The empanada was nice and flaky on the outside, tasty on the inside. Nice if y0u’re looking for something small but savory.

The chorizo and egg torta was yummy. While I was slightly disappointed that the bread didn’t have that lovely crusty edge to it that the woodfired lunch tortas have, I thought the softer texture went well with the fillings. And speaking of fillings, the thin slices of avocado gave a really nice, creamy complement to the scrambled ingredients.

What’s also nice about breakfast is that you can get it to go, and there are fewer options, so things move a little more quickly.

XOCO

The latest of Bayless’ eateries, XOCO, opened last September, a few months after our last visit, and I’d heard so many rave reviews of the place that I had to go there the first opportunity I got. And I did. I was even willing to let lunch interfere with the opportunity to kiss the Stanley Cup (though, let’s face it, the Cup was probably nasty by that point in the day anyway).

The menu at XOCO is pretty straightforward: a few salads, an assortment of tortas and a half-dozen or so delectable desserts. Caldos are available after 3 p.m., but I’m not so much of a soup person during the summer, so I was fine with getting what I could get in the noon hour.

Ahh, yes, the woodburning oven. It exists!

When you manage to peel your eyes away from the thing of beauty, you also notice that the food prep area is also very cool and staffed with cheery faces, including the guy who photobombs you with a big grin:

If you like to watch food prep, that’s a good thing, because if you go at lunch (between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.), you’ll get to see a lot of it while you wait in the 20- to 25-minute line. Right now, they’re not doing takeout lunch at all, and the dining room only seats maybe 40 people, so the line moves forward for ordering as other diners move out.

Back to lunch itself: It’s hard to pick just one torta when they all sound so good – well, at least for some people. Todd, not being a big adventurer, pretty easily narrowed his choices down to the Gunthrop Chicken Torta:

Although I was very tempted by the Special of the Day, which included guacamole, I couldn’t pry myself away from the idea of suckling pig between two slabs of woodburning oven toasted bread, so I went with the Cochinita Pibil:

By the way, that prominent pink stuff is the pickled onions, not the pork. Here’s a better picture with the pork, after I’d taken a bite:

:o) Say it with me, now: Mmmmm . . . Yes, it was that good. And that’s even without the habanero sauce. I can take some heat, but the idea of authentic Mexican habanero sauce kind of scared some sense into me, so I asked the cashier whether I’d be safe with it. While she assured me that the sauce came on the side (whew), she added that she always cautions customers to be careful with it because “they are not foolin’ around with that stuff.” Boy, you ain’t kiddin’. This stuff will linger in your oral cavity for a full minute after you drip a little bit onto your tongue. It looks harmless, but it is not. You have been warned.

Anyway. The Cochinita Pibil = awesome. If you don’t like pickled onions, you can take ‘em out and not really lose much of the essence of the torta (mostly because some of the flavor stays behind on the pork anyway, HA!). Suckling pig is, of course, one of the best ways to enjoy, well, pig, so naturally it’s delicious. And, ooh, that bread, all crusty and crunchy from time it spent toasting in that woodburning oven – that just makes all the difference. Don’t get a toasted torta if you’re one of those people who can’t take a little scrape on the roof of your mouth. Better yet, just don’t be one of those people: Have the freaking torta.

But you also need to save room for dessert. Two reasons:

1. Mexican hot chocolate:

2. Churros with soft serve for dipping:

The chocolate actually comes in several varieties, the most authentic of which is apparently just ground chocolate and hot water, but I wanted a little more, so I opted for the Aztec, which also includes some chile and allspice. Delicate perfection in a little cup, with just enough chocolatey goodness to put a smile on your face. Oh, and they grind the chocolate right on the premises, so it doesn’t get any fresher than that!

The churros are also fantastic. It’s interesting that a dessert so hackneyed in Mexican American cuisine that they sell it at the Costco food counter alongside faux Polish sausages, would be served here at XOCO. But these are not your mama’s airy churros. These have body, but are not super doughy. And while they’re yummy all by themselves, the chef doesn’t suggest soft serve for dipping just because it sounds cute.

