Jang Su - Waimalu Bar-B-Q

I have cravings... and no, I'm NOT pregnant (this is how rumors are started!) and it just so happened that on this particular day, I was craving tofu soup.  Now the best tofu soup I've ever had was at So Gong Dong in the McCully Shopping Center.  But since I wasn't about to sit in traffic just to satisfy an itch... we headed out to my 2nd favorite place... Jang Su at the Waimalu Plaza.  :D

Bi Bim Bap

The Husby always struggles with what to order (mainly cause he can't remember what he's ordered in the past)... but he ended up getting the Bi Bim Bap (mixed veggies & beef over rice, with a fried egg).  It came in a stone pot and was still "cooking" the food in the bowl!  I had tried this before at Sorabol and didn't like the way it crisped up my rice... but he seemed to like it.  "It tastes like kakimochi!" ha ha to each, his own I say!  His dish came with an array of veggies - cabbage, mushrooms, shredded daikon, bean sprouts and choi sum and a smattering of beef with an egg in the middle.  You're supposed to mix it all together... that way the stone bowl "cooks" the egg while it coats the food.  :D  I just think of it as playing with your food.  It was fun to watch.

Tofu Soup - *Spicy*

I on the other hand knew exactly what I wanted.  "Tofu Soup please!" Now the only question I had yet to answer was... "spicy? mild?" I chose spicy... which was a mistake.  I wouldn't say that it was too spicy for my palate, but I couldn't taste anything BUT the spiciness of the dish... which was a shame since I was looking forward to eating the tofu soup for all the wonderful flavors in the dish.  :(  Their tofu soup is chock full of tofu (duh!), clams, abalone and zucchini.  It comes boiling hot to the table... in fact, it was still boiling while we waited for Husby's dish to come to the table.  It also comes with a bowl of rice... I heart rice!

The side dishes... and my tofu soup

 As you can see in the picture above... our meals came with 6 side dishes.  The usual kim chee, bean sprouts, choi sum, and shredded pickled daikon, but we LOVED the potato side dish (it's in the far left of the picture)... it was yummy, sweet and salty and cooked just right. The flat strips are I think some kind of fish kamaboko thing... it was okay, but since the Husby is allergic, he couldn't partake.

Now for some facts about Jang Su...

• located at 98-1277 Kaahumanu St. Aiea, HI 96701
• phone number: 808-487-2646 (they do take-out!)
• Jang Su has a large menu with offerings of both authentic Korean cuisine and local tastes... AND yakiniku (cook your own food on a grill at your table!).  

So if you're craving Korean food, you don't have to drive to town to get it... 

Happy eating! Oh and feel free to post comments below... would love to hear what you think!

Happy Hour @ Amuse

Last night B and I decided to have "P" night at Amuse.  If you're unfamiliar with Amuse - it's a self-serve wine bar.  They offer over 80 different bottles of wines (both red and white) for your tasting (1 ounce) pleasures.  Our goal for the evening was to get into and sample their happy hour menu and special (Mondays & Wednesdays - aka "Wine Tasters Night" pay $30 to get an Amuse Bar card worth $50).  Happy hour is from 5 - 8 and they have specialty drinks & a happy hour menu where everything is $5! 

We ordered:

