middle of March, I saw this incredible signage come up in the shopping center on the northeast corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Western Ave.  KINGDOM DIM SUM.

At first I thought it was a joke.  Or perhaps a movie or TV show shooting location.  A quick Google search did show a Kingdom Dim Sum in the UK.  Was a British dim sum parlor opening up in Hollywood?   It didn't look that the space would be built out for a while, yet by the end of March, Kingdom Dim Sum actually opened up.  No, it wasn't British, but it did have a full menu of dim sum items.  Of course, the big question was whether Kingdom Dim Sum would be any good.  Would it sell dim sum provided by a food supplier like Sysco or HF Foods, would they prepare their own dim sum, or what?  This question was quickly answered when I saw these fish shu mai, a dim sum variety so rare that I can only remember eating this variety less than a handful of times.

The fish shu mai were excellent.  I also ordered another uncommon dim sum item, chicken shu mai, and their baked bbq pork buns.  Both were quite good.

 

 

 

But the most eye catching item of this first visit was something called deep fried fish chop.  I've never seen anything like this on any dim sum menu.  And frankly, it's not dim sum.  But it is a clever insertion, as many Chinese fast food restaurants in inner Los Angeles serve deep fried fish fillets, and this item is really consistent with this local tradition.   And it's quite good.

 

So after my first visit to Kingdom Dim Sum, it was clear to me that this was a legit dim sum restaurant that because of its convenience a little over a mile from my house, it would be someplace that I would clearly be patronizing.  But while obviously it wouldn't be a substitute for my favorite sit down dim sum restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley, would it be comparable to the next tier of San Gabriel Valley dim sum eateries?   So I went by a few more times in the ensuing two months to figure out where on an absolute scale Kingdom Dim Sum would land.  

As it turns out, Kingdom Dim Sum is better than I had imagined.  I mean, who would know that their egg tarts are as good as anything in the San Gabriel Valley, including the sitdown restaurants?

 

Their har gow would rank with the best of the San Gabriel Valley.

San Gabriel Valley dim sum restaurants seldom have two different types of baked bbq pork buns.  This is the puff pastry version at Kingdom Dim Sum.

And few, if any of the San Gabriel Valley dim sum places have chicken cheung fun.

Nor is it easy to find pan fried chicken buns there.

And I don't recall seeing anything like their shrimp and celery patties.

Personally I really like their crispy version of turnip cakes, though I know they're not for everyone.

They've even added a few rice plates.  The lemon chicken rice is excellent.

And the desserts are varied and top notch, like this mango sago coconut.

 

 

Kingdom Dim Sum far exceeds anything I could have hoped for in Hollywood, with ample parking to boot.  Indeed, if Hollywood is closer to you than the San Gabriel Valley, I would consider this to be a destination restaurant.  And even if it isn't, if you're a fan of their distinctive dishes or their awesome egg tarts, it could be a destination restaurant for you.

Everything We Ate In San Francisco - 2023

 

Though it was just a three day trip, we managed to cover a lot of ground in last month's visit to San Francisco.  Due to traffic conditions, we didn't get to the Royal Pacific Motor Inn until 8:30pm, at which point I was only looking for a light snack, and not knowing what restaurants were still open.  I had been keeping track of Chinese restaurant openings in Chinatown since last year, and there were two on Jackson St., Fusion Dumplings and Taishan Restaurant, both of which were still open, so I chose Fusion Dumplings which was the first.  This was their sidewalk spotlight.

The Peking duck dumplings were quite good.

The intriguing sounding Shanghai bean curd leaf rolls was just a fancy name for vegetarian chicken.

With an early Tuesday lunch scheduled, Tuesday morning was limited to a visit to the newly opened Stockton Bakery for an excellent BBQ pork bun and this unusual and delicious durian bun.

For lunch it was on to the newish Grand Dynasty in San Jose.  Interestingly I recently received an inquiry to be an expert witness in defending an unnamed Chinese restaurant in this area from claims of appropriation of trade secrets leveled by the owner of another restaurant against his former associates who opened a similar restaurant.  The premise was that the design and menus of the two restaurants were similar.  I declined the offer, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Grand Dynasty being sued by the owner of the shuttered Dynasty, a mile away in Cupertino.   If the plaintiff were arguing there was something proprietary about the look and feel of Grand Dynasty, I would say sorry, Charlie, this is what all the new large Cantonese restaurants in the Bay Area look like.

 

I'm a sucker for piggy buns, so here are the Grand Dynasty lava buns.

These green fried mochi dumplings were great.

 Fish dumplings with roe was another interesting and different dish.

 

At sit down dim sum restaurants, the cheung fun always have filling.  This is the first time I've seen plain cheung fun with dipping sauce at a large restaurant like Grand Dynasty.

