Welcome to Super Ono! This post is updated every Friday in June 2024 with musings from the week. It's a collection of recipe ideas, current eating recommendations, and a bit of Hawaii travel. I promise you only tasty things ^_^
Friday: June 28, 2024
Happy Aloha Friday! It's June 28, 2024 and this is Newsletter #6.
Making: Furikake chex mix. Furikake chips with ikura. (Lucky you can buy furikake in bulk at Sam's Club and Costco Hawaii.)
Reader Question: In search of a recipe for hyotun soup.
Eating in Honolulu: Choco Le'a, Nana Ai Katsu, and Gyotaku.
Travel: Zojirushi Shokudo. The rice cooker company has a restaurant in Tokyo!
Furikake Chex Mix is extra popular during holidays, but for us it's a year round treat.
No matter how big a batch you make (sometimes we make REAL big batches), it's devoured by everyone...kids, parents, grandparents, all the aunties and uncles!
You can buy furikake chex mix, but it's fun to make your own because you can customize it. I like to add extra furikake and butter but also make it less sweet.
Some friends replace corn syrup with honey or maple syrup.
Many families have their own recipe, and this is ours ^_^
Top a furikake chip with crème fraîche, ikura, and chives. Here's what it looks like.
It's a tasty treat for one and great pupu / snack when you have people over.
You can buy furikake chips at most Japanese markets. I got these from the Ala Moana location of Nijiya. Use plain salted chips if you can't find furikake chips.
The best part is that you don't need to cook anything. Open and assemble. It's delicious and looks a little fancy.
P.S. If you have time, try make ikura at home.
Reader Question: Hyotun (Long Squash) Soup.
Reader Wallace (hi, Wallace!) gave his friend hyotun. In return, the friend made him hyotun soup. The soup was made with:
"hyotun, carrots, potatoes, small mushrooms in a sashi sauce."
He can’t find a similar recipe on the Internet and the friend didn't give a recipe. Anyone have ideas? I will also research.
Eating In Honolulu: Choco Le'a, Nana Ai Katsu, and kids eat free at Gyotaku.
Iced chocolate! I'm crazy about hot chocolate but it's too hot for that in Hawaii. Enter Choco Le'a in Manoa.
The truffles are tasty (especially the mochi truffles made with mochi from Nisshodo) but I usually visit for other treats like the iced chocolate and chocolate-vanilla soft cream with sprinkles. Fun to sit outside and enjoy on a nice Manoa day.
Note: If you're looking for good summer drink recipes, check out my friend Jee's blog, ohhowcivilized.com ^_^
Shiso Katsu Roll from Nana Ai Katsu! We've been fans of Nana Ai Katsu since their original location at Ohana Hale Marketplace. Now they have their own space in Kaimuki.
Mille-feuille tonkatsu and katsu spam musubi (the spam part is deep fried) are most popular. I'm all about the shiso katsu because I love anything rolled with shiso! The bento comes with cabbage, rice, pickles, and potato salad.
Order at the counter, seat yourself. It takes 20-30 minutes to prepare each order so best to call or text ahead. They get busy. We get drinks from Cowcow's Tea across the street for dessert.
Did you know kids eat free on Monday and Tuesday nights at Gyotaku? (Not to be mixed up with Gyu-Kaku.)
I'm discovering the world of kids meals and it's FUN. I went with my friend Kristen and her son. We each got an entree, and the kids picked their own dish. My son ordered the kid sushi set.
Cute, right? There's even baby spam musubi.
The meal comes with drink and dessert (ice cream or shave ice). They provide origami paper to keep the kids occupied at the start of the meal. Kids also get to pick a free toy on their way out!
Bookmark this for your next trip to Tokyo.
Zojirushi has a restaurant! Zojirushi Shokudo is across from Tokyo Station. A must visit for anyone who is a fan of their rice cookers.
Each entree includes an informal rice tasting. You can try multiple types of rice cooked with different settings. So cool! Here's a recap of our visit. Try to get a window seat.
Enjoy the weekend ^_^
Kathy
Friday: June 21, 2024
Happy Aloha Friday!
