I’m Back!

Hello!

First off, apologies for being away for an extended period of time. School got crazy and there were so many things going on in life. But, it’s a new year and I’ve decided what projects to prioritize…this one included!

Check back soon for new photos of my recent food adventures in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Hawaii! Most of the photos are from my Instagram and my phone sucks so the quality got all botched up, unfortunately.

For now, I leave you with this photo!

Boiling Point —  San Gabriel, CA

Thought it was appropriate given the cold, rainy weather we’ve been experiencing in LA…

I WILL BE BACK SOON PROMISE!

Life can be overwhelming at times. And right now, it definitely is. No, nothing horrible happened but I need some time to reflect and get my life together (which includes getting a job). I won’t be gone for long. Hopefully just a week or so (give or take a few days).

In the meantime though, check out my classmate’s amazingly adorable blog Gustatoric Love. She’s a ball of energy and even though her blog is pretty new to the blogosphere I already know it’s going to be an amazing addition!

Summer Nommage: Fumi’s Kahuku Shrimp Truck

Happy Thursday folks! Sorry again for the lack of updates…school started up again and I’ve been busy applying for jobs. I couldn’t sleep again for some reason last night so I decided to blog (yayyyy insomnia!). Here’s another snippet of the nommage that went down when I was back home in Hawaii this summer. After hearing that Fumi’s Kahuku Shrimp was recently voted one of the best lunch spots in America I had to try it. I was definitely impressed with their spicy garlic shrimp plate, but wasn’t too amazed by their regular garlic shrimp plate. The great thing about this place is they harvest their shrimp fresh from the shrimp ponds out back!

Neglect

Whoops. So I’ve totally neglected this blog for the last…3 weeks? Eeek! Sorry!!! My lame excuse is that I was super busy the last two weeks I was back in Hawaii and this past week in LA has been just as hectic. So much to do, so little time. (Story of my goddamn life.)

I promised a fried that I’d blog tonight so I’m just gonna do a quick post on some of the shenanigans I was up to during my last few weeks in Hawaii. Just to warn y’all…this will probably be the first of a few posts like this since SO MUCH happened.

Hope you enjoy it!

1. Utage Restaurant (Honolulu, HI)
Okinawan soba. It always tastes better when someone cooks it for you. The shoyu pork is sooo winnaz! Ahhhh *drool*

2. Off the Wall Restaurant and Bar (Aiea, HI)
Shoyu Pork Andagi – OMG this was so delicious! Once you’ve had a bad andagi you really learn to appreciate when it’s done right. And this one was definitely done right. A bit pricey for what you get, but everything at this joint is a bit overpriced if you ask me.
“Naked” spicy ahi poke musubi – This was also delicious but goddamn…$8 for a musubi? I’d rather just make it myself, thank you very much. Hahaha
Bubu Arare Karaage Chicken – This was probably one of the two best dishes of the night. Super flavorful and moist. YUM! ^o^
Mochiko Style Fish Bites – This was the other surprise of the night. Some of the best fried fish I’ve had in awhile. Not overly greasy and the fish was cooked perfectly. WINNAZ!
Petite Petite Braised Short Ribs – The most overpriced option of the night. Haha and of course it’s the one I chose. Go figure. I got this as a meal for like $14 but it didn’t come with the soup and the portion was ridiculously small.

3. Morio’s Sushi Bistro (Honolulu, HI)
Ghetto decor but don’t let that fool you. This place has some bomb ass sushi.
BYOB. This was seriously the beer to go with that night. My people know how to do beer right. #Uchinanchupride
To start the meal off…bomb ass salad (dressing was so good), edamame, and tamagoyaki. Yum!
Soft Shell Crab – Whoops…slightly blurry image. So bomb. Like seriously. I’m drooling here just thinking about it. -__-;
Tempura – At this point, I was already starting to get stuffed so I was freaking out. WE DIDN’T EVEN GET TO THE SUSHI YET WTF. Thought running through my head when they brought this: PACE YOURSELF. YOU CAN DEW IT.
Garlic Chicken – Yes, I know. We were there for sushi…but my mom’s not a huge sushi eater so we had to get some non-sushi options. This was AMAZEBALLS. The moistest, flavorful chicken I’ve had EVER. Again, drooling here. Hardcore drooling right now. #foodiedeath
Omakase Sushi – I…didn’t know what half of the stuff was but I honestly don’t care. It was amazing. Wish we had ordered some amaebi and toro on the side though.

