If Tillerman and Tillerwoman went to Hawaii, they could try some new foods.

Food in Hawaii is a special affair. You had the local Hawaiian cuisine, you had a lot of people bringing their traditional cuisines from home, and then the people mingled, the food mingled, and in the end, you have local specialties that may look like things you can get anywhere, but the tastes? Delicious (or "onolicious") and unique, and very hard to find outside of the islands.

OK. There is the spam fixation, as demonstrated by the repeat appearances of spam musubi on this blog this year. I will admit that spam, even Spam given an Asian fusion presentation, is not to everyone's liking & move on past that to my real, true favorites from small-kid time. A trip home just isn't a trip home without:
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The Plate Lunch: OK - the plate-lunch purists out there would be offended by this one - a true Island plate lunch would feature a meat (teri chicken, teri beef or the Korean BBQ short ribs you see here are classic plate-lunch meats - for the indecisive & hungry there are usually combo plates where you get all three, or you can usually get kalua pig & laulau, both featured a little way down in the post) and rice and macaroni salad . The rice is usually in round scoops, and I went particularly off the beaten plate-lunch path on this one because Yummy Korean Barbeque in Kailua actually allows you a choice of sides & I had been pigging out so badly that instead of the traditional perfectly round scoop of creamy macaroni salad, I went for vegetables. The horror, the horror. Move along folks, nothing to see here...

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The Malasada: (sometimes spelled "malassada", but I always buy at Leonard's where they spell it with one "s"): This yummy yummy treat is of Portuguese descent. As I understand it, they originated as a Mardi Gras treat, a sugary sweet deep-fried indulgence before Lent. I guess people in Hawaii were a little more hedonistic than that though - you can get 'em most of the year. Just look for one of Leonard's cheery red-and-white striped vans -



and get in line!

Most wonderfullest when absolutely fresh and warm.

I always go for the "plain" of my youth - but now there's all kinds of different fillings. If I had an enterpreneurial bone left in my body (I don't, they were all beaten out of me by a less-than-brilliant stint as a part-owner of a kayak business), I swear I would figure out a way to get a Leonard's truck to NYC & I would make malasadas into The Next Hot Dessert Trend. Cupcakes are SO end of last century, people.

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Aaaah. Saimin. Looks like something you could buy on the Mainland, right? Maybe at a Chinese or Japanese noodle bar? Well, you can't. I don't know what makes saimin saimin, but it is a purely Hawaiian hybrid of some sort & nothing else tastes quite like it. One of my few disappointments with the Fulton Street L&L Barbecue was when I saw "saimin" on their menu, did a happy little dance of glee, ordered the "saimin", took it home, took the first sip and found that they were selling some standard NYC ramen bar soup. And no fish cake. Chee. Perfectly tasty, but NOT saimin.

Where to get the best saimin is seriously a matter of contention. I was staying in Waikiki for this trip, so my standbys out in Aiea (Forty Niner Diner) and Waimalu (Shiro's Saimin Haven) weren't so easy to get to. I guess I don't entirely trust Waikiki joints for good local food (case in point: went to a beachfront refreshment stand grill for lunch one afternoon and those lolos squirted bottled barbecue sauce on their kalua pig - WRONG WRONG WRONG!) My first saimin of the trip was therefore at a place I hadn't gone myself but that seemed to be spoken of well on the Internet. Except that it was Boulevard Saimin that was spoken of well and the place that I found when I got to the given address was Dillingham Saimin:



Trying to remember the name of the place I was looking for, I actually just found a Hawaii blog written someone who patronized Boulevard enough to get the real scoop from one of the wait staff. Me, I was just happy to find that although the name changed, the saimin was still "broke da' mouth" - that means GOOD.

In a pinch, Zippy's (local fast food joint) would have been OK too, and I did in fact go there for saimin fix #2 -

It wasn't just the saimin, though - it was because I was riding TheBus past the Hawaii Kai shopping mall where they have the Zippy's that I swear has got the best view of any fast food place in the world.
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Actual Hawaiian food!

I did finally get out to my hometown of Aiea on the first Sunday I was there, and it was wonderful. Went to my childhood church, saw a lot of familiar old faces (including a wonderful teacher I still remember from - oh, it must've been 1st grade!), hiked the Aiea Loop Trail I remember hiking many times & stoked up for that with a GREAT lunch at that Aiea classic, the Forty Niner.


