Shopping centre eats in Honolulu

Holidays, shopping and eating - another fantastic day. I'm particularly excited about lunch this day as we're planning to go to the casual dining restaurant by the guy who has the restaurant that is consistently voted the best in Hawaii. The fact that it's located within a department store doesn't hurt either.

We have a fun trolley bus ride to the shopping mall on a dismal day - perfect shopping and dining weather. The mall is packed with designer names as well as plenty of American chain stores and department stores. I get excited at the sight of Gap, Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch and other American mainstays and try very hard to not think about the exchange rate.

But lunch is the feature event of the day so we happily enter the womenswear department at Macy's and seek out the Pineapple Room by Alan Wong. It's a light-filled room of white tablecloths and linen napkins, but manages to maintain a casual, approachable feel, probably helped by the racks of glitzy dresses and print shirts right nearby. There's a complete mix of patrons: shoppers on a break, ladies who lunch, tourists, business lunches and meetings.

It's a small menu (thank you!) consisting of a handful of dishes in small plate, large plate, sandwiches and entree categories. I hadn't known this beforehand but entrees in North America actually refer to main meals, not the course preceding the main as we know it. Anyway, there are many dishes I want to try from this concise menu, which has the feel of someone who knows what they want to serve you. With such menu choices, I'm happy with that. We're started with complimentary garlic and onion foccacia with chilli aioli while we make our menu choices.

Chilli aioli and garlic & onion foccacia from the Pineapple Room
by Alan Wong (Ala Moana Center, Honolulu)

The foccacia is warm and fresh, soft with a definite flavour of garlic. The chilli aioli is a delight, thick and creamy with just a hint of the chilli kick. The foccacia doesn't last long. There's a number of Hawaiian specialties on the menu, most with a modern twist. I spy a salad on a nearby table that makes me change my order at the last minute, and boy am I glad I did.

Calamari somen salad with mixed greens

Visually it's a sight to behold, with an array of colours and shapes attacking the senses. It looks like a work of art but a temptingly scrumptious one. The green leaves in the middle, along with a few colourful flower petals, cover a neat pile of somen noodles, similar to vermicelli. Scattered around the centre pile are deep fried squid pieces in something like a salt and pepper batter. There's a few prawn crackers and a small bowl of an Asian-style vinaigrette, similar to the dipping sauce used for Vietnamese rice paper rolls.

The squid is well seasoned, needing not a drop of dressing which I've poured all over the greens and noodles. The somen is bland on its own but takes on the flavour of the dressing well, and the greens are crisp perfection. It's one of the best salads I've ever had at this point and I don't leave a scrap on the plate.

My fellow diner is still in the grips of a love affair with kalua pig and has ordered a Hawaiian twist on a BLT sandwich.

Kalua pig BLT with half Caesar salad

I didn't taste this sandwich, which was filled with tender, smokey kalua pig in addition to bacon, but I'm told that it was heavy given the thick toasted bun. I'm still in a rhapsody from my salad and not too keen to potentially affect this mood with anything but my fellow diner insists, so we share a mini sized dessert.

Haupia tapioca 'halo halo'

Looking a lot like an ice kacang, our dessert arrives in a little glass tumbler bursting with colours and ingredients. Banana, orange, a couple of berries, a cube of coconut pudding or haupia, and some other jellies sit atop sweetened coconut-flavoured shave ice. The layer beneath the ice is red bean and sweet corn kernels and the final bottom layer is coconut flavoured tapioca or sago. It's a nice, refreshing mix although the fruit is overpowered by the sweetness of the other ingredients. Nonetheless, a light way to end the meal and for a change we're not stuffed to the gills.

Now here insert about five hours of shopping and we've again reached a point of needing and wanting to eat. It's a vicious but fun cycle. And it probably won't get more fun than this next eating experience.

