Day 20 - Tuesday

Finally back to updating.  Apologies for the delay - first it was lack of internet at home and then the weekend came and I was on the Big Island (more on that later).

Tuesday was a fruitful food day.  In the afternoon I had lunch with an associate at the firm at Grand Cafe and Bakery.  It's a bit of a walk from the office and it's pretty hidden.  I was going to walk right by the place because the facade was that of like an apartment.  Having done some Yelp research beforehand, I knew I wanted to order the cola braised short ribs.  The associate got the fish special.  I was impressed that the short ribs were so moist and a little sweet, but I expected a little more veggies.  I got the dish with rice instead of mashed potatoes.

  Cola braised short ribs

For the evening I decided to go to Shirokiya in Ala Moana Shopping Center.  This  place is like a Japanese department store on one floor and a Japanese prepared food market on the second floor.  The first floor with all the Japanese arts and crafts was so cute!!  Oh my goodness I'm going to go back and buy gifts there.

The food on the second floor was admittedly overwhelming.  There were several repeats of the same things - mochi, bentos, katsu, rolls, chicken wings.  It all looked good but I didn't know which to buy.  In the end I just got was looked good.  Although I didn't eat them all on Tuesday, I review it all right now.

The mochis were tasty, and they all looked so cute. 

Close-up of the persimmon shaped mochi

The chicken wings were okay, not too great. 

Pork katsu was okay, but I wasn't that impressed with the flavor for the price. 

Chicken katsu bento was very good, all the little sides were tasty and the katsu was crispy and not too oily. 

Shrimp tempura roll was super tasty.  The rice was soft and the sauce was good. 

Ala Moana Hotel on Dwellable

Internet is Down!

Sorry for the delay in updates.  For the last two nights the internet in my apartment has been down and it sounds like I'll have to have a technician come over to look into it.  Ugh.  I'll try updating at the office but just wanted folks to know what the deal is.

Day 19 - Monday

Ah, Mondays are always a little hard.  I was pretty sleepy when I woke up so I actually drank a cup of coffee at work, after about a year without any coffee.  The good thing about drinking coffee after such a long drought is that it's very effective.  I perked up quite well and worked through the morning.

Then lunchtime!  All the law clerks rallied for an outside lunch, very exciting.  Usually we can get 2 or 3 of us out to lunch, but rarely do all 4 of us get out together, so this was special.  Upon my suggestion based on good ol' Yelp, we went to Cafe Grazie for lunch, a small Italian place that serves a pastas special, paninis and salads.  I wanted the chicken breast panini, but after an extended conversation I learned there was Parmesan in the pesto.  Sadness.  So I got their pasta special which was grilled veggies in marinara with angel hair pasta.  It comes with a salad and bread too.

 

Even though the pasta was in a small container, it was absolutely stuffed and was a deceptively large portion of delightful vegan pasta.  The veggies were really tasty and the pasta was pretty good.  The marinara was sort of regular, nothing special.  It was nice to have something different for lunch from the standard sandwich or my fall back of Japanese food.

The afternoon went on.  Dinner became kind of a dilemma because I didn't know what to eat.  Meaty?  Noodles?  Asian?  Even though I had noodles for lunch, I really wanted soupy noodles.  I know, I eat too much noodles.  But anyway, I thought about maybe going to Zippy's for their zip min which I hear is super tasty. Granted Zippy's is like Hawaiian fast food, but it's hearty fast food.  I decided to go to the one near where I live so I could walk there for exercise.  But when I got to Zippy's I realized that I was really close to Onos!  One quick call to my GPS (aka Peter) confirmed that Onos was only 2 blocks away, so I skipped the Zippy's and headed to Ono Hawaiian Foods, one of the most famous places to get Hawaiian food on the island.  The last time I had Onos was for my 22nd birthday when I was in Oahu working for Google.  The line outside Onos was so long, but luckily that was for sit-in, and I was getting take out.  The wait was only about 20 minutes for take out and I left with delicious kalua pork with rice, pipikaula (beef jerkey-ish meat), and lomi salmon (not my thing).  The prices were definitely more than I remember (now $14.90!!) but I guess if they can charge that much and still have a line then they can do it.