Like I said, this is one of my favorites for saimin. The 49er Diner has been in the same place in Aiea forever (at least it seems that way to me). I do seem to remember it being pink when I was a kid, but other than that, all same-same. The original owners did close it down but it was taken over by a new owner who kept the classic menu (including the saimin, which was great), yay, and added some new stuff too - notably including a fabulous Hawaiian plate, which is what I had this time because I had just had saimin a day or two earlier. The meat is kalua pig - one of the main courses at a luau, it's traditionally cooked in a pit oven. Most restaurants would use some kind of modern slow-cooking contraption but the result is still smoky, tender & moist. Adding bottled barbecue sauce is A FREAKING TOURIST-TRAP TRAVESTY. Sorry, had to get that off my chest. The spinachy-looking mass next to the kalua pig is a laulau, salted butterfish & pork (and/or chicken and/or beef) wrapped up in luau leaves (taro leaves). The whole shebang is wrapped in a ti leaf (ti not tea) for the cooking, which would be done in the imu with the pig if you were actually cooking the pig in a pit. As it is, again cooked with some modern invention, still comes out pretty darned good (and I am grateful for the modern inventions because it lets me get kalua pig & laulau at the South Street Seaport where it would be very hard to dig a pit). Accompanying the main dish are 2 scoops rice (properly round this time - that's what plate lunch rice is suppose to look like too!) and a little dish of lomi lomi salmon, raw salted salmon chopped up with onions and tomatoes.

Now next time I go out there, I'm having the saimin at 49er's because I need to go to Helena's Hawaiian Food for my Hawaiian food fix. Had it on the list this time but was completely stalled-out by the fantasticness of the Bishop Museum's new Hawaiian Hall exhibits. Found out too late that Helena's Hawaiian is now operated by an Iolani classmate - found that out when I sat with him & his really nice wife at the reunion. D'oh! Ah well. Next time!

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The Manapua: Last but definitely not least of my childhood favorites. Again, this looks something like the steamed roast pork bun that you can get as an appetizer at 90% of the Chinese restaurants in NYC - but it's not the same. Something about the spices. For a brief & shining moment, I did know about one Chinese bakery where the roast pork bun had a hauntingly right flavor to it. I was first taken there for lunch by a co-worker who was also from Hawaii. Within months, they had closed. Auwe! I did find another close approximation at a tiny tiny hole-in-the-wall somewhere in Chinatown - but I failed to write down the address & I will never find them again.

Sigh.

Anyways, THIS one is from one of my favorites from way back when - Aiea Manapua & Snacks.


This is another little local hole-in-the-wall with a great local reputation. Like Leonard's, Aiea Manapua & Snacks has succumbed to variety madness, apparently something called a "pizza manapua" is what they are famous for these days. Personally I pass on the pizza but if pizza manapua is why my favorite snack shop is still open, and thriving, well, God bless the inventor of pizza manapua. I will stick with the classics, though - char siu & lup cheong. Maybe throw in some pork hash, half moon, pepeiao (assorted dumpling) & one big almond cookie if I have somebody to share with!
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Well, all pau with tonight's little Hawaiian local foods nostalgia fest.

Don't know if it will encourage The Man who Mans the Tiller and the Woman who is a Tiller of Earth to head to Hawaii, but my goodness did I have fun with this.

Honestly, this is a post I have been wanting to do since I got back from my reunion.

All I needed was a good excuse!

Spam On Saturday!

Welcome to Spamaica Bay!

hee hee. No, they didn't really rename the bay in honor of the big day, but I do suspect that this is probably the first day in the history of the world that spam musubi could be found plying the waters of Jamaica Bay. I went to the presentation at the South Street Seaport that I'd posted earlier this week last night (it was excellent), and that took me right past L&L Barbecue, of course. I'm a little short on lunch fixings right now & had been planning on picking up a sandwich, but since I had to go to L&L anyways, I figured, why have a sandwich when I can have the ultimate Hawaiian fusion cuisine? Onolicious!

Want to try it for yourself, but don't happen to have a Hawaiian plate lunch place in your town? Here's the Single Guy Chef to show you how!

Short Rib Saturday - I MADE KALBI!

