La Pizza Rina on King St.

Tucked between Pho Mai and Sasabune on King Street (right after Keeaumoku), is a "'home-style' Italian" (their description from their menu) pizzaria where you can get tasty pizza with a slightly chewy and lightly crispy crust topped with a good amount of pizza sauce, cheese and toppings at a fair price. It sounds like what you'd expect from a pizza, but don't get often enough. They also serve a sandwich with bread so good you order an extra loaf just to eat by itself.

One night Grammy was jonesing for "Italian" food and wanted to try La Pizza Rina's offerings. I say "Italian" because we're Chinese and probably wouldn't know authentic Italian food if it came up and pinched our butts.

So everyone else had spaghetti and (two) meatballs ($7.75). It was on the salty side, but otherwise good. We smelled garlic when we came into the restaurant, but were quite underwhelmed with the garlic flavor in the dish.


The spaghetti plates came with a side of "garlic" bread which did not have garlic or butter...just some yellow spread with parsley flakes.

That was disappointing. 

But my pizza was not. It was everything I hoped it would be.


I had a small pizza with olives and mushrooms ($11.75). You know how some places when you order pizza, they put just enough of an ingredient to say it's there, but it's by no means enough for you to feel satisfied? Well, La Pizza Rina didn't skimp. They didn't go overboard, but there was a good amount of everything. Mmmmmmm. I recommend eating the pizza in the restaurant (as opposed to take out). In the restaurant, the crust was nicely crispy. When we ordered it to go, the hot pizza caused the box and the crust to get soggy.

It was pretty big.  I took half of it home. The leftovers were not soggy like the hot pizza that went straight into the box. I thoroughly enjoyed pizza for breakfast the next day.

Now, about the sandwiches...  As you've probably noticed if you've been following my blog for a while, I'm often so excited to tear into my food that I forget to take a picture. I've eaten a number of La Pizza Rina sandwiches in my lifetime and I have no photographic proof :(  We've tried the Turkey & Cheese ($5.35 for the 6-inch, $7.55 for the footlong), Roast Beef and Provolone Cheese (same price), and La Pizza Rina Super Sub (same price). The bread, baked fresh by Daily Bread, is ono that I have actually ordered extra bread to eat by itself later. The fixings here are okay--your standard shredded lettuce, tomato, and onion with meat from a package of sandwich meat--but they give you a packet of Best Foods Mayo (in my opinion, the best mayo for almost anything but a diet) and a container of dressing. The dressing is what makes this sandwich special. I don't know if it's much more than something like Good Season's dressing, but it sets their sandwiches apart from others. The prices used to be really good, but, like everything these days, the price went up. So, it's about 50% more than Subway's $5 footlong special. I really liked the Super Sub (Ham, Salami, Capicola, Pepperoni and Cheese). Try it and let me know what you think.

The place has about nine tables, half of them filled when we showed up and it became totally packed and had people waiting for takeout while we dined.

La Pizza Rina
1425 South King Stret
Ph: 808.941.6634

Hours: Monday-Saturday 11:00 am - 2:30 pm, 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm, Sunday 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Asahi Grill family dining

We frequently go out to dinner with my mom. She prefers a casual, down-home atmosphere to anything fancy and pretentious. BYOB is a plus for her. So the first time I went to Asahi Grill, I knew she'd like it.

Asahi Grill is on Ward Avenue where there used to be a Burger King once upon a time. It's next to the Kanai Tofu Factory.



They have a some of Kapiolani Coffee Shop's recipes -- most notably, the award-winning Oxtail Soup (small $9.75, regular $11.95).

This one is the small, but it was pretty big. The flavor was good. Be forewarned, it was liberally sprinkled with chinese parsley. We like chinese parsley, so it wasn't a problem for us, though. We only wish they would've used meatier oxtails.

Kids seem to like the Fried rice (small $4.75, regular $6.25) with egg (costs extra), another Kapiolani recipe.

To me, the Fried Rice is just okay. There's lots of chopped mystery meat in there (in other words, I couldn't figure out what the meat was) and no real vegetables (like peas or carrots) to speak of. Maybe that's why the kids like it?

My mom liked the Chop Steak ($7.75). She said it had a teriyaki (shoyu with sugar) sauce on it. The day I had it, it was super salty. Almost inedible, it was so salty. I think they must have put salt instead of sugar :( and the onions were so raw I had onion breath for a day or two.


