Hawaii Journal Day 3: Pork and Coffee

Day 3: Tuesday

Breakfast: Diamond Head Market and Grill



Diamond Head Market & Grill has been around for a while, but I never got around to it on previous visits. It came highly recommended and lived up to they hype.

The Market and Grill are two adjacent but distinct establishments. The Market sells pastries, sandwiches and other such items, while the Grill cooks up hot food.

Still on our California schedule, we arrived at 6:30am, when the Market had just opened but a half hour before the Grill was up and running, all the better to try a bit of everything.

We started at the Market with a fluffy buttermilk biscuit and a blueberry cream cheese scone. The biscuit was great, fluffy and flaky with a nice buttery/salty flavor, but the scone was TO-DIE-FOR. Crisp on the outside, smooth, creamy and slightly tangy on the inside (courtesy, no doubt, of the cream cheese), it was almost a muffin/scone hybrid: muffin moistness (though not muffin denseness) with scone flavor. Had I not been waiting for the Grill, I would have ordered five or six of these and called it a morning.



At the Grill, I ordered that venerable island specialty, loco moco. Loco moco is a breakfast grease-fat bomb if there ever was one: a large serving of rice (the Grill offers white or brown) topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg and oceans of the traditional, viscous brown sauce. The Grill's version, pictured above, was perfect. The home-ground hamburger had a nice char, the sauce was nicely salty and not too viscous and the whole thing came together perfectly.

The highlight of the Grill though was another dish: the pork hash patty. Made from slow roasted pork, the hash, mixed with potato, garlic and other spices, is formed into a patty and fried. It's served, a la loco moco, on rice with brown sauce. The combination of pork, salt, garlic and sauce put me into greasy breakfast heaven.

This place is definitely a keeper and will go on the permanent list.


Diamond Head Market and Grill
3158 Monsarrat Ave.
Honolulu, HI
(808)732-0077


Coffee Break: Honolulu Coffee Co.

Despite the fact that Hawaii is the only state in the US that actually grows coffee, for many years, the coffee culture of Hawaii consisted of little more than trying to fleece tourists into buying "Kona Coffee" for $30 per pound. Maybe it was Kona, maybe it wasn't, but even if it was, the Kona coffee reputation was always better than the actual coffee.

That changed in the '90s with the advent of the Honolulu Coffee Company, a real coffee bar for Hawaii. Yes, HCC will charge you $50 for a pound of their Kona Peaberry, but they will also brew up an exquisite espresso, dark and smoky, lacking acidity and thick with crema, just the way I like 'em.

They have various locations, including Ala Moana shopping center and a number of Waikiki hotels.


Lunch: Kua 'Aina Sandwich Shop

The Kua 'Aina Sandwich Shop is a North Shore institution which has been serving up burgers and fries to hungry big wave surfers for over 20 years. I've always been a fan of the North Shore branch, but it's near impossible to get in for lunch without a long wait, so I was thrilled when they opened a South Shore branch at the Ward Centre shopping district in the Kaka'ako neighborhood.

I've had good burgers at this branch, but today, my burger was lackluster, an overdone and limp patty. Perhaps it just paled in comparison to my breakfast patty at Diamond Head Grill, (Ah, Hawaii, a place where you can eat hamburger three meals a day), but I was disappointed. The skinny, crisp little fries, however, were as good as ever.

Kua 'Aina Sandwich Shop
Ward Village Shops
1116 Auahi Street
Honolulu, HI
(808) 591-9133


Dinner: Assorted Island Fruit

Okay, after two and one half days of gorging on pork and gravy, I'm feeling a bit bloated, so we're going to chill out this evening, warm up some left overs, and enjoy some of the Island's great produce.

I stopped by one of Honolulu's great farmers' markets and picked up mangoes, papayas, pineapple and Okinawan sweet potatoes, which have a beautiful and sweet dark blue flesh.