Quick post after a long week at work, just to say "I'm still here" and also share something else besides ospreys that I was REALLY REALLY HAPPY ABOUT this week. See that nice meal? That was dinner on Saturday and that's proper Hawaiian-kine kalbi I cooked, as featured in many a fine Hawaiian plate lunch, including the one featured If Tillerman and Tillerwoman went to Hawaii they could try some new foods. I didn't get the Tillers to go to Hawaii but boy did I have fun writing that.

I absolutely love kalbi, and when my local grocery store started carrying flanken cut short ribs I had to try this! Other reasons I had to try:

1. the L&L Barbecue in Manhattan (former NYC plate lunch source) closed.
2. Then my favorite Korean restaurant on the way home from work closed.
3. Then the Korean restaurant that wasn't quite as convenient as my old favorite Korean restaurant, but still close enough to be my new favorite Korean restaurant after my old favorite Korean restaurant closed, closed.

Enough already. Time to make my own, yeah?

I did a quick Internet search for kalbi recipes. Things don't always end up being cooked in Hawaii in exactly the same way they are in other places, so since I was after that taste from "small-kid time", I specified "Hawaiian style kalbi".

I found a promising page and used the first of the 2 recipes.

It's a keeper. Onolicious, and easy, too! Came out so well I had to serve it with two scoop rice, just like back at home, even though it was just for me this time. If I'd wanted to do a proper homage, I should've made some creamy mac salad with Best Foods mayonnaise, but I had some other things to do on Saturday, which was a little dreary and thus a good getting things done day - as it was I added some of the home-grown Swiss chard I froze at the end of last season. Pretty good dinner and I've been enjoying the leftovers through this very busy week at work.

Have to keep this one in mind for a potluck sometime. I do love Ivory Hut's chicken adobo for a potluck, but this would be good too.

Here's Sarah Vowell reading an excerpt about Hawaiian-kine plate lunch from her book Unfamiliar Fishes, which I finally read, and enjoyed, during my sailing trip in January. 

Guess What's Pua's Fault? (Mahalo, Pua!)

Blogger's warning: Happy Halloween! Beyond that greeting, this post contains no further references to either Halloween. No boats, either. If that makes you sad, try this instead!

She had to go and say "lilikoi".

Doggone it. Guess what that meant I had to get before the week was out?

No, not shave ice. Getting to Matsumoto's (or even Aoki's, where the shave ice is also pretty onolicious & the line isn't nearly as long) is not a possibility this year (not enough vacation days for starters).

Just one of these.


Well, guess where you get one of those?

Anyone who's been reading this blog for a while might know...


(oh, and as long as I'm assigning gratitudeblame I should mention that it's HIS fault that I even know about this place...

And guess what I can't walk into L&L Barbecue without buying...

this time, beef short rib mini-plate

Oh shoot, and how on earth did that haupia end up in that bag?

coconut pudding - trust me, tastes way better than it looks!

Now if only they'd add shave ice (at least in the summer), and saimin, and some real Hawaiian-kine manapua, and get Leonard's to open up a branch next door...

(come on, Leonard's people - NYC had it's cream-puff mania moment...the time is ripe for the malasada!)

Well drat that Pua for saying lilikoi!

But really...thank you thank you thank you so much for stopping by - glad to see your life is looking up. Totally worth suffering through a few unfulfillable cravings - not like I don't get those all the time anyways!

Last Weekend of 2013: Floyd Bennett Field Hike - With Another Snowy! - And Some Onolicious Soup.

Couldn't have asked for a much nicer last weekend of 2013.

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous. If we'd gotten our acts together we might have gone kayaking, it was a little breezy but warm enough that that would have been OK. Lucky for the dog, we weren't that organized, so we ended up taking her out for a hike at Floyd Bennett Field. 

We like the "Back 40" hiking area for walking Bella, so we end up parking over by the Aviator Sports facility. As I mentioned in the Owl Paddle post, my friend Mary, who's a great birder, had mentioned that in addition to the snowy in the marsh islands of Jamaica Bay, several had been spotted at Floyd Bennett, and our friend John D, who's a ranger there, had confirmed that, so I was delighted, but not surprised, when the first thing we spotted after we got out of the car was a small cluster of birders around a scope - and the second thing we spotted was the snowy owl they were admiring. They let us sneak a peek through the telescope, which was very cool - what a handsome bird a snowy owl is! I wish I'd brought my Lumix with the zoom, but at least I'd thought to pop the Pentax in my pocket as we left. 