I walked back to my place and decided to make that seaweed soup from yesterday into a base for ramen.  That way I would add some kalua pork and the pipikaula into the soup with noodles!  

My own creation - soup from Seoul Jung, kalua pork and pipikaula from Onos, and Ichiban ramen.  Yum!

I felt good to make my meal, even if it was really just assembling stuff from other places together.  I love to cook but it just doesn't seem worth it here when there's so much great food to explore in a short amount of time!  

Waikiki Sunset on Dwellable

Day 18 - Sunday

Got some much needed sleep after my Kailua adventure and this past week at work. I slept for 12 hours! Whee!

I got up with a strong desire for breakfast, even though it was in the afternoon. I had wanted to go get breakfast last night for dinner, but I didn't want to take the bus all the way over to the other side of Waikiki where there is a 24 hour diner, or spend a lot of money on mediocre food at Denny's. Anyway, I got my breakfast craving satisfied today.

I got on the bus and headed to Bogart's Cafe, which is a place that serve breakfast all day. I was worried about the wait, but luckily I went at an off hour and although it was packed, I got there just as someone was leaving so I snagged a table. I ordered a breakfast bagel sandwich with Portuguese sausage on an onion bagel. Their breakfast bagels are supposed to be the best in Honolulu, but I'm not sure how many places were competing for that title. I also got a side of country-style potatoes.

Breakfast bagel comes with egg, tomato, spinach, and you can order a meat for $1.85 more.

A very very large bowl of country-style potatoes

The breakfast bagel was really good. I really liked that they put spinach in the sandwich. I was disappointed by the amount of meat - they gave like chopped up bits of Portuguese sausage that definitely could not be tasted with every bite, so not worth the $1.85 extra. But the bagel itself was impressive - dense and doughy - similar to NY bagels but not quite the same. The potatoes were tasty but it would have been better if they were crispy. I was pretty potatoed out from the day before so I saved half the potatoes to take home.

I decided to also order lunch there. I wanted to have an easy day today where I just hung around the house and their menu was so extensive. I was tempted to try another breakfast item for lunch, but instead opted for the crab cake and avocado sandwich. This was a patty of real fresh crab pan fried and then placed in a sandwich with avocado, tomato and lettuce. I ordered it to go, and took from pictures of it when it was fresh.

Even several hours later the sandwich was SO GOOD! Oh man, the crab was really delightful. I enjoyed this even more than the breakfast bagel.

I left Bogart's around 4pm and wanted to grab the bus, but the buses never came. I'm not sure if I was on the wrong side or what, but anyway, it's not a far walk, one mile to be exact, so I decided to walk home after waiting a long time for the bus. This route was part of the route I had taken that first weekend I was here when I got off the bus prematurely and had to walk through Kapiolani Park with Whole Foods groceries. Luckily today was much cooler and my load was much lighter, so the walk back home was quite easy.

After puttering around in the late afternoon and early evening I wanted to grab some dinner next door at the Korean food place, Seoul Jung. As I left my place I realized I hadn't brought my keys with me, locking myself out! Ugh, this was the second time I have done this. I felt so bad as I called the manager who had to come down and unlock the door for me. He lives in downtown so it was a bit of a trek. I quickly went to order my food in Seoul Jung before he got there. Seoul Jung is located on the second floor of a hotel right next to my building and it's a pretty fancy looking restaurant, but hardly anyone was inside. I ordered the bee bim bop. Usually it would come with little side dishes but since this was take out it didn't. I did get some sort of meat-based soup with a lot of seaweed that was pretty tasty.

Saved most of the soup for later to cook with ramen noodles!

Very tasty bee bim bop. I wasn't impressed with the restaurant's hot sauce, so I took some Sriacha sauce from Blazin' Steaks. It was perfect after that.