We also picked up some great fruit at the farmers' market-like stand, Island Fresh Produce, on 9th Street at Waialae (look for the sign for 9th Street Flowers). There we found amazing mangoes, apple-bananas (cute, little bananas with a bit more acid and flavor than the one's we are used to), papayas, pineapples and wide assortment of Asian vegetables.

Lastly, I picked up some Waimanalo grown Nalo Greens for a nice salad. Nalo Greens are available at many area natural and gourmet stores.

Tomorrow: Ono Hawaiian and Chinatown

Whiskey Wednesday: Born in the USA Part 2 - I Don't Dig You Jack

Jack Daniels, the powerhouse of American whiskey, has not fared well in my tastings. In the Tennessee Smackdown I was unimpressed with both Old Number 7 and the too sweet Gentleman Jack. Well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, so I ended up with the final version of Jack's regular expressions: Jack Daniel's Single Barrel.

A single barrel expression, as you will recall, means the contents come from a single cask of whiskey. However, in a non-cask strength version, such as this, the contents are diluted with water prior to bottling.

Will a single barrel Jack taste better? Let's find out.

Tasting

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, 47% alcohol, (owned by Brown-Forman), $40-50.

The nose is somewhat understated with some corn sweetness and alcohol.
On sipping, there is that explosion of traditional Jack syrupy sweetness. It's a light, sweet whiskey, very much in the JD tradition.

In sum: It tastes like alcoholic corn syrup.

Sorry, but, in the words of the old blues song, "I don't dig you, Jack."

Hawaii Journal Day 2: Pork and Doughnuts

Day 2: Monday

Breakfast: Leonard's Bakery of Quality

Among the earliest European settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were the Portuguese, who came in the mid to late nineteenth century. Their culinary legacy survives primarily in two forms. One is the ubiquitous breakfast sausage linguica, which you can even find on the breakfast menu at local McDonalds. The other is the malassada (alt. spelling malasada), a puffy, spherical doughnut served warm and dusted with sugar. Leonard's is probably the most popular malassada bakery. A few years ago I did a side by side comparison with their nearby rival Champion Malasadas. Leonard's have a nice chewy texture where the Champion are more cake-like; I prefer Leonard's, but it's a different style. (Later in the trip, I'll try to make it to Agnes' Portuguese Bake Shop in Kailua, which makes my very favorite of all malassadas). So, grab a dozen of these and munch them down while warm. Would you expect anything less than greatness from a "Bakery of Quality"?


Leonard's Bakery of Quality
933 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, HI 96816
(808)737-5591


Lunch: Keneke's



Waimanalo is an economically depressed little town set against one of the world's most gorgeous backdrops. It is sandwiched between some of Hawaii's most beautiful beaches and the sheer, majestic, ridged mountains which rise up behind it. Since the mid-1980s, Keneke's Waimanalo lunch stand has been doling out some of the best plate lunch in the Island. Plate lunch, of course, is the fast food staple of Hawaii, the combination of one to three greasy or fried meats or sides with an ice cream scooper full of rice and another of macaroni salad.

Keneke's is aggressively Christian, complete with bible verses scribbled on the wall, Jesus fish, psalms on the cups and posters touting their very successful Fear God Powerlifting Team sharing wall-space with anti-meth slogans. They clearly have a sense of humor about it with their slogan, "Divine Grinds."

I've been going to Keneke's for many years. I've had Kalua pig there, the salty luau style shredded pork similar to a non-fried version of carnitas, that is among the best I've had anywhere. Today, though, the Kalua pig wasn't as good as the pork adobo, the garlicky Filipino pork dish. The adobo has the feel of one of those age-old, passed down recipes, perfectly spiced, succulent and juicy. Also excellent was the lau lau, the traditional Hawaiian dish of pork wrapped in taro leaves, bundled inside of ti leaves like a Hawaiian tamale. The pork emerges tender and juicy and flavors the Taro leaves which come out with the texture and taste of a slightly bitter version of spinach. Lest you think they are a pork-only type of establishment, they make an excellent shoyu chicken and a good fried mahi mahi.