• Steamed Edamame (basketful) - lightly seasoned with salt & steamed to PERFECTION!
• BBQ Seasoned "Frites" (basketful) - french fries with a BBQ seasoning served with ketchup and a chili pepper aioli... one of the best things we ate all night. 
• Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (2 slices halved) - made with their house made baguette and havarti cheese, with truffle essence.  We weren't really that impressed it reminded us not of grilled cheese but of a cheese toast/bread from an Italian restaurant... made us long for our childhood version of white bread & kraft american cheese!
• Asian Pork Sliders (3) - pulled pork in an asian sauce served in a bao with pickled ginger and cucumber slices.  This was good... kind of messy and sweet.  
• 3 Cheese Pizza (mini pizza 6 slices) - I don't recall what the cheeses were... but this was by far the worst thing we ordered... :(  It came to us cold & stiff... sad.  B said it was "okay"... 
• Cheese Sampler (3 different cheeses; if you get crackers it's a $1 extra) - I'm not a cheese person... but I knew that one of the samplings was Brie (thanks B for pointing that one out!) but the other two were a mystery to me... but I gotta say, they were GOOD!  In fact, one of them tasted like the inside of a grilled cheese sandwich sans the bread.  Mmm... now if I only knew the name. 
• Circus Circus specialty drink - Midori, Stoli Apple, Sweet & Sour served with a cotton candy garnish. This drink was uh... well it tasted like watermelon.  How the heck this tasted like watermelon was beyond me... but I did not likey.  But you know to be truthful?  I only ordered it cause it came with a lil cotton candy... HA HA 
• Apple & Blueberry Crisp - which was served with honey ice cream and caramel sauce.  I'm a sucker for caramel and our waiter recommended it.  B thought it was too sweet... and it was.  Almost too much to keep eating, but I did... and so did she.   This was NOT a $5 special, but I so wanted a dessert... :D

We of course took our new Amuse wine cards for a spin around the wine dispensers - which is pretty awesome... you see you're given a wine glass and a card (much like a gift card) and you're free to roam around to peruse the variety of wines and their prices.  The prices of the wines that were up for sampling ranged from $1.33 - $4.29 per 1 ounce.  While sampling, I realized something I already knew... I'm not a fan of red... and I'm definitely a fan of Moscato (tasted like grape juice) and Reisling (a sweet white wine).   :(  Go figure.  It's easy to get tipsy as you walk around sampling the wines 1 ounce at a time so be sure to either give yourself enough time to sober up or have a designated driver.  :D  Arrive Alive!  

Sadly, I did not bring my camera - shame too since we nearly ordered everything on the happy hour menu. ha ha Oh well, more reason to go back!  

A few facts about Amuse Wine Bar

• located at the Honolulu Design Center: 1250 Kapiolani Blvd, Honolulu HI 96814                Phone: 808-237-5429
• Happy Hour M-F from 5pm - 8pm
• Menu - this is their bar menu, they don't have a posting of their happy hour menu 

Happy eating!  

Soul Cuisine with Aloha & Spice

After reading the MANY reviews on Yelp, I just knew that I had to try this place!!! And because the Husby is both smart AND listens, he made sure that one of the places he bought gift cards for my birthday included Soul Cuisine.

So we made the trek to Kaimuki and while we were lucky to find a spot in their very small and full parking lot... it was purely by chance.  We were ready to give up... but then a spot opened up!!!  Yay!  It was a rainy friday night, and it was also First Friday - so that might've accounted for the restaurant being so empty.

We were seated quickly and told that if we wanted water it was self-serve and that when we were ready to order, we should come to the "window" to order.   We took our time, reading their menu and discussing what we were going to share.  We decided to have their "Chicken, Sweet Potato, Kukui Spicy Portuguese Sausage Gumbo", and their "Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Chili".

Chicken, Sweet Potato, Kukui Spicy Portuguese Sausage Gumbo

I had read that the gumbo was spicy (some wrote that it was even too spicy for some palates)... so I had warned the Husby (who is more sensitive to spices than I am) and we found that while it did have notes of spiciness, it wasn't so much that we weren't able to eat it.  The gumbo was what I had originally ordered as MY dish, but by the end of the meal... it became the Husby's.  I found that the gumbo had too many flavors going on at once... and for some reason the only word that comes to mind is karai (which means... "spicy" in Japanese).  It was good tho... full of flavor with just a kick of spiciness.

  Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Chili 

The Husby's dinner choice was the Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Chili which came with an assortment of sides - buttermilk cilantro coleslaw, cornbread and Ma'o Farms collard greens.  There were 2 thigh pieces that were fried to perfection... the meat just fell off the bone!!  And even though it was fried... it didn't have an oily taste to it... in fact, the skin actually had a sweetness to it.  It was yummy!!  I saved the rest of my skin for the end of the meal so that I could savor it correctly.  I <3 fried chicken skin!