Go. Go now. Not that there’s any chance XOCO will be going out of business any year soon, but the word is already out about how great it is (and at much lower prices than Frontera and Topolobampo), and you will have to stand in line for that torta. Rick Bayless’ creations will make that wait very worth your while!

But I’ll get over it . . . because you know how much I love this city. So moving on . . .

Todd and I have been to the Taste of Chicago a few times over the years. Yes, the vendors are usually the same, but since we don’t really stay close to Grant Park and since we walk there (i.e., instead of taking the train), we’ll usually only go for one day and really only visit a few booths each time. The only booth I make sure we go to is the Original Rainbow Cone booth – because they make the best sherbet in the world – but other than that, we never know what we’re going to sample. Here’s what we tried this time:

Mustard-fried catfish, BJ’s Market & Bakery (8734 S. Stony Island Ave.).

This was, hands down, the best catfish I have ever tasted. The crunch was delightful, and you would never believe such a nice taste could come from such an ugly animal. ;o)

Gazpacho with avocado and chopped chives, The Grill on the Alley (909 N. Michigan Ave.).

The gazpacho was cool and refreshing on a hot day, and the smidgen of avocado was a very nice touch. I wish I could make my gazpacho taste this good without looking as, well, dull orangey-brown as my gazpacho often turns out.

Steak taco, Carbón Live Fire Mexican Grill (300 W. 26th St.).

What can you say, it was a steak taco. Todd liked it. I appreciated that the tortilla was not overly dry.

Key lime pie, JR Dessert Bakery (2841 W. Howard St.).

It may not look like much, but this was THE best key lime pie I have ever had. While it lacked that creamy consistency I tend to favor in the dessert, JR’s key lime pie struck the perfect balance between tangy and sweet, and the crust was nice and nutty.

Jerk chicken, Iyanze (4623 N. Broadway).

Holy cow. Good thing we only got the Taste portion of Iyanze’s jerk chicken, because not only was it generous (everything pictured above, with the exception of the key lime pie, was a Taste portion, btw), but it was SPICY. Flaming hot, actually, is how I would describe my tongue for a good five minutes after I insisted on gulping this down. I mean, it was good – and amazingly, you could still taste the spices through the heat – but man . . . Yowza.

Of course we had to finish off the evening with a Taste portion from the Original Rainbow Cone. It’s my favorite frozen thing in the world! I mean, come on: The pistachio and Palmer House (cherry/walnut) flavors alone make it worthwhile.

Shortly after we enjoyed our Rainbow Cone goodies, we, along with hundreds of others, were ushered out of Grant Park by a few dozen of Chicago’s finest (and about a half-dozen of their maned, four-legged friends), as the Taste and the park close at 9 p.m. – and thus we end this edition of The Kawamotos Take on The Taste. Tune in next time . . .

Of course, as fate would have it, February 27, 2010 was the day we in Hawai‘i experienced Tsunami Warning Saturday. Both Whole Foods stores in the state closed. When they reopened, I called to see whether they planned on holding the parm-cracking at a later date, and they said “NO!” I was sad. Not devastated – come on, my life isn’t that awful – but sad.

Later this week, though, the Whole Foods Kahala Twitter diva posted that they would, indeed, be holding the parmigiano reggiano wheel-cracking – this Saturday! I was ecstatic.

Then I came down with a cold.

But fear not, the sore throat was over with by Friday night, and congestion alone wasn’t going to keep me away from the cheese!

Cheese master Chae gets ready for the big event.

Scoring one side of the 85-lb. wheel . . .

. . . then the other . . .

. . . then jamming that other thing into the middle.

The finished product!

Sure, it probably wasn’t the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but that was pretty darned cool, and I would’ve been sad if I had missed it. Because of my cold, I didn’t stick around for any of the related free demonstrations going on that morning, but I did take home some fairly fresh parmigiano reggiano to snack on.