 Beyond that, just another gorgeous winter day at Floyd Bennett Field. 

Approaching Mill Basin - 

TQ and Bella heading for the beach

 Back Forty trail

Bella again

And another trail shot.  

Those loopy vines remind me of those Patrick Dougherty sculptures they had at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens - remember those? Here they were in the Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010. 

Happy we haven't had any snow like that yet this winter! However, we did have plenty of precipitation on Sunday, and that actually worked out well. TQ had gotten me a spectacular Christmas present this year, he'd ordered a package of Hawaiian foods - check this out, since the local L&L Barbecue shut down this year, this is better than diamonds! I don't think I'd posted that here yet so yum, here it is! He had them all in his freezer and I was squealing like a teenager at a Justin Bieber concert with each thing he pulled out (amazing that he kept going but he did). The missing item from this picture was a spicy Portuguese sausage - I left that at his place when I brought home the goods because I thought I would share that with him. 

I would have just cooked it for breakfast (probably with eggs and rice, rice for breakfast is a good Island thing), but I happened to have made pernil last month and I had left a lot of meat on the bone and put that and the pan juices in the freezer for later use. Couldn't think of anything much better to do with that and the Portuguese sausage than a big pot of bean soup. Originally I was going to make that on Saturday, but switched that to Sunday when I realized that Saturday was going to be the Outside Day and Sunday was going to be the Inside Day. We still ate Hawaiian food for dinner after our hike - TQ was curious to try the lau lau and the manapua too so I brought some of that over, along with some poi. Perfect post-hike repast and he liked everything (including the poi)!

Sunday it rained all day - perfect for the soup I had in mind. Started out browning the sausage with onions and peppers in the Dutch oven to get some good flavor in the pot - set those and some of the pernil aside to add later and then started the pernil bone (plus a steak bone from Mandy and my post-window steakhouse splurge at Mark Joseph) on a nice slow simmer around 2:00. A few hours and several ingredients later - yum. Now that was a good way to share a Portuguese sausage!

And in fact that's what's for dinner again tonight, and I should probably head on over there now. Happy New Year to all if I don't have a chance to post again before it's time to put up the Sebago New Year's Day Frostbite Regatta pictures. Adobo's marinating for the potluck, can't wait!

SeaLevel solved the mystery boom.

Turns out the small child that shouted "Fireworks!" was almost right - it was a single firework exploding. A firework show, as 'twere. It's all in yesterday's comments.

Still sounds like there may have been something of an accident, and I hope no one was injured badly - but it's nice to know what it was.

Thank you SeaLevel & Hinemoa for solving that mystery for me. Y'know, I think that may be good enough for me to forgive that little matter of Hinemoa owing me one kalua pig!

Which reminds me, I never got around to going to check out da plate lunch at either of the New York branches of L&L. Mmmm. 'Course my favorite plate-lunch place on Oahu is the one right next to the Aiea Snack Shop, which is my favorite manapua place. I will judge this mainland L&L franchise based on this standard: If, when I close my eyes & bite into the barbecue short ribs, I suddenly hear the creak of an old wooden screen door & the crowing of the roosters in the dusty little street that runs behind the odd little hexagonal Aiea Library, instead of taxi horns & sirens, then they've done a good job.

Now I've gone and made myself all homesick plus cut into my falling-in-the-water time tonight (there are things that I have to finish before I go tonight). Great use of time, there. Thhhbbt.

I Must Be Getting Better -

Well, what a surprise. I was completely, totally, 100% susceptible to the INTENSE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD they managed to install at the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue here on Fulton Street, just south of the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm fully aware of the risk run by Hawaii-raised people who venture within ten blocks of this address, but I thought the lingering uneasiness in my tummy would give me a LITTLE resistance to the pull. But no.

I must be getting better.

Or maybe I'm just bored with baked potatoes.

This started out as post-work exersize. Honest.

Oh, maybe with a little picture-taking mixed in.

Manhattan Bridge


Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridge (that's the Brooklyn Bridge Park across the East River, btw - nice location, huh? It's just got to be on the New York City Watertrail.)


Great mnemonic for remembering the order of the 3 classic bridges on the Lower East Side:

Just think of the car. BMW.

B rooklym
M anhattan
W illiamsburg