Take your plate lunch and continue a mile or so up the coast to Waimanalo Bay Beach Park (not to be confused with the more residential Waimanalo Beach Park) to enjoy your pork products on one of Oahu's most amazing beaches.



Keneke's
41-857 Kalanianaole Highway
Waimanalo, HI 96795
(808) 259-9804


Dessert: Waiola Bakery & Shave Ice



There are few desserts I enjoy more than Hawaiian style shave ice. Served in a cup or paper cone, it misleads people into thinking it's a snow cone, but it is so much more. Instead of the unpleasant icy crunch, it has the melt in your mouth quality of fresh snow, doused in sweet syrup foisted on a scoop of ice cream and sweet, black azuki beans. I'll take it any day over any snow cone, and enjoy the Hawaiian style more than the Korean bingsu I can get at home.

There is a strong disagreement in our family about the best shave ice on the islands. I give the edge to Matsumoto's or one of the other excellent North Shore purveyors, whereas my significant other holds that Waiola is the best.

Waiola, located on Kapahulu, just up from the zoo, makes a very fine ice, smoother than Northshore ice, and it has some of the best syrups around. The lilikoi (passionfruit) is tart, the lychee is specked with fruit pulp and the strawberries with cream is divine. But my favorite part of a shave ice is after you've eaten the top layer, and the bottom combines with the melted ice cream and beans to make a flavored sweet bean milkshake. This is where the North Shore excels. The chewy, not sufficiently sweet beans are Waiola's downfall, making the shake less than it should be. Still, the ice and the flavors are the best, and it's a whole lot closer to us than Matsumoto's.

Waiola Bakery & Shave Ice II
525 Kapahulu Avenue
Honolulu, HI
(808)735-8886


Dinner: Mekong II

The first place I ever had Thai food, in the early 1980s, was Keo's in Honolulu. The same Lao family that owns the now several Keo's had first opened the more modest but similar Mekong and Mekong II. The Thai offerings, largely unchanged since the '80s, are pretty tame by today's standards. Overall, I felt that Mekong had dropped a notch on this trip. Someone who eats regularly in LA's Thai Town will be unimpressed by the noodle dishes and the papaya salad which used to be quite good but seemed lackluster. The crispy, rice paper spring rolls, once a favorite, seemed a bit over fried and came with a much smaller medley of vegetable condiments than previously. Still excellent, however, are the curries made with island fresh coconut. It is something you simply can't replicate in LA or any other place that doesn't grow fresh coconut. The thick, creamy mouthfeel, the ability to temper spicier ingredients and that pure, rich coconut flavor makes you understand what Thai curry is all about. I'm hoping my experience at Mekong this year represents only an unfortunate blip and not a more serious decline, but if nothing else, we'll always have coconut curry.

Mekong
1295 S. Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96814
(808) 591-8841

Mekong II
1726 S. King Street
Honolulu, HI
(818) 941-6184

Tomorrow: Loco Moco, Burgers, Scones-To-Die-For, and Tropical Fruit

Vacation Time: Hawaii Journal Day 1

Sku is on vacation in Hawaii!!

This year marks the 30th anniversary of my first visit to the islands, and since then, it's been a regular vacation spot for me. I've learned to love the beauty of the place and of course, its spectacular food. Hawaii, and Oahu (my most common vacation spot) in particular, has all the makings of a great food destination. There is a dedicated Hawaiian food culture, with a growing haute cuisine scene and a veritable ocean of cheap hole-in-the-wall places offering excellent food, from the many neighborhood okazuyas (Hawaiian style delis) to Japanese ramen joints, to that island staple of starch and grease, the plate lunch. Part of the genesis of the local food is the uniquely Hawaiian mix of cultures and ethnicities. The sheer number of different ethnic groups that have influenced Hawaiian cuisine and more importantly, the mixing of those groups, is unparalleled anywhere in the US. (The state has no ethnic majority). Add to all of that a bounty of fresh tropical ingredients and you have the makings of not just a paradise, but a food lover's paradise.

