Food

This evening I went to an Indian restaurant for the very first time in my life. It was yum . Do not like coriander though so made sure my dish did not have any of that in it.

OMG you just visited your first Indian restaurant!!!!   What did you have, what did you have I am so excited to hear. 

Indian is my second if not equal first cuisine next to Mexican closely followed by Italian. I was lucky to be exposed to it from High School as one of my best friends was a Sikh and his mothers curries etc. were just divine. 

Coriander in Indian food is often very hard to taste  (I don't get what all the fuss is about I eat it raw ) or it is decorative. Don't be afraid to try things with it in it.

Tadkha Daal is one of my favourite vegetarian dishes and I have it at least once a week, so many yummy dishes too many to mention but one of the best I have had lately and for the first time was Beef Dhansak - Lentils and Beef which was divine.

We are fortunately spoiled for Indian Restaurants in Sydney.

I tried pizza with sliced pear on it. (And crumbly goat cheese, red onion, smoked side bacon, and a lot of yummy stringy baked provolone.)

Also cracked open a fruli in wonder I survived yet another year of existence.

I like potato on pizza too. Another place here does a "pierogi pizza" that's pretty good with little potatoes and onions/bacon/sausage and some kind of light garlicy sauce.

I quite like this beer, I've had some bad and good ones too. This stuff is 30% real strawberry juice, very nommy. It's not the type of thing you'll get drunk or even all that buzzed over though, 4%. This is very very sweet too.

This is probably my favourite fruit beer, barring seasonal or discontinued stuff I'll never see again.

Sounds horrible to me too. It should be Pommes Frites. 

As a certified weeb, I'm also a lover of Japanese food.

It is painful that Japan's borders have remained closed to tourists for more than two years. The next best place to get decent and authentic Japanese food for me is probably Hawaii. So I decided to take a trip to Honolulu with my sister-in-law for a week.

These were the good places that we managed to hit. Well, both Japanese and non-Japanese.

#1 Carp Dori - A good local izakaya that's very popular with the local Japanese. Their Honolulu location is the only one outside of Japan.

Stir-fried beef intestines


Various yakitori items (chicken skins, chicken hearts, beef tongue, chicken breast with ume sauce and shiso leaves, etc.)


Hamachi (Yellowtail) sashimi


Beef Tataki


Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki


#2 Ginza Bairin - One of the few tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlet) restaurants on the Oahu island. It is extremely popular.

Deep-fried oysters


Black tiger shrimps katsu-don


Kurobuta loin katsu meal set


White sesames for the sauce


$1.50 Asahi draft beer


#3 Helena's Hawaiian Food - A very famous restaurant that serves traditional Hawaiian food. Must pay it a visit when you're in Oahu.

Lomi salmon


Luau squid


Kalua pig


Poi


Pipikaula short ribs


Tripe stew (tomato-based soup)


Long rice chicken


Deep-fried ahi


#4 Bozu - This is probably the best sushi restaurant on Oahu. Fresh and very high quality seafood.

Monkfish liver


Nigiri combination (Yellowtail, horse Mackerel, scallop, eel, flounder, salmon roe, sweet shrimp, and omelet)


More sweet shrimp and sea urchin nigiri


Deep-fried sweet shrimp heads


#5 Tori Ton - Another local izakaya loved by local Japanese.

Oden (Japanese radish, egg, mochi kinchaku, sausage, chikuwa, and shirataki noodles)


Deep-fried eggplant


Braised quail eggs


More yakitori! (Chicken gizzards, chicken hearts, chicken wings, pork belly with asparagus, pork belly with mushrooms, and pork belly with fish cake)


A5 wagyu beef


Eel kamameshi with salmon roe


You can never have enough yakitori! (Chicken gizzards and chicken hearts)


#6 The Pig and The Lady - This is probably the most famous Vietnamese restaurant in Hawaii. If you love pho and banh mi, this is your place.

Le fried chicken wings (covered in vinegary fish sauce, peanuts, and kaffir lime leaves)


Jidori chicken liver pate and toasted sourdough


Manila clam & rau ram sausage linguini


Pho 75 (Best pho ever!)


Honorable Mentions

Ice Monster - My favorite shaved ice chain in Taiwan. My friends and I would have their mango shaved ice almost everyday when we were in Taipei for Computex. Luckily they now have a shop in Honolulu.

Mango shaved ice


Macha shaved ice


Waiola Shave Ice - It's important to know that Hawaiians call theirs "shave ice" and not "shaved ice." They take their shave ice just as seriously and Waiola definitely makes the best.

Mango and lilikoi shave ice


Mai Tai Bar in the Royal Hawaiian - If you want a Mai Tai, you must get one from here. It's worth the money.



Golden Pork - You can find ramen restaurants everywhere nowadays but a good bowl of tsukemen is still rather difficult to get. Golden Pork Tonkotsu Ramen Bar has the best tsukemen I've ever had outside of Japan.



Marukame Udon - Personally, I prefer udon and soba over ramen. Mainly because most ramen shops are overpriced. Maurkame is very popular in Japan because it's quick, delicious, and cheap. Think fast food udon and no reservations. They have a shop in Honolulu and a few in California as well. I highly recommend it.

Beef curry udon


Also keep in mind that you need to make reservations for most of these restaurants. So if you ever want to go to Hawaii, make sure you plan out everything and make your reservations a couple weeks in advance.

Oh good Pho is to die for as is a good Ramen, the stock needs to be made from scratch and we are very fortunate in Australia to have great Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants.

I am definitely not a fan of seafood or any internal organs though. So Beef Pho and Ramen, Beef or Chicken Yakitori, Beef Tataki or Carpaccio I am fine with.

The broth should be a really subtle flavour unless it says it's a curried Pho or something like that. It's hard to get it wrong I have made it at home it just takes a bloody long time 9 - 12 hours maybe make it yourself and then you can see and control what goes into it.

Whay type of BBQ are you looking at, Gas or Charcoal or some fancy hybrid?

It would just be a simple propane bbq.  I do not bbq near as much as i used to so not worth it to go higher end

You can get some good Gas one's with a smoker attached these days for not too much well at least in Australia.