Cooking this week:
Taiwan spinach (much sweeter than regular spinach) and tasty pork and cabbage dumplings...been on a dumpling roll ^_^
Eating this week:
Beautiful coconut cake from MW Restaurant. Noodle soup at Ten Seconds Yunnan Rice Noodle. Morning donut deal at Holey Grail.
Have you tasted Taiwan Spinach?
It's so delicious!
Taiwan Spinach is like regular spinach, but heartier and sweeter, especially the stems. They're also much taller. Got it at H Mart.
We made a quick stir fry with garlic and sesame oil. Serve hot! It's easy to cook and good with everything, especially a big bowl of rice and shoyu chicken.
More Dumplings! Pork and Cabbage.
Instead of satisfying cravings after last week's pork and chive dumplings...all I wanted were more dumplings!
Lucky we had napa cabbage at home. I used some of the cabbage for yaki udon and the rest to make pork and cabbage dumplings. These are simple dumplings and full of flavor.
Ground pork, napa cabbage, soy sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper. Good dumpling wrappers.
The "hardest" part is squeezing out ALL the liquid from the minced napa cabbage. Truly a workout. Everything else is easy.
I buy dumpling wrappers from Yat Tung Chow Noodle Factory in Chinatown and Oahu Noodle Factory in Kalihi. If you can't find fresh wrappers, get frozen wrappers from any Asian market.
Eating In Honolulu: Coconut Cake, Yunnan Rice Noodles, Donut Deal!
Behold this beautiful cake from MW Restaurant!
My friend Michelle is the pastry chef and co-owner, and her desserts are wonderful. Remember the rainbow cake she made for my son's birthday?
This is the MW Old Fashioned Coconut Cake. It has multiple layers of Japanese-style vanilla chiffon cake and silky coconut custard.
There's a white chocolate (Valrhona Opalys) crunch crust on the bottom and the whole thing is finished with La’ie vanilla whipped cream. Heavenly.
P.S. You know how much we love coconut cakes in Hawaii ^_^
Ten Seconds Yunnan Rice Noodle (at Pearlridge Shopping Center) is a chain and this is the first Hawaii location. Very happy they opened here!
Pick a soup: original pork bone soup, golden hot and sour soup, tomato soup, or mala spicy soup.
Pick a meat: fatty beef, fish filet, pork cutlet, beef brisket, or chicken leg.
The soup comes to the table in a big and hot insulated bowl. Meat, rice noodles, and toppings on the side.
All soups include ten toppings in individual dishes: pickled cabbage, chives, quail egg, goji berries, wood ear fungus, white ear fungus, meat paste, ham, tofu puff, corn, and lettuce.
Add meat and lettuce to the soup first. Mix. Add all other toppings. Mix. Add rice noodles. Wait 10 seconds. Stir and eat.
It's good! Simple and comforting. Will return soon to try other dishes. We went around 11am Saturday and the restaurant filled up fast. Lots of families and big groups.
Holey Grail Donuts has a 7-9am weekday deal. Good for breakfast! We go to the Kakaako location.
The $7 special includes the "Original Sin" donut plus a drink (your choice of latte: coffee, chai, or matcha). The lattes are made with cashew-coconut milk.
The donut is a cake donut, but a little fancy because it's topped with a salted maple and local vanilla bean glaze. The donuts are fried to order, so you're guaranteed a hot one.
Holey Grail Donuts has several locations, even in Los Angeles, but they started in Hawaii and all their donuts are made with poi.
Enjoy the weekend ^_^
Kathy
Friday: June 14, 2024
Happy Aloha Friday,
Lots of good cooking this week! We have new recipes for Pork and Chive Dumplings and Quinoa Rice.
I've been running errands all around Honolulu. The best part of that is having an excuse to enjoy my favorite iced drinks in multiple neighborhoods. Coffee jelly, jujube yogurt slushy, matcha sea salt cold brew! See below for where and what ^_^
Recipe for you: Pork & Chive Dumplings.
We grow garlic chives at home because they're delicious, easy to grow, and they grow fast. You can also buy garlic chives at Asian markets like Nijiya and H Mart.
I use garlic chives to make chive and egg stir fry and pork and chive dumplings.
