Hawaiian Clothing, Culture, Nature & More
Our friends over at the Hawaiian Chip Company are now open to the public on Saturdays from 10am – 3pm. But rather than just eat stuff, you actually get to do stuff like season your own freshly made taro chips and a bunch of other fun stuff.
It wasn’t all fun and play of course. There were some serious things to do, like take pictures on their surfboard thing.
Goofing around waiting for coffee at the Hawaiian Chip Company
I received an email from a friend who is trying to cook healthy for her husband (hey – just thought about this – how fitting is this, as today is Valentine’s Day!).. She tried a new recipe the other day that contains Natto.. He told her that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, as he reached for his glass of water! LOL!
Mmmmm... Natto!
If you visit sushi bars I’m sure that you’ve run across this as a menu item. It is a popular food item in Japan and is generally eaten with hot rice. Many of us “local” people eat it with the mustard and soy sauce packets that are now included in the packaging. It is also great with radish sprouts or grated radish.
BUT whoa – hold on.. remember I said that her husband said that it’s not as bad as he thought??? Well, for those of you who have had the pleasure of being exposed to natto – you know that natto has a very distinctive smell… and a lot of people find it very pungent and revolting. My husband will sit across from me if I have it out. My dad didn’t care for the smell as well. I can still see his nose crinkle at the sight of it.. BUT my youngest son (8 years old) loves it! Good news tho – for those who still want the benefit of Natto.. I understand that there’s now a “scentless” natto out.. oh – and not to mention that Natto is very slimy!!!!
Natto is high in Vitamin K and is high in anti-oxidants and is also considered a probiotic food.
I recently went on a super quick neighbor island getaway to the Big Island with my wife. The plan was to fly from Honolulu to Hilo, do a bunch of stuff there, then drive to Kona. At first, we were going to go drive to the summit of Mauna Kea but since that would have taken too long, we decided to go to the Volcano National Park and do other stuff instead.
We didn’t have enough time to walk to the live lava flow to see real lava (but you could if you really want to). But we did get to walk through a lava tube, check out some volcanic steam vents, play in the visitor center and see a lot of lava rocks (they look like brownies when you get hungry).
I also wanted to stop at the Mountain View Bakery to buy some Stone Cookies. Most of the people that I know who grew up on Oahu don’t like Stone Cookies. They think it has no flavor or tastes like rocks. But I like them, especially with coffee or cocoa.
Anyways, we managed to experience quite a lot of stuff in the few hours we spent in Hilo. Like most of our trips (actually, all of our trips), the highlight was the food. The Hilo part of our trip was highlighted by Kawamoto Okazuya (and Stone Cookies for me) while the Kona portion of the trip was highlighted by the pork chops at the Manago Hotel. Overall, it was a very fun and relaxing trip!
I like tacos. So last night we went to the “Eat the Street” food truck rally on Kapiolani Blvd. I experienced my share of taco trucks in southern Cal during my college years and never really noticed that there were so many taco trucks in Honolulu. Most of the trucks served some sort of tacos with names like Xtreme Tacos, Korean Tacos to Go, and Shogunai Tacos.
The surprise of the night for me was that my favorite food truck was Melt, the grilled cheese specialists. Maybe it was all the butter they used or maybe I just like cheese. But whatever the secret was, their Triple Melt was kickass!
I hope all the truck people made a lot of money and that they have this event again because it was fun. The only thing that was missing was a beer truck. Maybe next time!
Read more reviews of this fun taco fest.
On our trip to the Big Island last week, we went to one of my favorite places to eat – Kawamoto’s. I have been going there ever since the glory days of Cyndi Lauper, Journey, and Weird Al Yankovic. I am sure it has been around much longer than that but that’s as far back as I can remember. Kawamoto’s is one of several popular okazuyas in Hilo but for whatever reason, it’s the only one my parents would ever take me to.
Kawamoto Store early on a Friday morning (like 6:30am)
One thing about Kawamoto’s is that they open early and often run out of food by lunch time. My favorite items are the cone sushi and teriyaki meat balls but also like the string bean tempura, sweet potato tempura and korean fried chicken.
Lots of good stuff to choose from!
As part of the tradition I got from my parents, we headed over to Queen Liliuokalani Gardens to eat while we looked at ducks, birds, snow capped Mauna Kea and Hilo Bay. It sure beats eating fast food for breakfast! If you’re ever in Hilo, I highly recommend stopping at Kawaomoto’s to grab your breakfast, brunch or lunch. But be warned that once they run out of food, they’re done for the day so get there early.
My lovely wife waits excitedly to eat our food
On a side note, we like animals,…my wife especially loves animals. So when we saw a baby-looking bird cruising fearlessly by our feet, we had to feed it. So we gave it some tempura crumbs. In the video, it’s the round bird with the very short tail.
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