I hung out on a corner by my apartment eating my food and waiting for the manager to arrive. Someone eventually went into the building and then I followed them in to wait in the lobby. By the time the manager came I was pretty tired and then just hung out in my room watching some TV and of course, updating the blog.

Diamond Head on Dwellable

Day 17 - Saturday - Kailua!

I decided to "take an easy" and head over to Kailua on Saturday for a day trip.  Kailua is about an hour away on bus to the east.  A lot of the directors and associates at the firm lives there and the beaches in the area are supposed to be the best beaches of Oahu and some of the best beaches in the world.

It started to rain on my way to Kailu and I was so worried it would be raining there.  But it was sunny!  I arrived in Kailua at 12pm and headed over to Boots and Kimo's upon a director's suggestion for good food. The place was SO packed and there were several groups waiting outside to eat.

Apparently they have some of the best macadamia nut pancakes on the island, but since I couldn't eat that, I ordered the Korean Chicken.  I decided to order take-out and it was still a 30 minute wait for the food.  I picked up drinks across the street at Safeway while I waited for the food.

 
YUMMY!!  The Korean Chicken was SO GOOD.  Crispy and juicy and soy-saucy.  The only bad thing was that the chunks of thigh meat still contained little pockets of fat, so I had to dig those out before eating.  The rice was also good, but the mac salad was pretty mayo-y and tasteless.  But yeah, I can see why they are so popular.

From Kimo's I walked over to Lanikai Beach which is a little over 2 miles away.  Lanikai Beach is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the world where the sand is fine and soft.  The bus only comes every hour which is why I walked to the beach.  The route is quite nice, and it goes through residential areas that are a combo again of fancy houses and more rundown residences.  You pass Kailua Beach as you walk uphill to get to Lanikai Beach.  The view of Kailua Beach was wonderful.

Kailua Beach

Small island off the coast of Kailua.  Lots of people kayak to there. 

After a long walk I finally made it to Lanikai Beach!  It was really beautiful!  People had talked about how the beach is disappearing, which is totally true.  There are public access ways now that just hit water, no more sand.  This is because people built sand walls that, because of the currents, are causing the sands to disappear. 

The beach had a pretty good amount of people for how small the area was.  What was cool was that there were so many dogs.

I snorkeled for a while and checked out the coral, but it was not nearly as impressive as Sharks Cove.  Though there were more fish than at Turtle Bay.  I hung out in the water a lot but then clouds started coming in.

And then it started raining!  And it wasn't stopping, so I high tailed out of there and started walking back.  Unfortunately there was no shelter!

By the time I walked to Kailua Beach, the rain had stopped.  I was drenched from walking in the rain and decided to change back into my regular clothes.  By the time I got out, it was super sunny again!

The hill where I took the shots of Kailua Beach.  Past this hill was Lanikai Beach.

  I was pretty tired so I decided to start heading out of the beach area to get some food.  I planned on going to Uahi Island Grill which got really good review on Yelp and supposedly had some vegan mocha cake.  The route to get there was another mile away from Kailua Beach Park but I was determined.  Before starting on my walk I stopped off at Kalapawai Market just for some cold water and to sit down for a while since I had been on my feet since the rain started.  The market was selling burgers that were being BBQed right there, made to order, but I really wanted that vegan cake.  After a good mile walk in very hot sun, I got to Uahi Island Grill, but it was CLOSED!  As in there was paper covering all the windows as though it had gone out of business.  Another group of people had wanted to eat there, so it took them by surprise too.  Ugh, I was so sad.  I called up Peter to figure out if there was anywhere else I should try in this area.  Turns out nothing was particularly appetizing to me from what we talked about, so I decided to go to Formaggio Grill on the recommendation of the same director.  He claimed they had some great fries and I wanted something greasy and salty after all my walking.  Luckily the restaurant was only half a mile away.