Birthday “cake,” Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

Ahi/oyster shooter with ume-shiso sauce, Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

Chilled Hamakua Springs tomato soup with avocado and chilled shrimp, Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

Asian shrimp scampi, Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

Dad with his loco moco, Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

Lilikoi cheesecake, Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

Haupia tapioca “halo halo,” Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room.

The Pineapple Room recently overhauled its menu, keeping some old favorites – like Da Poi Bowl (*drool*) and the refreshing chilled Hamakua Springs tomato soup – and adding some new stuff, like the Asian shrimp scampi and the Loco Moco Prix Fixe option. Mom and I had the non-loco moco prix fixe, and Dad and Todd opted for the loco moco menu. Both were delicious, and of course there was way too much food, especially with the complimentary birthday dessert. I knew (from experience, unfortunately!) that it’s impossible to do a take-home on the halo halo (which came with my meal), so I opted to have the birthday “cake” packed up to go instead.

Mom is still talking about the tomato soup . . . which is good, ’cause maybe it means I can con her into going back with me. ;o)

Greek isn’t the type of cuisine one usually grows up with in a Japanese household, so I was kind of sheltered from it until college, when my co-workers dragged me to Olive Tree Cafe, near Kahala Mall. Since then, I have been hooked on the stuff.

Babaghanoush, Olive Tree Cafe.

The babaghanoush (a traditional eggplant appetizer served with pita bread) at Olive Tree is the best you can get in Hawai‘i, if not the best you can get anywhere. I’m not kidding. Of course, “best” is subjective when it comes to babaghanoush because everyone’s preference is different with regard to what goes in it, let alone texture and oil content, but Olive Tree’s recipe is fabulous. You definitely get the garlic – but without getting “the garlic,” if you know what I mean. Get at least two orders if you’re going to be sharing with anyone!

The entrees here are fabulous, too, from salads to souvlakis, so it’s hard to decide what to order. I’ve tried all three souvlakis – chicken, fish and lamb – and I can’t say a single bad thing about any of them, but the chicken is particularly yummy because of the tzatziki sauce they drizzle onto the meat. The lamb is good if you’re in the mood for something slightly (but not excessively) more gamey.

Lamb souvlaki, Olive Tree Cafe.

I don’t have any photos of any of them right now, but I cannot say enough about how good the salads are. Even though they’re not as photogenic as the other foods, the salads at Olive Tree will knock your socks off with their complexity of flavors and textures. So delicious and, of course, guilt free. (Heheheh . . . )

Unfortunately, the awesomeness of Olive Tree is the island’s worst kept secret, so the small parking lot and seat-yourself dining area fill up pretty fast on a nightly basis. All I can say is, thank God for takeout – and for the fact that, somehow, the food here is so good, nothing gets lost in translation between their place and yours. (You know what I mean.)

Can’t wait ’til my next excuse to go back!

Cold soba topped with tanuki chips, green onion and wakame, Go Shi Go.

“Cold udon?” you ask. “Really? Udon?!”

Yes, udon. Not soba. Udon. (Soba? Udon! Sorry . . . Little inside joke from the Tai-Sei days.) I had my doubts, too. Who eats udon cold? You will, after you try it at Go Shi Go.

The noodles, made at the restaurant every day by owner Hidetaka Ushiki, are cooked to what’s best known by Americans as al dente, which is definitely not a texture one typically associates with udon. The result is a chewy texture that, because it influences to how you consume each noodle, contributes to the taste of the noodle itself, leading you to appreciate the flavor of the local deap-sea water that’s been worked into the dough. So delicious.

But that’s not all.

EVERYTHING about the udon is fabulous. The tanuki chips are delicate, yet able to hold their own in the sea of noodles, broth and vegetables. The broth is savory without being salty and is served at just the right temperature to complement the noodles. And the green onions and wakame . . . yum.