The dumpling filling is made from ground pork, garlic chives, and pantry staples like oyster sauce and sesame oil.
Note: use fatty pork if you can. When it comes to dumplings, fatty pork is preferred over lean pork. More juicy!
Once I wrap all the dumplings, I set aside some for dinner (about 12 per person). Then I freeze the rest. Frozen dumplings are the best thing to have in the freezer. They always come in handy.
Boil, steam, or steam-fry. We were in a steam-fry mood ^_^
To dip, make a dumpling dipping sauce or dip in red vinegar.
Rice + Quinoa = Quinoa Rice.
I mentioned eating quinoa rice in last week's email. I also promised a recipe for that quinoa rice. Here it is!
There are just two ingredients: quinoa and rice.
Use any type of quinoa. Red quinoa was on sale at the market and that's what I got.
For the rice, I used jasmine rice. I usually alternate between jasmine rice and Japanese short grain rice from The Rice Factory.
We've been replacing "regular" rice with quinoa rice for the past couple of weeks. The contrast of textures is awesome.
Eating In Honolulu: Many Iced Drinks.
I'm a longtime fan of La Palme D'or. They've been open at Ala Moana for well over a decade (maybe two decades at this point).
Roll cakes, whole cakes, cake slices, lots of cakes. And the drinks. Get the Coffee Jelly! It's a classic.
Half the cup is filled with coffee jelly. When you place the order they add a layer of fresh whipped cream (it used to be included in the price, but now there's extra charge for whipped cream), and milk of your choice. I like it with whole milk.
They also have Mocha Jelly! Same as the coffee jelly but with housemade chocolate milk. It's very good and that's what I have pictured above.
Use the big straw to break the coffee jelly into small pieces. Then sip, drink, and enjoy!
If I'm in Kaimuki, there's a 100% chance I will stop by Cowcow's Tea. They have a big drink menu but I only order from one section: Organic Drinking Yogurt. It's an icy yogurt drink (like a yogurt slushy) and comes in many flavors.
There are fresh fruit flavors like mango, peach, avocado etc. There are other equally delicious flavors like rose-lychee. The jujube is also SO delicious.
All the flavors come with a purple rice topping. Perfectly cooked! You can pick the sweetness level. 25% sweetness is ideal.
The above photo has three yogurt drinks. Left to right: rose-lychee, peach, and mango.
Okayama Kobo Bakery is a new-ish bakery in Kakaako. It took the place of an old Starbucks. They have several drinks. Most are just ok, but one is amazing.
It's called Matcha Sea Salt Coldbrew.
It's a caramel coldbrew...not sugar sweet caramel, but a dark, quiet caramel. The drink is topped with matcha sea salt foam. Not sure why they call it a foam but it's like a velvety, rich cream. Super creamy, not sweet, and a little salty.
You're supposed drink both layers together, but I like to use a spoon and enjoy the matcha sea salt foam first. Then drink the caramel cold brew ^_^
Enjoy the weekend!
Kathy
Friday: June 7, 2024
Happy Aloha Friday,
It's hot, but not too hot for soup ^_^
I made Portuguese bean soup yesterday! This local favorite is super comforting. Many Hawaii families have their own version and this is how we make it:
Recipe for you! Portuguese Bean Soup.
The soup base is made with smoked ham hocks. We add Portuguese sausage (best deal is to buy the sausage from Costco Hawaii), red kidney beans (canned is ok), potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, and macaroni.
These are all typical ingredients in Portuguese bean soup. It's a flexible recipe so you can add/subtract any of the ingredients.
A big bowl of this soup makes for a tasty, feel-good meal. Bonus: it freezes well.
Alan Wong on Portuguese Bean Soup.
I got the sudden soup craving because Alan Wong wrote a great piece about Portuguese bean soup in this week's Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Like many local families, we grew up eating Portuguese bean soup. Mostly made at home and always at the annual Punahou Carnival (people love to buy multiple containers at Carnival and store it in the freezer).
I never knew why it was called Portuguese bean soup, but assumed the soup had Portuguese origins. Alan Wong with the details:
"I searched the Internet to see if there is a Portuguese bean soup in Portugal. All I got is Hawaiian-style Portuguese bean soup, but when I asked if there is a bean soup in Portugal, bingo! I get sopa de feijao and molho de feijão.