  

The Hamburger Steak ($8.25) is an 8 oz homemade hamburger patty with grilled onions, topped with gravy, served plate-lunch style (2 scoops rice and mac salad).  We thought it was only so-so. Kind of bland, tasted better with salt.

I like their Teishoku. I've had the Salmon ($11.75) before, but this time I had the Chicken Teriyaki ($9.50).

There are three chicken thighs, miso soup with noodles, pickles, tofu, salad, rice and mac salad.

I always thought Donburi was a bowl of rice with stuff on top with a runny egg over all, so I never order it. Hubby ordered the Spicy Ahi Don. No runny egg here! It was the sweet rolled up egg they put on sushi. In fact, the whole dish was like a huge handroll sushi without the seaweed wrapper: sushi rice, avocado, cucumber, sweet egg, ahi, tobiko and spicy mayo dressing.

There are always quite a few tables with kids at Asahi Grill. They also serve breakfast all day.

Asahi Grill

515 Ward Avenue

Honolulu, HI

Ph 808.593.2800

Hours: Sunday - Thursday 6:30 am - 10:00 pm, Friday-Saturday 6:30 am - 11:00 pm

Yo-yo-yogurtland on University

Dont' ask me why I named this entry that since I think Randy Jackson sounds so wannabe cool when he says "yo yo yo, dog." Anyhoo... One of our favorite family treats these days is going to Yogurtland (or "Logurtland" as my three-year would say) across from the University of Hawaii Architecture building (kitty-corner from Sinclair Library and where Burger King used to be, for you old-school-types). It's not cheap ($0.39/oz), but it's pretty healthy and the variety keeps it entertaining.

This is a lousy picture but I'm usually operating a vehicle when we're near it during the day and drive-by shootings just aren't my thing.



Inside, the shop is bright and cheery.

Frozen yogurt bars have been on the mainland for a while, but they're kind of a novelty here, so they definitely needed some explanatory signage to familiarize us backward island folk how to do this "new-fangled" dessert thing.


Basically, it's take a cup, fill it with yogurt since it's low in calories, put toppings on, DO NOT EAT BEFORE YOU PAY, put it on the scale, brace yourself for shock, then hand over your firstborn.



Oh yeah, and don't get caught taking pictures! They're prohibited. Oops. Can't read, sorry :(

I tried a smidgen of almost all of the flavors one night (and forgot to take pictures) and it cost $4-something. I decided that my favorite flavors were plain, taro and green tea. Hubby likes taro. The plain kind of reminds me of the flavor of Yami Yogurt. The taro is vaguely reminiscent of the taro jelly pods, but tastier. My son usually chooses the tart flavors, but I'm not sure that he knows what he's asking for. This time he chose tart blueberry and cookies and cream. The tart flavors are definitely tart. The cookies and cream was kind of lame. Nothing like cookies and cream ice cream where it really tastes like Oreo cookies in sweet, milky cream.



Here's Hubby's taro with cheesecake topping:


Here's my plain and taro with cheesecake topping:


Can you tell who used to work at TCBY in high school?

We also tried Menchie's (frozen yogurt shop similar to this) which just opened recently at Ward Warehouse, across from Ward Theaters, in a space that used to be part of the Executive Chef. I'd say the flavors at Menchie's are brighter and more vibrant, and the taro is less salty, but at $0.43/oz for Menchie's, Yogurtland is totally good enough for me.

University of Hawaii at Manoa Yogurtland
1810 University Avenue (in the Atherton YMCA building)
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Ph 808.951.4444

Hours: Daily 9 am - 10 pm

Morning meeting at Ala Moana

I was at the mall early one day waiting for Nordstrom to open and found a great spot for a morning meeting.



Most stores don't open until ten, so you have the place pretty much to yourselves except for the seniors doing their morning exercise and the few others that are waiting for the mall to open. This spot is on the "Nordstrom wing" and there is a coffee bar/shop open early on the wing, so if you need a fix, you can get one.

You have your choice of chairs and tables with or without umbrellas, seats with coffee tables, and secluded chairs with coffee tables.



The Nordstrom coffee kiosk opens shortly before the store.

General Growth Properties may be on the verge of bankruptcy, but they sure made Ala Moana a place I like go to, even if it's just to hang out.

Nordstrom Cafe: take two and three

Like my Anniversary present?

Ha! I wish. That was just one of the fun things to play with at Nordstrom Ala Moana. It was actually a key fob.

I've been back to Nordstrom two more times since the first blog entry. And I've taken lots of photos.

