Pork Adobo Recipe

When my husband was in the mortgage business, one of his Filipino clients sent him home with some Pork Adobo made by Aunty.  A little bit of sweet and tons of 'ono, it was, by far, the best Adobo I have ever had. It was so good, I sucked on the pieces of fat to get all the gravy I could. Gross, I know, but it was that good.

I have tried a bunch of Adobo recipes and this one comes the closest to Aunty's.  It comes from Hawaii's Best Local Dishes by Jean Watanabe Hee (Mutual Publishing, 2002). 

Pork Adobo*

3 pounds pork, cut into cubes

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup shoyu

1 tsp brown sugar (I put 1 Tbsp)

2 Tbsp peppercorns, crush about half (1 tsp might be better; we were spitting out peppercorns left and right)

5 cloves garlic, crushed

3 bay leaves

salt to season

Combine all ingredients in a pan; cover and marinate 1 to 3 hours. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove cover and simmer for an additional 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated and the pork is lightly brown.

* It's actually Ms. Hee's Chicken Adobo Recipe, but it looked like it would taste more like Aunty's than the Pork Adobo recipe.

I don't know how people who blog manage to cook and take pictures at the same time. Here are pics of the completed dish on hot rice.

Muffins at Great Harvest

The hubby and I have been needing a carb-fix.  Great Harvest was on our brains and it beckoned us everytime we went drove past it the last two weeks.  We finally heeded the call.

The loaves (that average around $8) were more bread than we really wanted, even though the samples were absolutely wonderful.  We ate them too fast to get any pics to post here, but we tried and loved the Asiago (Cheese and) Olive, Pizza, and Cinnamon Swirl breads.  It would have been perfect to take to a dinner party and share with others, but for two adults and a fickle toddler, a whole loaf is just too much.

We barely resisted the temptation to indulge in a Chocolate Brownie Quickbread loaf.  Hubby got the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffin and I got the Low Fat Blueberry muffin. Both were $2.85.

This is the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffin. It was moist and dense. Wonderful.


And this is the Low Fat Blueberry muffin. It was tasty, and seemed full of oatmeal. I didn't miss the fat.

We were also going to try one of the exotic burgers (ostrich, buffalo, or venison) at Umeke Market, which is right around the corner, but they were $8.25 at the food counter and I didn't trust myself to prepare it right if we bought it as raw meat.  So... we'll have to wait until I make more money.

Great Harvest Bread Co.

4400 Kalanianaole Hwy #7

Honolulu, Hawaii 96821

ph 808.735.8810

Hours: Monday-Saturday 6:30 am - 6:00 pm

Menu

At these prices, I should be skinny (Part 2)

Have you ever wondered why the size of some packaged foods are the size they are? Like why, if a serving size of Lay's Potato Chips is one ounce, do they package it at, like, 2.8 ounces and say on the bag that there are "about 3 servings" inside? I think it's because The Man doesn't want you to realize how many ways he's sticking it to ya. Here's what I mean:

1. He knows most of us can't do math with a number like 2.8 in your head, and we'd round to the next number that's easiest to calculate in our heads, which, in this case, is 3.
2. He knows that even Kate Moss wouldn't consider one ounce a serving, but that serving sizes are determined by a standard measurement that minimizes the negative impact of the facts. For example, one ounce of Lay's Classic Potato Chips has only 150 calories.  Doesn't sound that bad, right?
3. He also knows that with these strange package sizes, you won't notice when he makes them incrementally smaller, because they were odd enough to not remember.

And now He's playing games with ice cream.

In denial about the cost of ice cream like I was with rice, I was holding out for my internal reference price.  But as you probably realized before I did, $7 can't buy two half-gallons of ice cream anymore.  So I sent the hubby into the store to do the dirty work: pay the going price for our half-gallon of ice cream.  This is what he came out with: 

For as long as I can remember, store-bought ice cream came in two pretty standard sizes: pint and half-gallon. Stuff in the pint were premium brands like Haagen Daz and Ben & Jerry's. Half-gallons ran the gamut from El Cheapo (not an actual brand name) to Dreyer's. Our latest "half-gallon tub" of Dreyer's came in a new size: 1.5 quart, also known as 3/4 of a 1/2 gallon.  Now, that's not all bad news.  It's cute and the smaller size fits perfectly in the top shelf of my freezer, standing up.  But, that's about it.

It was yummy and gooey, as expected, but it was also not satisfying.  The half-cup serving scooped too easily, melted and disappeared quickly and it totally did not feel like a serving at all.  It took three servings of what should've been taken care of with one, or two at the most.  Now, I'm not saying I'm above pigging out, because I'm not.  But that was not the case here.  Something was wrong with my ice cream.  I had to find out what it was.

The nutritional information was revealing.