Hawaii is crawling with food lovers, people who make it their business to know every hole in the wall ramen shop and have an opinion about every sushi bar or plate lunch shop. Indeed, none other than Hawaiian born and raised Barack Obama, whose visit overlapped with my own, reinforced this in his comments to the home town crowd:

I'm going to get a plate lunch. I might go to Zippy's. I might go to Rainbow Drive-In. I haven't decided yet. Get some Zip Min. I'm going to go get some shave ice.

Like many of my food loving brethren, and apparently the next President of the United States as well, my vacations consist of a detailed itinerary of meals and snacks with other activities designed to wile away the hours between those meals. (Did you know they have nice beaches here?) As I said, I've been coming here for a long time, so I have a long list of favorites I like to revisit (though there is no way to hit all the favorites in a single trip), but I am always interested in finding anything new and exciting. This trip, I have a one year old in tow, so you won't see any fancy schmancy Alan Wong or Chef Mavro. This year we will exclusively focus on the wonderful casual eateries that make up the bulk of island food culture and some of the best food anywhere.

My home base is a condo on the east end of Waikiki next to the zoo, and from there, I will journey outward to the diners of Kalihi, to the shrimp trucks of Haleiwa and beyond.

Since this is my first trip to Hawaii as a blogger, I decided that the best way to relay the full culinary experience will be through a simple food journal that will track my daily eats (Sku's Very Recent Eats? Sku's Nearly Contemporaneous Eats?). So, for the next couple of weeks, we will change format a bit, and I will post my latest Hawaii daily journal each week day through the end of my trip (except on Wednesday which will continue to be our regular Whiskey Wednesday).

Join me, won't you?


Day 1: Sunday

Breakfast: Eggs 'n Things

This is one of the only Waikiki joints I eat at, but it's worth it. In a town which takes its pancakes seriously and has numerous neighborhood joints flipping up great flapjacks, Eggs 'n Things is my favorite. Open from 11:00 pm until 2:00 pm, Eggs 'n Things has a nearly impenetrable crowd during the regular breakfast rush, but it's a perfect place for a mainlander like me to go on the first morning of my vacation, when I'm jet-lagged and up looking for breakfast at 5:30 Hawaiian daylight time (8:30 PDT). Joining a mix of Japanese partiers winding down, night shift workers just coming off and...jet lagged Americans and Europeans, I sit down to gobble up the greatest macadamia nut pancakes ever. Big, fluffy disks with mac nuts both baked in and sprinkled on top, along with a big scoop of butter, and powdered sugar, these are the pancakes I dream about. Adding coconut syrup, which is one of six syrups on the table, turns these from just great to transcendent, from the stuff of dreams to the stuff of revelations. I start my meal off with a fresh pineapple juice (which is harder to find than you might think in Hawaii). Eggs 'n Things has other good dishes as well. The French toast made from Portuguese pao doce (sweet bread) is lovely with their homemade, zesty orange syrup. But I only know that from tasting dining companions' dishes, every time I visit, I must have those pancakes.

Eggs 'n Things
1911- B Kalakaua Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96815
(808)949-0820


Lunch: Gina's B-B-Q

What would cause someone who lives amongst the largest population of Koreans outside of Korea to go for Korean on the first day of vacation? The answer is Gina's awesome barbecued ika (squid). Gina's is a little take-out joint in a strip mall anchored by a Foodland grocery store at the top end of Kapahulu. It's really an adaptation of traditional Korean food to the traditional Hawaiian plate lunch which features several meat dishes with two ice cream scooper servings of rice and and one of macaroni salad (more on plate lunch in my later posts). Gina's cooks up all the Korean favorites: kalbi, bulgogi and lots of panchan which you order as sides, but my favorite is the barbecued ika. It's a whole squid, about 6 to 8 inches long, head on and all, coated with the traditional Korean chili paste and barbecued to perfection. The texture is both tender and chewy, the head is slick, the body hearty, the tentacles trap the sauce between their lovely little suction cups. If you love squid, you must visit.