Here is the entrance before rush hour:


Here's the entrance when it's starting to get busy:


Every time I've had to stand in line, there was a server handing out samples and menus while we waited.

This is what it looks like inside:


Salads




Pizza, pasta, and sandwiches


Hot entrees


And desserts


(If you want to see a larger version of a photo, just click on it and you will be taken to a page where you can magnify the picture.)

When I had lunch with a friend, she ordered the Mushroom Ravioli and I ordered the Salmon with Roasted Vegetables.

The Ravioli was creamy and delicious. My friend, however, felt a little ill towards the end of her meal because it was so rich.


The salmon was done perfectly...just cooked all the way through and moist and tender. Mmmm! The vegetables were also done very well. I ate every single morsel.

And since I had the Red Velvet cake the past two times I came here, and since the sample they gave us at the door was so enticing, we ordered a slice of Turtle Cake, aptly named for the tender flakes of turtle meat in the chocolate frosting. Just kidding, it's named after a candy that was popular a few generations ago that had chocolate, caramel and pecans. The chocolate cake was heavy and moist, but not dense like a truffle. I don't know what the filling was, but it was very yummy and not too sweet.


When I went to dinner with the hubby I had the Braised Shortribs with Mushroom Risotto. OMG! It was absolutely delish! Not quite as tender as I've ever had it (it wasn't falling off the bone), but the flavor was intense. Nice and beefy in a wine reduction. Mixed mushrooms in the risotto. I was literally "mmmm-ing" through the whole meal.


On my recommendation, the hubby got the salmon. Unfortunately, it was overdone. Kinda dry, a little tough. Not as tasty as last time. Bummer.


Not that you've never seen this before, but since we took pictures... Here is the Ginger Ale and bottomless Plantation Iced Tea. You could actually taste the tea in this iced tea. The servers come back around and refill your glass.


Address, hours and menu are on the previous Nordstrom entry.

Vietnamese summer rolls

This post isn't about a restaurant to go to. Nor is it a recipe. I guess it's essentially a shopping list and instructions in pictures. If you've ever gone to Chinatown and didn't know what to buy, or tried to make this based on written instructions alone, this post is for you.

Here are wrappers and noodles. There are thinner noodles available. These are pretty thick. (Sorry, I used up all my thin noodles and didn't have any left to take a picture.)


I prefer this brand of spring roll wrapper in the plastic container (as opposed to the plastic bag), because the sheets are less likely to be cracked. Cracked sheets make for an exercise in frustration.

I usually make these with shrimp boiled in salt water, but I didn't have any shrimp this day, so I fried some ground pork with chili garlic sauce and oyster sauce. (I would have just used garlic and oyster sauce, but was also out of garlic. That's okay, it came out good anyway.)


The other ingredients are from my garden (clockwise from top left): chinese parsley, green onions, mint, and basil. I also included lettuce and shredded carrots which were not from my garden and not pictured.


Pass the wrapper under warm water and put on a surface that it doesn't stick to. Just pass the wrapper under the water and put it down while it's still a little stiff. (If you water it until it's soft, it will be impossible to work with. If it's too stiff when you're finished, you can always dampen it with more water.) Then arrange all the ingredients inside.


Fold the sides in.


Roll as tightly as possible without ripping. I know, easier said than done, but with practice, you'll figure out how to do this. A lot of it has to do with wetting the wrapper just right, rather than your rolling technique.


The sauce pictured here is actually for the fried spring roll, but we like this one better than the peanut-y one, so here it is. Like I said, this isn't a recipe, but it's basically sugar, fish sauce, vinegar (or something sour to contrast like calamansi) and the hot garlic sauce. And voila... vietnamese summer rolls.


Thank you to my step-mother Oanh for teaching me how to make these and what to buy in Chinatown.

Store-bought ice cream worth buying

As you may have read in a previous post, I was thoroughly disappointed with the quality of Dreyer's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Loaded ice cream.  I ranted about how The Man is sticking it to us by resizing the standard half-gallon to 1.5 quarts (that's a 25% reduction).  I had all but lost faith in non-premium ice cream when the hubby brought this one home.

Lovin' Scoopful... the name says it all. Had I not read the container, I never would have guessed that this was a light ice cream. It was -- dare I say -- satisfying. Not quite a half-gallon, but 1/8 less is better than 1/4 less.



If I didn't want it to be true, I wouldn't believe the way their numbers stacked up to Dreyer's. Lovin' Scoopful is first.



Thank you, Lovin' Scoopful. You rock!