Okay. Enough for now. I’m too hungry to function. Hope you enjoyed the pictures! For more in-depth reviews, click on the restaurant name to view my review (along with others) on Yelp.

In the meantime…happy nomming folks!

Aulani Resort + En Fuego

This past weekend, myself and a few friends from USC undergrad (FIGHT ON!) decided to take a break from all the Olympics coverage to explore the newest addition to Ko Olina and to the Disney Resort Family….Aulani. Here we are with a friend we ran into in the courtyard area. Sometimes I wish I lived in Japan so I could buy all the cute Stitch paraphernalia they sell there.

Before we managed to get to the resort we HAD to fill up on some grub. Don’t wanna go on an adventure without energizing up first. ^o^

We stopped by En Fuego Grill & Poke in Kapolei to try out their supposedly onolicious plate lunches. Don’t be fooled by the name…everything here is high-quality local kine grindz…not mexican food. Tricky bastards.

 

Here’s my $10 combination plate lunch. Furikake Salmon and Garlic Chicken. Oh my…everything was perfection. Click HERE for my yelp review. (I’m wayyy too lazy to post it here haha.)

Here’s my friend’s lunch. I’m not quite sure what it is…some sort of Ahi pattie on salad. I took a picture of it regardless of how much I knew about it. (^^)v

Here’s proof that we (at least one member) were really prepared for some touristy activities. It’s not everyday we proudly swing this bad boy around our necks for random outings.

Okay…finally to some (horrible) pictures of Aulani. (Sorry guys, I was so excited to be there I couldn’t focus on trying to achieve beautiful compositions with my photos…)

Inside Aulani’s lobby. If you’ve ever been to the Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland, it was pretty much like that…except not as big and more…polynesian (durr). It was definitely beautiful though. Had that touch of Disney magic everywhere you turned. HOW DO THEY ALWAYS SUCCEED AT TRANSFORMING PLACES INTO MAGICAL DESTINATIONS??? #madprops

This is what you see once you walk through the lobby. Still looks pretty magical despite my horrible camera skills that day…

One of the two buildings where those (lucky) rich ass bastards stay…man I want to be one of those people…minus the bastard part haha.

The courtyard looked a bit cramped…but damn it’s still pretty. And on a super hot day (which it was) those water activities look like SO MUCH FUN. #jealous

Seriously…next time I’m going in that. Like…I need to.

So Aulani was amazeballs. We took more photos on my friend’s spiffy camera but she hasn’t posted them yet. Perhaps I’ll do another post once we get those photos uploaded. Until then…CHILLAX AND ENJOY THE SUMMERTIME FOLKS. ❤ ❤ ❤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DIY Beaded Collar

TOPSHOP – Peter Pan Necklace

So I’ve been a fan of the whole “collar” thing for awhile now but I haven’t gotten on that bandwagon…until now. I was about to buy this collar (pictured above) from TOPSHOP when I was in Vegas last month…but I couldn’t bring myself to pay $28 for it. My philosophy when shopping is: spend little on trendy items, invest in the essentials. (This is probably THE philosophy for most budget-conscious individuals.)

Instead, I decided to make my own version of this collar/necklace. YAYY FOR DIY PROJECTS! I mean, why not? It’s always more fun to have something that others don’t have, right? ^o^

Here’s the finished product:

TA-DA! The materials cost about $5 and it took about 3-4 hours to make. W00T W00T! Already saving money! The small crystals are 3mm swarovski crystals and the rest are just your run of the mill beads from the craft store. I believe the silver beads are 4mm and the black beads are ~6mm.

Still haven’t worn it out yet, so you’ll have to wait for a photo of it “in action”. In the meantime, you can (if you’re interested) get a glimpse into how I made it. ^o^

Step 1: The supplies
Beads (duh), pliers, side-cutter pliers (I think that’s what they’re called), monofilament, and some silver findings for the end of the necklace (where we’d connect the clasps). I like to get regular fishing line (vs the jewelry monofilament) because it’s cheaper and I’m assuming it’s as strong, or stronger. I mean, this is the stuff they use to catch fish right? Haha

Step 2: Starting Row 1
So, if you look at the “pattern” and the actual collar….I made a boo boo. Can you spot it? Hahaha The trick with making things like this is you don’t want to pull each loop too tight or too loose. Too tight and it won’t lie flat…too loose and the beads won’t be spaced evenly and it’ll be more likely to catch onto something and break.