It was pretty empty in Formaggio because of the off-hour (3:30pm) so I got great service.  It was pretty dark in the restaurant but the air conditioning was a welcomed relief.  I ordered the truffle oil french fries with pepper and a special tapas that was an antipasto with salami, pickled veggies, boiled egg, flatbread, and whole ground mustard.

The plate of fries was HUGE.  Granted it cost $8, but totally worth it.  The truffle oil (I don't think I've ever had truffle oil) was SO tasty.  It was sort of like olive oil but a little stronger.  

Mmm, hot, crispy, peppery, with parsley and truffle oil.  I ate the WHOLE plate (it took me like 1.5 hours to do so)

Antipasto tapas - I was impressed with the pickled veggies which were refreshing.  Also the flatbread was really tasty. 

I thought it was kind of weird that the egg was a bright orange color.  It was very good with it's slight pickled flavor, but still, a little weird. 

Needless to say I was stuffed.  I took my time eating since I was not in a rush and because I really liked those fries.  I read Dune while eating as I've become a pro at eating alone in restaurants so long as I have a book.  It's only been two weeks and I've already read like half the book between times on the bus when I can read (and not get car sick) and eating meals. 

I hopped on the bus and made my way back home.  I got home around 6:30pm and was exhausted from walking so much in the sun/rain.  I mostly vegged out, ate a little food around the house, and then slept.    

Kailua on Dwellable

Day 16 - Friday

Sorry for the delay.  Similarly to last weekend I spent this Friday night figuring out what to do over the weekend, so I wasn't able to update.

Friday was a very fruitful food day!  A paralegal at the firm was kind enough offer to pick up bentos for anyone who wanted from K's Bentoya. K's is pretty far away so there was no way I would be able to get there myself for a lunch.  The bentos there are quite Hawaiian.

   Clockwise from the top left - fried chicken, teriyaki hotdog, tofu, inari, luncheon meat (not spam), musubi, shimp, sushi, corned beef hash, rice ball.

Everything is so cute in the bento!  I loved to just look at it.  I got to work a little early so I was hungry hungry by like 11am.  I snacked a little on the bento, and saved the rest in the refrigerator since it turned out that I got invited to lunch with a director and associate!  I didn't ruin my appetite for some exciting food from Hukilau.  Hukilau is actually a restaurant that started in Northern California by Hawaiian guys (I actually had a birthday at the Palo Alto location that is now closed).  We had kalua pork egg rolls and sweet potato fries for appetizers.  I ordered the skirt steak salad for lunch.

Mmm, so tasty.  The steak was a teriyaki flavor that was really tender.  

Lunch was so good but the tasty food just continued.  During work in the afternoon one of the legal secretaries had a huge bag of kettle corn that was being passed around the office.  The first bite made the corn stick to my teeth which I hate, but then the second handful was perfect - sweet and crunchy without getting stuck to my teeth! 

After work I headed over to Ross to try to get some more work clothes.  Unfortunately I only found one shirt there.  By Ross there's a Japanese restaurant that makes their own udon noodles called Go Shi Go.  I'm always a fan of homemade noodles, so I went there after shopping at Ross.  I got their dinner special which consists of a bowl of udon noodles and a bowl of rice with grilled steak, seaweed and pickled veggies.  

The noodles were definitely great.  They were not over cooked but also chewy.  The soup was disappointing though as it wasn't very flavorful.  I guess I've been so spoiled by really tasty ramen soups that this udon soup was underwhelming.  The steak was unfortunately very tough.  The rice was great and all the ingredients mixed up was tasty, but after such tender steak during lunch, this tough stuff was so disappointing.  

After dinner I walked down to a restaurant called HALE (pronounced "ha-le") which specializes in macrobiotic foods.  I still have no idea what that even means but the important thing is that there are vegan desserts there!  I got the macha green tea cake with vanilla soy ice cream.  The cake was warm and not too sweet but with a strong green tea flavor.  It was a little bitter but overall it worked well with the vanilla ice cream.  Unfortunately it was not worth $8, but I think there would be potential for other desserts there.  