Gina's BBQ
2919 Kapiolani Boulevard
Honolulu, HI


Dinner: Poke from Tamura's Fine Wine & Liquors



Poke [PO-kay] is a Hawaiian snack food staple. The traditional dish consists of raw pieces of ahi with onion soaked in a simple marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil and other spices, but there are all manner of variations. It's traditionally eaten as an appetizer or snack with beer, and is appropriate for any backyard picnic or big game. Tamura's is a great little wine shop and gourmet store which carries all manner of island products, a decent selection of single malts and even a gourmet cheese selection (it's one of the only places in Hawaii I've seen Epoisse), but the central attraction for me is poke, and have they got poke. Tamura's offers mussel, salmon, shrimp, mackeral and approximately 8 million varieties of ahi poke. I love the garlic shrimp poke, but my favorite remains the traditional shoyu (soy sauce) poke. Raw fish, onions, sesame oil, soy sauce, what could be simpler? Add a mediocre Hawaiian microbrew and you've got a fitting end to a great first day.

Tamura's Fine Wine & Liquors
1216 10TH Ave
Honolulu, HI 96816
(808) 735-7100

Tomorrow: Malasadas, Plate Lunch in a Beautiful Setting, Thai Curries and Shave Ice

Guilty Friday: Guilty Pleasures

We all have them, things we know, as a rational matter, we should detest but that we secretly love. Things we sneak away to eat where no one will see us. Food and drink that would compromise our very credibility as a foodie/chowhound type. Maybe for you it's the Shamrock Shake or Moon Pies or Girl Scout cookies. Here are a few of mine:


Starbucks Strawberry & Cream Frappuccino

An airport staple for me, this artificially flavored strawberry and whipped cream monstrosity is the perfect not-quite-as-indulgent-as-a-milkshake treat for me when waiting for the next leg of my flight to wherever.

In truth, I'm a sucker for artificially-flavored strawberry drinks. I love Monin strawberry syrup as well as Strawberry Crush.


Coldstone Creamery

High butterfat ice cream mixed with stuff...what's not to like? I go for sweet cream with Oreos and fudge sauce. It's not Scoops or Fossleman's or Helados Pops, but it beats Baskin Robbin's by a mile.

And note to Coldstone, making your servers sing everytime they get a tip is not only annoying, it actually discourages tipping as a result of its annoyingness. Give your servers a break and some dignity and let them receive their tips in peace.


Lipton Onion Dip

I don't watch football at all, but I have a Super Bowl party every year just so I can pour a packet of Lipton onion soup powder into a carton of sour cream and dip the heck out of it with some Ruffles. MMmmm...salty.


Movie Theater Popcorn with Artificial Butter

Is there anything that tastes as good as a giant bucket of yellow popcorn topped with nearly a cup of golden liquid butter-stuff? It's the perfect amalgam of salt and grease, and the only rule is that it must be finished before the movie starts.

Phew, I'm glad to get that off my chest. What are your guilty pleasures?

Whiskey Wednesday: Born in the USA Part 1- Stagg Party

For August, and maybe even into September, we move back to the USA for a series on American whiskies. As team USA battles for Olympic gold, we will review a slew of Bourbons as well as a few other American offerings.

The first whiskey post I ever did on Recent Eats was about Bourbon and, more specifically, the great Bourbons available from Buffalo Trace, one of the most innovative and high quality whiskey distilleries in the world.