There were only 150 calories in a 55 gram (g), 1/2 cup serving.  Sounds good from a dieter's point-of-view, but not from the POV of someone who needs a fix.  Since when did a non-diet ice cream have only 150 calories? I thought ice cream had something like 300 calories per half-cup serving.  So I did some sleuthing. Turns out, the last ice cream that I thoroughly enjoyed --  Haagen Daz's Caramel Cone -- has 320 calories in their 111 g, 1/2 cup serving.  That's more than twice as many calories and twice as much mass per 1/2 cup serving.

According to the National Dairy Council, "Federal standards require ice cream to contain a minimum of 10% milk fat (about 7 g of fat per 1/2 cup serving) and 20% total milk solids by weight. Some premium ice creams contain 16% milk fat." Dreyer's has 4 g of fat, which is low according to the Dairy Council's rough estimate, vs. Haagen Daz's 19 g.  So why the big difference? Milkfat and overrun. 

Calculating milkfat is beyond me, but let's just do some math to get an idea of percentage of fat by weight: Dreyer's 4 g/55 g = 7.3%, Haagen Daz 19 g/111 g = 17%. 

Overrun is a measure of how much air is incorporated into the ice cream.  The maximum amount of air allowed in ice cream is 100%, which would yield an ice cream that is half air. (Any more air is actually a crime!) If you weighed equal volumes of different ice creams, the lightest one would be the one with most air, and hence, the highest overrun. Other telltale signs of high overrun are grainy texture (as opposed to creamy) softness, and it melts fast. So it wasn't just PMS and my imagination.  There was actually something wrong with my ice cream!

To conclude this very unscientific analysis of ice cream and how The Man is sticking it to us yet again, let's compare satisfying amounts of the above-mentioned ice creams:

Ice Cream Satisfying Amount (SA) Calories at SA Fat at SA

Haagen Daz Caramel Cone 1/2 cup 320 19 g   

Dreyer's Loaded Choc Fudge Brownie

1-1/2 cup 450 12 g

The moral of the story: I ended up ingesting more calories eating a lower calorie ice cream than I would have getting the job done properly with a premium one... And that's why I'm not skinny even at $6.85 per 3/4 of a 1/2 gallon!

At these prices, I should be skinny (Part 1)

I've been in denial about the rising price of food. I flat-out refused to buy a 20 lb. bag of rice for $7, thinking somehow that my one man boycott would bring the industry to its senses. I remained steadfast...for about a month. By that time, I had to shell out $11 for that same stupid bag of rice. Eleven bucks! On sale. That's enough to make people go up in arms. (Oh wait, they did.) And have you seen the price of meat? Ninety-nine cent hamburger used to be my fallback when I couldn't find another meat at a price I wanted to pay. Now hamburger, only 80% lean, mind you, is practically a luxury at $2.99 on sale.

Let me share with you my internal reference prices compared to today's sale prices and you'll see why my poor little pake heart breaks every time I shop:

My price	Item	New SALE price	Sticker shock increase	Comments
$5.00	20 lb. bag rice	$12.00	140%
$0.59	lb of papaya	$1.25	112%
$3.25	gallon of milk	$5.50	69%
$0.99	lb of hamburger	$2.99	202%
$5.00	20 lb. bag rice	$12.00	140%
$299	R/T airfare HNL/SFO	$490	64%	Add two kids and a spouse and the weekend vacay went from $300 to $1960. More if we want to bring clothes.
$25	tank of gas	$75	200%	Had two kids and now drive a minivan instead of a sedan, so it's not exactly comparing apples to apples, but you feel my pain, right?
$1.59	can of spam	$1.79	only 13%	Good ol' SPAM, like potatoes, is an "inferior good," which is less in demand as consumers have more $ to spend.

Now you know why I'm not skinny...  I stay at home (because I can't afford gas), watch TV all day (because the price of cable stayed the same) and eat SPAM (because I can still afford it)!

The best place to mail things in 96816

The Mo`ili`ili Post Office wins my vote for the friendliest place to mail.

Well, actually, it's not in the 96816 zip code. But it's close. And it's definitely worth the short trip outside of the zip code. Sometimes parking is tight and sometimes there's a line, but the guys who work there are efficient, always nice and friendly, and sometimes even festive. Which is more than I can say for the options in 96816:
- Waialae-Kahala Post Office, 4354 Pahoa Ave. Always busy. Often grumpy. Hours: Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:30pm, Sat 9:00am-3:00pm, Sun closed.
- Kaimuki Post Office, 1130 Koko Head Ave. Often busy. No sense of humor. Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00am-4:30pm, Sat-Sun closed.
- Kapahulu Safeway Postal Counter, 888 Kapahulu Ave. (inside Safeway). Slow, slow, slow. Accepts only cash and check. Hours: Mon-Fri 9:00am-4:30pm, Sat 9:00am-3:00pm, Sun closed.

The 96816 post office employees make you wonder what it is about mail that makes one so grumpy! Auwe! (96816 mail carriers, on the other hand, are usually quite nice. Must be because they get out of the office.)