Apparent, a combination of crunchy tofu, eggplant and shrimp paste is a common dish in Hong Kong, but I only ate it for the first time as an entree, six months ago in Monterey Park.  So it was interesting to see this dish again, as a dim sum item.

The crispy skin pork belly was top notch.

We almost never order BBQ pork pastries, because we normally order baked or steamed BBQ pork buns, and these would be duplicative.  This version was quite good too.

There was one other Chinese restaurant in the same shopping center on Bollinger Road, Shang Cafe.  This is their mung bean noodle salad.

Afterwards we checked out a couple of shopping centers in nearby Cupertino.  We immediately saw evidence that all the big new Cantonese restaurants look alike, such as these views inside Koi Palace Contempo in the Cupertino Main Street shopping center.  

 

The cheapest thing on the menu at Koi Palace Contempo was this $7 steamed bbq pork bun.  I don't think I've ever paid that much for an order of these.  The guava cheese pastry at the nearby 85° Bakery and Cafe was better and much cheaper.

It was back to Chinatown for dinner, at the newly opened Taishan Restaurant on Jackson St.  We had eaten at their first location on Broadway two years ago, Taishan Cuisine.  Anyway, as we walk into the restaurant and look at the menu, we see a combination of familiar dishes and dishes we never heard of, which presumably represent modern day dishes of Taishan.  The real puzzle to me was the fact that the prices of just about everything was quite high, something not to be expected  given the peasant background of people from Taishan.  We ordered the beef chow fun and the grass carp jook, each apparently pricey at $18 each.

To our surprise, both dishes were unlike any version of these we ever had before.  The chow fun noodles were not the flat noodles we’re familiar with, but rather sort of crinkly, reminiscent of the new style crinkly cheung fun some of the restaurants serve these days.  When I asked the waitress whether the noodles were made in house, she said they were.  Since the crinkly cheung fun is the new style that has become popular in Guangzhou and Hong Kong in the last few years, I presume the same trend has affected Taishan.   And then there was the fish jook.  When I bit into the fish, I thought it was squid–hard and crunchy, but it looked like fish.  So we asked the waitress, and she said it was a special kind of imported fish, grass carp, which is used traditionally to create a crunchy fish jook in southern China.  I must say that the portions were also quite large, so the prices which seemed unreasonable actually reflected the portion size, the utilization of rare ingredients, and based on other Yelp reviews from people in-the-know, high quality authentic Taishan cuisine. 

Wednesday was spent entirely in the City.   Crispy baked BBQ pork buns from AA Bakery on Stockton St. provided a nice start to the day.

At lunchtime we headed over to the newly opened second branch of Hon’s Wun Tun House, a branch of the Vancouver restaurant of the same name but nowhere as good.  The San Francisco branch opened up maybe 30 years ago and I’ve only eaten there once as it was unremarkable.  However they just set up this new location on Washington St., taking the space of the iconic Washington Bakery and Café.  This new branch is much larger, with a much bigger menu.  The fish ball soup with dumplings was pretty good.  The pickled green bean soup was surprising as we were expecting regular Cantonese egg noodles, but instead getting lai fun rice noodles.

We headed downtown to say goodbye to three of our favorite stores that were closing.  Everything they say about downtown San Francisco is true.  When I walked into Off Saks 5th Avenue on Market Street,  the security guard was wrestling a shoplifter to the ground, so I quickly fled downstairs into the basement.  Dinner was in Chinatown was at G & Y Bakery and Café, where we ate last year, and which doesn’t have any bakery goods for sale.  I guess that’s why this year they added a secondary sign which said G & Y Hong Kong style café.  We had the fish with corn sauce, which was actually more of a corn soup, and bitter melon with beef. 

Getaway day before lunch on the way home via Milpitas was this tuna bread from Little Swan on Stockton St. in Chinatown, one of a small number of non-chain enterprises ever to have locations in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

At HL Peninsula in Milpitas we have further proof that all new Hong Kong style seafood and dim sum palaces look alike. 

What an exciting array of new and attractive dim sum items.  My favorite was the purple wild rice shrimp paste cruller cheung fun--quite a mouthful in two ways.

Something I've never seen is the ginger sweet rice cakes, which apparently is typically a seasonal new year's dish.

Continuing purple treats, the unique baked taro bun.

The lava bun, however, was a disappointment, since it was pictured and described on the menu as a tangerine bun, not a squid ink bun.  Taste was fine, though.

 

Bean curd skin dumpling is broth was fine.

The crispy baked bbq pork bun wasn't very crispy.  

Last stop was OK Noodle in Milpitas for tomato/egg/beef stew hand pulled noodles.

All in all, not too bad for a little over 60 hours on the ground in the Bay Area.