I dug deeper and found that some recipes have pasta in them, some have chorizo sausage, some have tomato in them, and none had ham hocks. Of course, all had beans in them. Now I’m starting to get the feeling of what the early immigrants were hungering for. I also think it depended on what part of Portugal they came from that determined what ingredients they added to a bean soup. It sounds like a humble and satisfying soup that probably wasn’t as luxurious as some of the versions we see locally, with a lot of ham hock and sausage in the soup.
What we eat in Hawaii has been an evolution of the dish over time and that’s why it doesn’t exist in Portugal. We see it so many times where a dish from its homeland comes to Hawaii. It evolves and becomes unique to us. A hybrid dish is born that doesn’t exist in its own country of origin."
His last few sentences sum up food in Hawaii. Many of our popular dishes originated from other countries. Over the years, the dishes are "Hawaii-ized" and become what we know today. How special is that? ^_^
Eating In Honolulu: Vons Chicken, Alii Fish Market, Local General Store.
Vons Chicken is a Korean fried chicken chain with locations in California, Washington, and Hawaii. We get takeout often, and always order the Crispy Fried Chicken. It's their signature.
When ordering for a group, we add other flavors like Crispy Fried Shoyu Chicken and Snow Cheese Chicken which has parmesan cheese. I'm curious about the Honey Butter Chicken because the salty-sweet combo sounds good…next time for sure.
If you order only one kind, get the Crispy Fried Chicken. The fried chicken is sold by the half (10 pieces) or whole (20 pieces).
How do we eat it? With rice and kimchi/kimchee! If there's time, I also make easy Japanese pickled cucumbers to go with it.
You need something pickled or fermented, otherwise you're just eating rice and fried chicken for dinner (which isn't a bad thing but balance is good).
P.S. We like the location inside Palama Market, a Korean supermarket. It's just a small takeout window but I like being able to grocery shop at the same time.
Have you been to Alii Fish Market?
It's located in the 2320 South King Street complex. Niu Soft Serve and Tori Ton share the same parking lot…lots of tasty stuff there. And Yama's Fish Market is a minute away.
We come for poke by the pound. Also love their ahi patty musubi and Spam musubi. A good lunch option is the poke bowl (pictured above). Pick your poke, one or two choices. Great flavors include the limu ahi and spicy Hawaiian.
You also get to choose the rice: hot rice or sushi rice. I think sushi rice is a better idea because poke gets warm sitting on the hot rice unless you eat it right away.
Then select sides! We got edamame and kamaboko crab. They also have pohole fern salad, lomi cherry tomato, uala sweet potato, watercress namul, and kimchi/kimchee. I could make a complete meal from their sides alone.
Tip: Check their Instagram account, they post good last minute specials and deals there.
What's this? It's luau stew over rice!
Local General Store in Kaimuki has awesome everything including a freezer section with 28 ounce containers of beef luau stew. The beef is local and the luau stew is wonderful.
Did you know luau leaf comes from the taro plant? We use it in a lot of cooking.
Heat the luau stew on the stove and serve with rice. Great to keep in the freezer for last minute meals. We had this for lunch when everyone was working at home the other day. Easy and delicious!
About the rice: I bought quinoa last week and have been cooking 2 cups of rice with 1 cup of quinoa in the rice cooker. I tried a 1:1 ratio but prefer the 2:1 ratio.
It's tasty and the whole family enjoys this, even the baby! I'll post an official recipe for quinoa rice on the blog next week.
Manu & Breeze dolls.
I first saw these beautiful Manu & Breeze dolls at Nordstorm Ala Moana (they have a neat kids section with many local brands, and a popular Instagram account).
The only had one doll left in the store so I messaged the owner and she was beyond kind to meet up for an in-person pick up!
These quality of these handmade local dolls are wonderful. I got Sis and Braddah Joe (both pictured above). I love the details - the bun on Sis and na'u flower behind her ear. The board shorts and rash guard on Braddah Joe. And slippers on them both ^_^
Enjoy the weekend!
- Kathy
Mahalo for Reading!