Bubba Gump Shrimp Company (Ala Moana Center, Honolulu)

Made an almost household name by Tom Hanks, I'm excited to go to Bubba Gump's for reasons beyond just the culinary. And I'm also hanging for some shrimp especially as my travelling companion refuses to let me go to the shrimp truck that's just down the road from our hotel for supposed hygiene reasons.

There's a small waiting list when we get to the door but we easily wile time away in the adjacent gift shop, packed with Gump memorabilia. I pick up a few too many items, but can I really leave without a Bubba Gump tee, a Gump stubby holder, Gump playing cards, a Bubba Gump soft toy and a Gump keyring? No, I can't. We just finish paying as we're called to our table, a booth surrounded by walls of Gump, shrimp and hot sauce paraphernalia. Kitsch is an understatement.

By now we're veterans of this American system of food - we know what we're getting in terms of serving sizes and we order comfortably. At Bubba Gump's, it's all about the shrimp. As Bubba says in the movie: "Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That - that's about it."

The restaurant concept is based on the movie with cute touches absolutely everywhere. The drinks and desserts menu is shaped on a ping pong paddle; there's flip signs on the table with 'Run Forrest Run' and 'Stop Forrest Stop' to indicate when you want your server to pass or stop at your table; the bathrooms are labelled 'Bubba' for men and 'Jenny' for women. It's all a bit of fun.

We have a Caesar salad for our greenery with other dishes of shrimp and more shrimp.

Shrimp and salsa cocktail from Bubba Gump's

This dish is downright odd. A server brings the food to the table: a dish of shrimp, a dish of salsa, a pile of tortilla chips and a cocktail shaker. Before we can say "mai tai?" the server has the shrimp and salsa in the shaker and is shaking vigourously by the table. She pours this mixture out onto a dish and thus serves us the shrimp and salsa cocktail. It's a far cry from the 80's style prawn cocktail that my friend was expecting but we dig in interestedly.

The shrimp is served chilled - they're just boiled but certainly verging on raw. The salsa is made up of tomato, Spanish onion, avocado and coriander and is a nice partner to the shrimp with lime juice all over. The sizeable chunks of both the shrimp and salsa make it hard to scoop up with the chips, but it's a healthy-feeling dish. My order is somewhat less healthy feeling.

Shrimp New Orleans

It looks healthy. And aside from the load of butter in the sauce, I think it was healthy. A good, generous serving of sauteed shrimp with rice and garlic bread in a supposedly spicy Cajun sauce. Maybe they meant spicy in the way of 'lots of spices' rather than 'hot' spicy. Either way I was very happy with this dish. The shrimp was firm with a fresh crunch; the sauce most closely likened to a diane sauce that you get with steak; and the rice perfect for soaking up the sauce. I don't know any Aussie dish that would be so generous with its prawn/shrimp serving, but I happily clean this plate up.

Again, I feel like dessert is completely superfluous but again, I am encouraged. Or forced. I earlier noted a Key lime pie in the desserts menu and my interest is piqued as I've heard of this dessert often in American movies or television shows. Once it arrives at the table, I wholeheartedly regret it.

Key lime pie

Aside from the huge glob of cream, the pie filling itself looks thicker and richer than cheesecake. I am honestly scared as I take a small spoonful. The biscuit base is thin and a touch too oily. The filling is oh-so rich and sweet, but tartly lime as well. We concede defeat about halfway through the shared dessert. I do note the lime zest sprinkled on the cream is really sharp but sweet, better than the lemon zest I've had in my experience.

The Key lime pie has tipped me over the edge and as we manoeuvre ourselves back into the gift shop for another pack of Gump playing cards, I have to worriedly wonder if the new denim short shorts I just bought will still fit me.

A happy eating new year

The new year has come with little event and for a change, I'm not disappointed. The times of expectation and hype are behind me and I look forward to just living my life. This of course includes eating and eating well.