Step 3: Ending Row 1
The final loop is a little different from the middle loops so I included a photo of it. Don’t forget to link the two sides of the collar! I almost forgot…hahaha

Step 4: Starting and Ending Row 2
So this is one of the points when I failed at documenting the steps properly. Hahaha. The start of Row 2 can be seen on the left, and the ending can be seen on the right. In order to make the rest of the collar less complicated, I tied off the monofilament at this point rather than try to finish the entire thing with one piece of it. (Trust me, this will make your life SO MUCH BETTER.)

Step 5: Row 3

Okay…so this is a bigger fail for documenting the steps. SORRY. The pattern shows how to start it off (pretty similar to Row 2 so shouldn’t be too hard). The ending for this row is the most difficult so that’s why I’ve included 3 small photos of it. >.<

Step 6: Starting Row 5
This part was a little difficult as well…just because the first three loops are all different so you have to really concentrate and not get distracted (like I did). The bottom right picture shows the first loop that doesn’t link to any of the previous rows. (Row 4 is completed last because it doesn’t span the entire length of the collar (so it would’ve been hard to complete row 5 had we done that one first.)

Step 7: Finishing Row 5
ALMOST DONE! In case you haven’t noticed…the black circles on the diagrams are old beads…the colorful circles are the new beads you add to the collar. ^o^

Step 8: Row 4
This is how you finish it off. The beads in the right red box are from row 5, the beads in the left red box are from row 3. After you do 9 of these loops, you run the two strands of monofilament through the nearest 5 silver beads then tie it off.

In case you forgot what the finished product looks like…here it is again!

 

Liked what you saw? Follow me on Twitter, Bloglovin, or by email to get notifications on my upcoming DIY projects, foodie adventures, and other random posts. ^o^

❤ ❤ ❤

Happy crafting!!!

Review: Hau Tree Lanai

Wow. I’ve really neglected this blog recently. >.<

…whoops. Sorry guys. (^^)v

So about…a month ago I finally had my belated birthday dinner back home with the parentals at Hau Tree Lanai at the Kaimana Hotel near the Honolulu Zoo. This place is my parent’s go-to spot for romantic dates…no wonder I haven’t been there yet. Daughter at romantic dinner = NOT romantic at all. HAHA 

Unfortunately, even with all the hype from my parents, I didn’t really care for this place at all. #utterdisappointment

Seriously…UTTER DISAPPOINTMENT. Even the view wasn’t enough to justify the price we paid for the meal. BOOFACE

At least the menu was pretty to look at. I love hardbound menus with neatly printed inserts. *strokes menu (I swear I’m not creepy.)

First let’s start with the good. THE VIEW WAS PRETTY. (*o*)

Here’s what it looked like at the start of the meal…

Doesn’t the water look gorgeous???

As the sun started to set…

Orange, fuchsia, and purple towards the end of the sunset…

So that was nice…now onto the food…-__-;;;

I’m sorry…did I order shit wine that can be served in a glass like that? I think not, thank you very much. Seriously, this is one of my pet peeves…USE THE CORRECT WINE GLASS. Especially when the next table orders the same wine and you provide them with the correct red wine glass. (JUST FYI, they did change the wine glass for me…I felt like such a snooty foodie bitch…but it tasted SO MUCH BETTER afterward.)

The crab cakes. I actually did enjoy this appetizer. It was full of crab and I thought the sauces complemented the dish very well. If you’re a crab cake fan, you’ll definitely enjoy this.

Ahi sashimi. This was delicious as well, but nothing special. For a restaurant of this caliber, I was expecting the fish to be a little more spectacular and fresher. I enjoyed the seaweed salad…it was a unique addition that I’m not accustomed to seeing with sashimi.

Caprese Salad. This…was a disappointment. The cheese was hard, old, and sort of gritty. Bleh. I think I’ve been spoiled by the burrata/mozzarella cheese that I’ve had in San Diego’s Little Italy. Bleh bleh bleh. I’ll pass.