Mo`ili`ili Post Office
2700 S King St Ste B
HONOLULU, HI 96826-3398

Hours: Mon-Fri, 9:30am-4:15pm, Sat-Sun closed

Ramen with creamy broth?!

There's been quite a bit of press lately about three relatively new ramen shops in town: Nihon Noodles on King Street in McCully, Goma Tei in Ward Center and Tenkaippin on Kapahulu. We tried Goma Tei over a year ago on a friend's recommendation and weren't impressed. (Maybe they were having an off day. We'll have to give them another chance and do a blog.) We tried Nihon Noodles' sampler trio a couple months ago. It was our first experience with broth made creamy from long, slow cooking, but we thought that, too, was a little bland and overrated. So, now it was time to try Tenkaippin.


We had to wait outside for a table to open up, but there was seating available and the wait was pretty short. Service was pretty quick, even considering we had two fussy children with us. (No, that's not me in the picture. I was behind the camera.) To keep you entertained, there is a really big flat-screen tv on the wall above the entrance to the kitchen and it plays Ultimate Japan, a TV series hosted by Tenkaippin owner Scott Suzui. The show reminds me of Soko Ga Shiritai, except it's hosted by a local boy instead of Japanese nationals.

The hubby and I both ordered ramen sets: his was miso ramen with fried rice, and mine was kotteri ramen with fried rice and gyoza. Pictured here is the miso ramen with the fried rice and gyoza.

Now before you start judging me as a woman who eats more than her man, I'll have you know that I was sharing my meal with my son...


The fried rice was okay. Not much flavor except sesame oil. It was served with shoga (shredded red ginger) on the side.


The gyoza, too, was okay. Nothing special. Three pieces, a little light on the stuffing, but the texture was good. The sauce selection helped: koteri, vinegar, chili paste, and a (raw) garlic chili paste.

But the broths were terrific!

The Kotteri Ramen broth was so thick it was like gravy, or like a butter and cream sauce with a little bit of grit, and it had a good, but unusual chicken flavor. Supposedly, women in Japan flock to the Tenkaippin ramen chain because the collagen in the broth is good for your joints, bones, and skin. The roast pork was kind of dry and not worth mentioning. The menma (bamboo shoots) were tasty. There were plenty of green onions.


Hubby liked his miso broth as well. It was topped with roast pork, bean sprouts and green onion.

The noodles seemed like plain old Sun Noodles you can buy at Costco, but with broths so tasty, you know you didn't come here for the quality of the noodles.

Sorry for the blurry pics and lack of menu and price information. My kids were fussy and I got totally distracted. I'll update the blog when I have a chance to go back.

Tenkaippin
617 Kapahulu Ave. (between Good Guys music shop and Papa Johns. Use the parking lot on Mooheau St.)
Honolulu, Hawaii 96815
ph 808.732.1211

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Be prepared: cash only!

Dim Sum at Happy Day

Some pregnant women crave chocolate, some crave pickles and ice cream. I craved dim sum. I've given birth two times over since then and the dim sum obsession remains. Fortunately, I live five minutes away from Happy Day on Waialae Ave.

Happy Day is a good, reliable, clean Chinese restaurant. (I only mention this because I've been to many a questionably clean Chinese restaurant that are good some days and inedible on others). It's a place that you won't be embarrassed to bring your guests. I've never been a pork chop fan, but their Salt & Pepper Porkchop is absolutely ono. They also make a finger-lickin'-good Black Bean Crab. But that is another blog...

It's amazing how much dim sum gets served in a single day at Happy Day. It's a fairly large restaurant, but it's not uncommon to see every table filled during lunch. Our perennial favorites include Half Moon ($2.68), Shrimp and Spinach ($2.68), Scallop Dumpling ($2.68), Mochi Rice (in leaf) ($3.25), Baked Char Siu Bao ($2.68), Taro Gok (deep fried taro with yummy pork filling) ($2.68), Pan-Fried Turnip Cake ($2.68), and Gin Dui ($2.68).


Siu Mai (aka Pork Hash). Has shrimp inside.


Shrimp and Spinach.


Shrimp Dumpling


Scallop Dumpling


Half Moon has Chinese parsley in it, which is a wonderful twist on the standard


Baked Char Siu Bao is sticky on the outside and has just enough dough to keep the pork inside. Meat in every bite.

PAKE TIP 1: Get 25% off your dim sum 8:00-11:30 AM if you do Take Out. Perfect for scoring brownie points with your co-workers. A discount and no need tip. What more could you ask for?

PAKE TIP 2: Happy Day also has dinner specials where you can try the Salt & Pepper Porkchop and Black Bean Crab (among others). Dinner for four is $63, for six is $84.

Happy Day Chinese Seafood Restaurant
3553 Waialae Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96816
ph 808.738.8666

Hours: 7 days a week 8am - 1030pm

Menu