We started off 2009 with a late morning. Who am I kidding, it was afternoon when we ventured out for fresh air and food. We'd passed a restaurant a few times that was simply teeming with people at dinner time, and still attracting a small crowd this new year's day lunch. The Cheesecake Factory is a restaurant chain and entices with a fridge cabinet full of delightful looking and sounding cheesecakes at the front of the restuarant. We point greedily at different varieties: think peanut butter, cookie dough, cookies and cream and many more, and promise to save space in our tummies for them.

Cheesecakes on display at the Cheescake Factory (Kalakua Ave, Waikiki)

The menu offering at the Cheesecake Factory is enormous and a little confusing. There's no way that I can pinpoint a style of food, other than maybe calling it upmarket casual, as there are strong American influences along with Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese and a few others still. On top of this, the segregation of the menu has me a little overwhelmed, with appetisers, pizzas, specialties then lunch specials, pasta, fish, meat, salads (in addition to the salads mentioned in the appetisers section) - a bit of simplicity is all I ask! I need a drink just after my first glance at the menu and we opt for non-alcoholic beverages this afternoon.

Frozen iced mango (left) and strawberry fruit smoothie (right)

The frozen iced mango is a very sweet blend of juices with mango served with raspberry puree fetchingly swirled into the glass. The strawberry smoothie comes in a huge tumbler, thick, cold and fruity. Complimentary white and brown bread rolls and butter are also brought to the table with the drinks. When we finally manage to whittle down to our choices from the menu, we think we've ordered considerately enough to leave room for a shared cheesecake, as these too come in huge servings with piles of cream as seen on neighbouring tables. We polish off the soft, fresh bread as we wait for our meal to arrive.

Buffalo wings

We start with an appetiser sized serve of buffalo wings - we're giving them another go - that come with celery sticks, a blue cheese sauce and a hot chilli sauce. I wonder why they are served with celery sticks? The token vegetable presence? These wings are deep fried well with a spicy coating covering mid-wings and drumettes. I find the blue cheese dressing strong but complementary and the chilli sauce unnecessary. Next arrives my rather thoughtless choice of the kalua pig pizza - thoughtless because of the ingestion of two bread rolls before the meal.

Kalua pig pizza

The pizza smells fantastic, as even the server comments. It's colourful and gourmet-looking. There are generous handfuls of my new favourite kalua pig; smokey, tasty and tender. Other toppings include Spanish onion, capsicum, chopped parsley and cubes of mango. There's a lot of thick, stringy cheese and the base is bready, probably about three times the thickness of an Italian pizza base. Finally we've ordered our vegie fix in the way of an appetiser salad.

Tomato and mozzarella salad

Which comes out on an oval platter sized plate. Appetiser? More like a meal in itself! Half the platter consists of fresh, leafy greens with a very light vinaigrette dressing. On the other side of the platter is tomato layered with slices of milky mozzarella. This is then topped with sun dried tomatoes, Spanish onion, crumbled blue cheese and a small amount of basil. I guess this is supposed to be the American 'bigger and better' embellished version of insalata caprese.

Most likely because of the bread before the meal and the huge serving sizes of everything, we manage to finish only the salad. Half the pizza stares sadly back at us along with a few wings minus their celery stick partners. We tried our best but can not even contemplate more food, let alone decadently sweet and rich cheesecake with naughty flavour and topping additions. Next time?

We somehow manage to fill the time in between lunch and dinner undertaking non-eating related activities. Mostly. But when dinner does eventually roll around we stay a little more local, exploring near our hotel. We chance upon a little Japanese ramen store with a queue of almost entirely Japanese tourists snaking across the footpath towards the road. It looks promising so we jump onto the end of the line at Ramen Nakamura and wait.

About 15 minutes later we find ourselves seated at the end of the narrow, rectangular bar seating next to and across from Japanese tourists both young and old. (There's a little boy opposite us that is almost falling asleep into his huge bowl of ramen. He has his eyes closed yet picks up noodles with his chopsticks and eats all the while. We fear that sleep may conquer and he'll end up with a hot, salty head but he doesn't.)