Next up…the entrees.

Fisherman’s Stew. My dish for the night. Also the worst. All the seafood was overcooked and the shellfish was so gritty. Double thumbs down. The broth was delicious but it couldn’t make up for the poor execution. And…THEY PUT SHITTY CHEESE ON THE BREAD. WTF. Totally ruined that part of the dish too. Such a disappointment.

Furikake Ahi with pasta. The ahi was super fresh. I would definitely recommend getting it rare. The pasta was delicious as well because it’s just covered in garlic and butter. But again, not really worth the price you pay, in my opinion. Definitely one of the better dishes of the night.

New york steak. Was pretty tender and delicious, but not as good as Jockos. #biased

Post -dinner caffeine kick. It was…okay. Not the best coffee, but enough to keep me from keeling over from overeating. ^o^

My birthday cake! Chocolate lava cake w/ yummy fruits and vanilla ice cream. It was okay…not as good as Trader Joe’s frozen chocolate lava cake but nonetheless. DELISH. I just wish the center had more moltengoodness. I think this is a good time for me to use the hashtag #fattystatus

Dessert numero two. Rainbow sorbet. Mango, coconut, and…something pink. haha >.< The mango sorbet was really potent and it was actually a bit much for me. It wasn’t creamy and smooth like those delicious mangos that are so plentiful right now.

Oh…and I was being a total creepster during dinner. Proof below. >:-D

I couldn’t resist. There were two couples taking their wedding photos on the beach and I wanted in on the photo shoot. Haha. This is the nicest photo from my set. ^o^

So overall…Hau Tree Lanai was a disappointment. But the activities on the beach and watching the setting sun made it slightly more worth it. SLIGHTLY. Will I be coming here again? Probably not.

Did I have a good time? Yeah, of course. I was with the awesome parentals. ^o^

Hainan Chicken Rice

One thing I definitely miss about LA is the chicken rice from Savoy Kitchen. It’s 5 minutes from where I live, less than $8 for a plate that lasts for TWO MEALS, and it’s just…good. I will admit that it’s not AS GOOD as it was before (portions shrunk a bit) and I had one bad experience with a server there once. No fist fight or anything k-drama worthy, but just something that made me go “wtf really, dude?”.

So…since it’s not good enough to justify a $800-$1000 round-trip flight back to LA, I decided to make some at home. #domesticated

Let me tell you. Whoever cooks the actual chicken and makes the dipping sauces at Savoy deserves some major MAJOR props. I swear I’ve never experienced such a tiring 3-hour cooking adventure IN MY LIFE. But, it was totally worth it, in my opinion. #rubsbelly

You’d think that the first picture would be of the chicken…because it’s Hainan CHICKEN rice. Not hainan garlic/ginger rice. BUT LET ME TELL YOU…this dish uses the most ridiculous (FO REALZ KINE RIDICULOUS) amount of ginger and garlic. #smellsbreath

No, but seriously. LOTS OF THIS. *points above. Like. I never want to chop/peel garlic/ginger for awhile.

Thought my lime was really pretty looking after cutting it in half. Damn, I sound possessive. MY LIME. Not just A LIME. MY LIME. Anyways, time to share photos of the actual meal. NO MORE PROCRASTINATING!

If you’re familiar with this dish, you’re probably thinking WTF IS THAT GREEN/BROWN/DIARRHEA/PUKE crap in the bottom left bowl. It’s…the red chili sauce. I couldn’t find red chilis at the supermarket #failsauce so had to make do with my colorful thai chilis and jalapenos…It looks like shit, but it is spicy and delicious as hell. I’d pay money to see someone successfully eat a spoonful of this.

Just in case you wanted to see the chili sauce up close…

Wow…it really looks like puke. #ashamed Next time I’ll try harder to find the correct chilis…

Dark soy sauce. DO YOU SEE THE FACE IN THE REFLECTION? I do. Haha #dorkmoment

Ginger sauce. Thank gooshness I had a food processor for this one…and for the chili sauce. That was an adventure in itself.

This was the best part of the meal. Lifting the cover to the rice cooker was magical. I mean. Wouldn’t you be happy seeing rice with bits of garlic, ginger, and pandan leaves looking all steamy and beautiful? Oh and it smelled AMAZING thanks to the special ingredients I added. Just as a sidenote, I’m pretty sure I was supposed to mince the ginger and garlic…but I was so tired of chopping at that point I said “fuck it” and just sauteed it as is.