The piece de resistance of the Buffalo Trace line is the renowned George T. Stagg, a Bourbon that whiskey lovers throughout the world covet. The only thing higher than Stagg's ratings is its alcohol content. The bottle I reviewed last year was the 2005 version which weighed in at a hefty 65.9% alcohol. I thought that version was overly alcoholic, but the 2007 bottling, nicknamed the hazmat, is a startling 72.4%.

The 2005 was a bit much for me back then, and I complained about the lack of integration of flavors with the high alcohol content. Interestingly, I like this even higher alcohol version better, but it may be because I am adding more water to it (you just can't drink it straight at 72.4%) than I proportionally added to the earlier Stagg.

I'm out of the earlier Stagg so I can't do a side by side, so it's hard to tell whether the difference is in me or the liquor. This illustrates one of the inherent flaws in whiskey ratings (and is one of the reasons I don't "score" whiskies). If you aren't tasting samples side by side, the only thing you have to go on in determining whether any given whiskey is better than the next is your memory. While you may have a good memory, or even use written notes to remind you, comparing a live sample to a remembered one from months or years back is iffy at best. So, notwithstanding my statement above, I'll try to avoid direct comparisons and just review this whiskey for what it is. Let's call this the post-structuralist theory of tasting...we will analyze only within the text of the whiskey itself. (I believe it was Roland Barthes who said, "The death of the distiller is the birth of the drinker" or something like that).

Tasting

George T. Stagg, Limited Edition Barrel Proof (Buffalo Trace) 72.4% abv, approx. $55.

Nose is beautiful and Bourbony with smoke and Cognac and wood paneling from an old library; adding water leads to the detection of anise notes deep down. Flavor starts sweet, then you get the oak and corn and faint rye, some smoke and back to sweet on the finish.

Stagg is, as almost everyone agrees, a great whiskey and one I keep coming back to. It has a complexity that is beyond most of its peers and a flavor that just keeps giving. It only comes out once per year and gets snatched up pretty quickly, so you've got to be on your toes to get some. Locally, it's appeared at K&L in Hollywood and Wine House in West LA.

Lebanese Head to Head: Marouch vs. Carnival

When it comes to Middle Eastern food, LA does pretty well between the Persian food of Westwood and the wide variety of Armenian from Hollywood to Glendale, but I'm a particular fan of our two Lebanese giants: LA's Marouchon Santa Monica Boulevard and the Valley's Carnival. I took them head to head, and we'll see who comes out on top.

Hummous: Tie. Both do excellent hummous. Carnival's is thicker and has more chick pea flavor. Marouch's is thinner with more spice flavor.

Fried Kebbeh: Marouch. Both have versions of the little, football shaped, fried sausage balls. Carnival's kebbeh is a bit bland. Marouch's is stand-out with good spice and nice texture.

Falafel: Carnival by a mile. Carnival has what may be the best falafel in LA. Crisp on the outside, moist on the inside, tasting of garlic, parsley and sesame...they are as perfect as falafel can be. Marouch's leaden balls pale in comparison.

Fool Mudamas: Tie. Both serve a good dish of pureed fava beans. As with most dishes, Marouch's version has more spice (heavy garlic, in this case) but both are tasty.

Mezze: Marouch. Carnival doesn't really have much in the way of mezze, just a little appetizer combination, whereas this is a huge strength of Marouch, which offers varying sizes. Two of my favorite mezze dishes at Marouch aren't even available at Carnival: the crispy cheese turnovers, crispy fried dough stuffed with a white cheese and Marouch's delectable mouhamara (a puree of peppers and walnuts), possibly my favorite dish at either establishment.

Baklava: None. Sorry, neither of these giants excel in the dessert range. Both offer a competent but unexciting baklava.

Overall, both restaurants have their strengths. The big mezzes at Marouch are superb, while Carnival rules the roost with its falafel. Just go somewhere else for dessert.


Marouch
4905 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 662-9325

Carnival
4356 Woodman Ave
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
(818) 784-3469