The server is friendly and very efficient, and brings us glasses of iced water with our menus. We pretty much know what we want, having stood waiting outside assessing the menu options. Their specialty is an ox tail ramen, but we both order more familiar sounding choices.

Miso ramen at Ramen Nakamura (Kalakaua Ave, Waikiki)

As the ramen arrives hot and steaming in massive basins, my companion and I look and grin at each other. We're in for some big eats tonight! The miso ramen of my companion's looks thick and creamy - the hit of miso flavour confirmed in the first mouthful of hot but not scalding soup. The noodles are accompanied by bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, shallots, a thin slice of roast pork and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Gyoza and shoyu ramen

I've ordered a set that comes with three gyoza and opted for the shoyu ramen. The soup is darker in colour but lighter in consistency, and tasting light and meaty. Mine also comes with the same additions as listed above. Actually, both bowls of noodles are also garnished with a few slices of deep fried garlic - crunchy when not soaked in soup but releasing their pungent aroma once submerged in soup. You end up with a slight garlicky taste that's quite unique. The bean sprouts and bamboo shoots are cooked soft, the pork is tasty albeit a little fatty but the noodles are sensational. They're a little thicker than I've normally seen with a bit of bite to them and perfect with mouthfuls of the flavoursome soup.

The gyoza are close to the best I've ever had, if not the best. Obviously fresh made, the pastry is thin yet capably encasing the meat and vegies. The pan fried bottom is superbly crunchy and the first bite has vibrant, soupy juices running out to greet you. A dip in soy (not necessary even) and I'm in dumpling heaven. I wish that my stomach wouldn't fill so I could just eat these forever. Inevitably it does fill and we leave completely sated and very, very satisfied for a new year's day.

Custom bowls at Ramen Nakamura

Onwards and upwards... to Diamond Head

We plough on through our eating adventures in Hawaii, even on this day that we plan to hike up the extinct volcano that is Diamond Head; a landmark oft seen in photos and other memorabilia of Waikiki and Hawaii.

One can not hike without proper sustenance and nutrition - even if it's just a 40 minute hike - so we made our way to the nearby McDonalds. Really. Although Maccas are generally the same around the world, there are always some slight localised variations. In this we revel. Spam, eggs and rice are on the breakfast menu, at a very reasonable price too, but we choose otherwise.

McDonalds breakfast on Kuhio Ave, Waikiki

One such local variation is the addition of a small box of pineapple with all value meals - how very Hawaiian, and healthy at that. My orange juice is the size of a medium drink in Australia - at this point I'm still adjusting to serving sizes.

Sausage and hot cakes

My fellow hiker goes for the savoury sweet combo of hot cakes with a sausage pattie. I don't believe you can get this in the Aussie stores, but I could be wrong. It comes with maple syrup and whipped margarine, and is standard Maccas fare. I go for the relatively exotic-sounding sausage and egg McGriddle in a meal.

Sausage and egg McGriddle

What on earth is a McGriddle? I'm still none too sure. You've got your sausage pattie, fried egg and plastic-looking, artificially yellow cheese enclosed in two pieces of what seems like pancake. It's sweet, fluffy, a little on the oily side and quite unusual. Again, it's a bit of a sweet and savoury combination that sort of works, and sort of doesn't.

A meal at Maccas for me usually means I've had a big day/night or I'm about to have a big day/night. This time it's the latter as we conquer Diamond Head amid plenty of complaining, sweating and photography. Below were my rewards:

View of Waikiki from the top of Diamond Head

Shave ice
(here with pineapple and passionfruit flavourings)

Note: the shave ice was rewarded upon our descent back to the bottom of the mountain, not at the top - although a store at the summit would be an interesting business venture.