And finally….*drumroll* THE CHICKEN.

Oh yeah. Look at that. *drools I’d call this a success. ^o^

And finally, a picture of it all plated “nicely” on my plate. As you can probably tell, I just wanted to eat already.

Drooling yet? Wanna try to make it? Yeah you do! The recipe is really long so I won’t post the entire thing here, but you can access it by clicking HERE!

Happy cooking everyone! Hope you can find red chilis!!!

Food food food

Just gonna cut to the chase y’all. IT’S FOOD TIME (again). Truthfully, it’s ALWAYS food time. ^o^

1. Chun Wah Kam (Aiea, HI)
What’s in the box? What’s in the box? *drool

THIS THIS! Ho da big yah? (that’s what she said haha). Unfortunately, not too much meat filling in the manapua anymore…*cries WHERE’S THE MEAT?

Did a thumbs up just so you can see just how much food they give. Oh man, took us a good two days to finish all the food. Oh the oily goodness ^o^

2. Osaka Ramen (Aiea, HI)
 Mochiko chicken curry and ramen combo. Add some chili oil and garlic and you’re good to go!

Tonkotsu Ramen. Was okay. Not the best. I ate it all though! haha

So much toppings. So much noodles. Oh so good.

Plenty gyoza. Again, add some garlic and the dipping sauce becomes SUPER delicious.
Damn, even though I’ve been eating a good deal of pretty delicious food here in Hawaii, I’m definitely starting to miss LA. Milk tea, shaved snow, ramen? Oh man….*drools

Seafood and Macarons

Every time I’m home I make an effort to visit certain places and people. The flavors I crave when I’m stuck studying in my LA apartment; the people I miss sharing stories with until the wee hours of the morning. They definitely make going home a trip that I look forward to.

But new adventures are always welcome. New flavors and people spice up life at home, especially when things become monotonous. A few days ago I finally got to try out Tango Contemporary Cafe and I’m happy I did. I was pleasantly surprised by the quantity of food and the level of service we received. (Usually waiters don’t even glance our way since we’re younger and they assume that we don’t have the money to afford anything but fast food meals.) The quality of the food itself was a bit better than what I was expecting, but nothing too special. If anything, I would go again for the service we got this past time.

Interior of the restaurant. I’m such a sucker for elegant spaces that don’t try to hide the industrial feel that comes with the space. Love love love!

Our appetizer of the night: seared scallops on a spinach salad, grape tomatoes, and mushrooms. They offered to plate half-portions for us since we were splitting the meal. I’d have to say 3 scallops a person is a pretty good steal!

Our entree for the night. Seared furikake ahi with mashed potatoes, lobster sauce, and assorted veggies. Don’t let the picture deceive you…those pieces of Ahi are about 3-4x larger than they look. Oh, and they gave us extra sauce on the side. I think I was a bit too excited about that though and over-smothered my mashed potatoes in it. >.<

At the end of the night, we hurried back to Ala Moana to stop by Patisserie la Palme D’Or, my favorite patisserie on the island (so far). Super elegant and refined with some really cute staff. I think I I got addicted to their plantation jelly tea because I wanted to see the cute guy there again haha!

This time I still got my plantation jelly tea (pineapple jelly with black tea) but I also got some other goodies too!

Mango Fromage (mango cheesecake with a layer of dense spongecake). Hot damn. I think I died and went to heaven. The spongecake was…so amazing I wanted to cry. Not really, but you know… figuratively. And then the cheesecake. OH.MAH.GAWD. So creamy and light. I think I could eat a whole 12″ cake of that stuff. I was seriously about to jump the counter and raid their fridge to see if they had more sitting around.

But the best part of this trip to La Palme D’Or? MINI MACARONS. DOUBLE OH MAH GAWD.

Key lime macarons and MINI mint chocolate macarons. I think I found the food that will seriously make me fat and diabetic. >.< They pop into your mouth like candy and they taste AMAZING. Holy shit. #dies I want more…

That’s all for now folks! Stay tuned for some nomtastic photos of chinese plate lunch, ramen, and more!