      

After dinner I walked over to Nordstrom Rack which meant overall I walked about 1.5 miles from Ross to Nordstrom Rack.  And it started to rain on the walk!  Well, I made it over to Nordstom Rack to find some more work clothes, but all the clothes I tried were disappointing and I walked out without any new clothes.  After shopping I waited for the bus, headed home, and then started figuring out what to do over the weekend.  

Ewa Beach on Dwellable

Day 15 - Thursday

So I tried pretty hard to get to work early. I woke up at 6:30am but unfortunately since the bus was just not coming I didn't get to work until about 8:20am, which isn't much earlier than normal. Oh well, I did the work I had to get done in the morning just fine.

Unfortunately waking up and getting to work so early meant that I was starving by the time lunchtime came around. I decided to try Dim Sum House for lunch. Yelp reviews said that they have pretty good dim sum for cheap, only $2.18 for 3 pieces. Dim Sum House is located on the basement level of a shopping area that has a lot of lunch places. The counter is split between cheap express Chinese food and pre-made dim sum in steamers waiting to be bought. Unfortunately there was no har gow when we got there and I didn't want to wait for it to cook, so I got shrimp with spinach steamed dumplings instead. SO GOOD! Unfortunately everything else was just so-so. If I go back, I'm only going to get the steamed dim sum and not the fried stuff or sticky rice. The fried stuff was overly greasy and not crispy while the sticky rice had a lot of fat in it which I'm not fond of.

Representation of the dim sum I ate, I was so hungry that I drove in without taking the picture so I had to use some of my fellow law clerk's food to represent what I had already inhaled. From top left - red bean sesame ball (too greasy), steamed shrimp/spinach dumpling (YUMMY), pan fried dumpling (gross), sui mai (pretty good), sticky rice (too fatty), char siu bao (tasty).

After lunch I was so stuffed but that was good because at 4:30pm I stopped working to join an associate at her pro bono gig which is as an intake attorney at Volunteer Legal Services. There's a clinic where people can sign up to see an attorney and that attorney decides the next steps. Usually the next steps are either finding an attorney to take the case pro bono or guiding the person through the steps of helping answering forms and not bringing in an attorney on the case itself. We went over to the office and met with five clients, one over the phone. The associate just does family law stuff for pro bono, so all these people have either a guardianship, custody or divorce issue. Man, it really made me want to help them. The clients were bring quite reasonable and they just needed some help. I was so impressed with how well some of them had their papers in order. They had records of all the past court orders or doctor's notes. Also there was a client who didn't speak much English so that was challenging too.

Pretty spacious intake office for Volunteer Legal Services. Some of the other volunteer attorneys were in significantly smaller rooms.

We finished up around 8pm and then I got a ride home. Was was pretty hungry by then and decided to walk over to Morio's Sushi for a tempura shrimp roll. Morio's is literally in the same space as Ruffage so there are only like space to seat 15 people. I asked to order take out and they said it would be 45 minutes! Ugh, forget that. I then went to Me's BBQ which was right behind Morio's but they too were packed with tourists. It was bad when there's a line for food that's supposed to be made quick. Ugh ugh. Defeated, I walked back home and got the steak and shrimp combo at Blazin Steaks. I said to cook the steak medium, but I forgot Hawaii's medium is like California's rare, so I had to re-cook the steak at home. Regardless it was all quite tasty. The meat was tender, the shrimps were juicy, and the rice was moist and fluffy.

The weekend is fast approaching and I have no plans. I wanted to go off island but the times for planes to Molokai don't work because all times are in the morning when I'm working, and the hotels in Lanai cost like $350/day (and no option to priceline!) Sigh, oh wells. I will likely not make it over to those islands this time around which is a shame but I'm pretty tired from not getting much sleep this weekend, so I'll be happy to catch up on sleep.

Waikiki Park Heights on Dwellable