Shave ice is another Hawaiian specialty. Similar to a snow cone, it is literally just ice that has been finely shaved and packed into a cup then doused with flavouring. The ice in shave ice (note that it is 'shave ice' not 'shaved ice' - a distinction I felt compelled to make many a time) is supposedly finer than what you'd find in snow cones elsewhere, hence the difference and attraction. Either way, by the end of the hike up and back down we're thankful for anything that's cold and drinkable. As we reach the bottom of the large cup most of the ice has melted leaving a sugar-concentrated liquid. We think to conserve the health of our teeth and toss it out.

While resting up back at the hotel we attack some of the snack foods we've acquired from the nearby ABC Store - one of the more interesting pictured below:

Fried cuttlefish legs
(and yes, Twinkies in the background)

Think fishy, super chewy and savoury. Not much more. Okay washed down with loads of Coke. Following more rest and long showers, dinner beckons and this night we venture down to the beach in search of a light feed. We take a number for Furusato Sushi and wait outside with others to the sounds of the quite talented buskers singing on guitar nearby.

The restaurant is small with about eight tables and seating at the sushi bar. We're nearing a ravenous state after the short-ish wait and dive right into the menu. With Kirin and edamame (soy) beans to whet the appetite, a range of raw and cooked foods arrive to the table.

Ahi poke from Furusato (Kalakaua Ave, Waikiki)

This is the Japanese version of a Hawaiian version of a Japanese dish. Sort of. This poke is heavy on the vegies and sesame flavouring, and light on the serving size. The tuna is as fresh as any and we demolish this appetiser rather quickly. Next up is my fellow diner's order of uni sashimi; that is, sea urchin roe and lots of it.

Uni

It's not the most visually appealing dish, but it's the biggest serve of sea urchin roe I've ever seen. Served raw with a knob of wasabi and nori sheets as its only partners, the flavour of sea urchin is not one that I tolerate well. "Creamy" is the word my fellow diner often uses to describe it, and while I concede that the texture is indeed creamy, the taste is foul on my tongue. But each to their own, I say as I retreat to the safety and warmth of my bowl of udon noodles.

Udon

Thick white udon noodles caress my tastebuds, as if shooing away the bad memories of uni. The soup is so flavoursome that I drink it all up along with the bean curd sheet and fish cake. It's beautiful in its absolute simplicity, and probably made so much the better after my taste of the uni.

California roll

And we finish with a California sushi roll made fresh and filled with real crab meat (none of this crab stick business), cucumber and avocado, and sprinkled with just some sesame seeds. It's a satisfying meal early in the night although when 2am rolls around (after a beverage or two) and we're walking through the streets back to the hotel, we could go for a bit of a snack. We stumble upon (not quite literally) a little takoyaki store in a side street and we pounce. Funnily enough, we're by no means alone in our early morning food endeavour and we watch as our octopus balls are made fresh in front of our eyes.

Takoyaki in the making (place on Seaside Ave [I think], Waikiki)

I'm fairly sure that all the takoyaki I've ever tried in restaurants are of the frozen variety, especially as they tend to be very similar from every Japanese establishment and also perfect sphere shapes, so I have high hopes for these freshly made ones. We see a piece of octopus being added to the batter in each hole followed by pickled ginger and shallots. When cooked through they are served covered in okonomiyaki sauce (which looks like barbeque sauce), Japanese mayonnaise, fine bits of nori and a ration's sprinkle of shaved bonito. (I say that because the shavings are one of my favourite parts - I love seeing the bigger pieces move and sway about in the steam emitted from the takoyaki).

Takoyaki

With high expectations usually comes disappointment. That's a pessimistic view but we are unfortunately disappointed in the final result. The takoyaki are soggy with the dough close to being raw. Perhaps the cook was a little overwhelmed by the masses of waiting late night snackers, though I would have been happy to wait a little more for better cooked versions. Also the octopus is a little bit tough, in all making it a less than satisfactory snack to end a long day.