The Vegetarian Chili was full of spices and just the right compliment to the fried chicken... again, YUM!  Being a local... when you order fried chicken or chili - you expect rice, right?  Well this dish did not come with it... but it wasn't missed at all, maybe cause when you think about it... it wouldn't have matched anyway.  

I'm not a fan of cilantro so I didn't care for the coleslaw... but the Husby (who also doesn't normally care for cilantro) ate it by the forkful!  I was more impressed with the collard greens.  They were awesome... I'm not an aficionado on soul food, but this really spoke to me.  I had only tried collard greens once before in Alabama while on a visit to my brother and his family and Soul Cuisine's collard greens just took me back there.  It was bitter and flavorful and I loved it... I couldn't get enough of it.  If I could have licked the plate (without fear that it would end up on youtube or FB), I might have.  

Now the only thing I haven't described is the cornbread.  Both the Husby and I found that the cornbread best complimented the gumbo.  It was moist, buttery and sweet... and just the right texture to help sop up the last remnants of the gumbo left on our plate.  

Now here are a few facts about Soul Cuisine...

• Sean Priester, the Master Chef and owner of Soul Cuisine and Soul Patrol (a lunch truck) used to be the Executive Chef at Top of Waikiki from 2004 - 2009
• Mr Priester is on twitter
• Website: http://pacificsoulhawaii.com/
• Hours of Operation: Tues - Thurs 11am -9pm; Fri - 11am -10pm; Sat - 9am -10pm and Sundays -10:30am to 8pm
• Located at: 3040 Waialae Ave, Honolulu, HI 96818; Phone Number: 808-735-SOUL (7685)
• If you have an iPhone and the app "foursquare" - they have a special that can be unlocked if you check in 3 times.  

Happy Eating!!! :D

California Pizza Kitchen - aka CPK

• Did you know that California Pizza Kitchen was established by two lawyers named Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax?  They opened their first CPK in March 1985 in Beverly Hills, CA.  
• In total there are 265 locations of CPK in 32 states and 10 foreign countries.  
• Since August of 2000, they are a publicly traded company - ticker symbol is CPKI
• Website: http://www.cpk.com/

For date night... the Husby and I decided to go to one of our "go to" places... CPK at Pearlridge!!!  This is actually the first restaurant we ate at when we first met... it's a part of our history.  Besides being a part of our "love story"... we happen to just love eating here because we always know what we're going to get.  Mainly because we always (nearly always) get the same thing... 

The Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad... 

A mixture of chopped lettuce, corn, jicama, black beans, tomatoes, basil, monterey jack cheese and crispy tortilla chips and their herb ranch dressing, topped off with chicken breast and a tangy BBQ sauce.  It normally comes with cilantro also, but we order ours without it.  We tend to order the "full" version to share, but if you're going solo... the half is more than enough of a meal.  It's a very hearty salad... full of taste sensations for your mouth ranging from crunchy, to sweet, to tangy. 

We also ordered their Portobello Mushroom Ravioli in their garlic cream sauce.  

We had only ordered this once before... and it left a great impression on us.  However, this time... there were crunchy bits in the ravioli that made you wonder "what was that?!".  But the overall flavor was good... the ravioli were filled with chopped up portobello mushrooms, herbs and cheese, covered in their garlic cream sauce.  It was good, tho I probably would have liked a little more sauce on my ravioli, but that's cause I'm a "sauce" kind of girl.  

They do offer this dish with a red sauce (tomato/basil) and with grilled mushrooms (for an extra cost).  I think next time if we order this, I want to try it with the red sauce.  

Our other "go to" items are the Pepperoni Pizza (the Husby's fave!) and their Spinach-Artichoke Dip.  

Both of which are super good, but I'm thinking that we'll need to expand our personal menu soon.  Speaking of which, when we paid we were told that if we come back in 7 days and bring our receipt, we can get 20% off our next bill.  OMG!!!  Looks like we'll be heading back again SOON! Yay!!!

They currently have 6 locations on Oahu and 1 on Maui.  You can find out more information by heading over to their website... http://www.cpk.com/

Happy eating!