I can’t wait to go back . . . so it’s a good thing a bunch of us are going from the office on Friday!

Carnevino is a winehouse as much as it is a steakhouse, the food part showing off creations by the Iron Chef and the wine part featuring selections made by Joe Bastianich. I won’t lie, I know nothing about wine except that I like Riesling and Moscato (that probably docked my popularity points right there, but whatever), so I don’t even know who Mr. Bastianich is, but I hear the wines he’s collected here are fabulous. So, let’s focus on what I do know: food.

Everybody knows that my favorite big-name chef in Hawai‘i is Alan Wong, so while I do experience fine-dining once in a while in Honolulu, it isn’t usually at that same level as the kind of stuff you see on “Iron Chef America.” Though Chef Wong does serve a good foie gras, his cuisine is quite different and doesn’t exactly aim to include items like, well, beef carpaccio:

Beef carpaccio with warm lardo crostini, Carnevino.

Fortunately, Chef Batali apparently likes the stuff. Despite my love for sashimi (raw fish), I had never tried raw beef, and honestly, I probably wouldn’t venture to do so outside the relatively safe confines of a gourmet restaurant. Fortunately (again), this was a gourmet restaurant. And wow, was it good. I’m not sure whether the meat itself was super tasty, but I gotta admit, the combination of that and the, err, lardo (as the menu puts it), were heavenly on the crostini. (Yeah, you pretty much have to pretend you don’t understand simple words like lardo if you want to enjoy Chef Batali’s cuisine guilt-free; he makes Paula Deen look like a healthy cook sometimes!)

For my main course, I would’ve liked to try the chef’s take on gnocchi, but since Todd and I were at the Palazzo to take in “Jersey Boys” (yes, again), we ordered off the theater menu, which is set to get you in and out of the restaurant in time for the show – and, unfortunately, the gnocchi was not on the theater menu. I definitely wanted to get a pasta dish, though, so I selected the pappardelle with porcini trifolati. All right, so not having taken Italian, I only had the vague notion that this had something to do with pasta and mushrooms. And what do you know . . .

Pappardelle with porcini trifolati, topped with fresh parmesano reggiano, Carnevino.

The pappardelle noodles were cooked to an awesome al dente texture, as if their cooking time had been perfected to the microsecond. And the chef’s recommendation of freshly grated parmesano reggiano perfectly complemented the mild flavor of the mushrooms.

Todd had an 8-oz. filet mignon for his entree and a plain ol’ insalata romana (pretty much a caesar salad) for his first course, and we all know what those are like. But, here’s where his selections bested mine: Because his second course was just meat with no starch, our waitress suggested that Todd order a side. When he had trouble choosing one, the waitress talked up a few and described one as “addictive.” We knew right then which side we had to get:

Cesare’s tuscan fries, Carnevino.

I know what you’re thinking: “You went to Mario Batali’s and got fries? Seriously?” Seriously. You don’t understand: These aren’t just any fries. They were seasoned with crack, my friends. Herbs, spices, a light sprinkling of cheese . . . and crack. So good.

Dessert options for the theater menu include only unimaginative gelato and sorbet selections, and I didn’t think they were either (a) photogenic or (b) particularly yummy, so I won’t bore you with details there. Suffice to say, I should’ve just asked if I could have an Irish coffee instead.

So if you ever find yourself near the Palazzo, GO. Go see “Jersey Boys,” and go have yourself a Mario Batali masterpiece. But eat something else and tell me what it’s like, would ya? ;o)

The screen capture above is from Yelp!’s front page today. Woo hoo.

Check out my “award-winning” review of Hank’s Haute Dogs.

It’s not just me: This is totally weird, right?! Danielle and I got a kick out of it yesterday at the new Lanikai Juice diagonal from Kahala Mall. I guess it’s some sort of costume (there are arm holes on the side) . . . but it looks like it came out of a Lady Gaga video – it’s just missing a great deal of glitter.