I was inspired to make crabmeat pasta one weekend because I’m totally in love with the dish at the original Mix Cafe (35 S. Beretania St.). Of course, I wasn’t about to ask Bruno for his recipe – and even if I got it straight from the horse’s mouth, I probably couldn’t replicate it with [...]

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This is gonna be a quick one, as there really isn’t much to XOCO’s breakfast menu. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Along with our friends Leesa and Scott, we tried a couple of pastries (yum) and two of the hot entrees. The empanada was nice and flaky on the outside, tasty on the [...]

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I won’t lie: I love Top Chef Master Rick Bayless. If he cooked liver for dinner, I would probably eat it – but that’s because he could probably cook up a meaner liver than anyone else in the room. So needless to say, a trip to Chicago wouldn’t have been complete without a stop-in to [...]

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Yes, it’s that time of year again: time for me to visit the Midwest and love it but not be able to resist complaining about how freaking HOT it is. Because it is. As cold as Chicago gets in the winter, it gets pretty damned hot in the summer. And I’m taking “what WINDY city?!” [...]

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If you know me at all, you know one of the main reasons I’m not skinny is because I LOVE CHEESE. So, needless to say, when Whole Foods Market announced this nationwide event for February 27, I was drooling: Of course, as fate would have it, February 27, 2010 was the day we in Hawai‘i [...]

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My family and I celebrated my birthday last week (February 17th) at The Pineapple Room, Alan Wong’s more family- and wallet-friendly restaurant adjoining Macy’s at Ala Moana. As much as we love Chef Wong’s flagship restaurant on South King Street, the Pineapple Room has long been a favorite of Todd’s and mine. Birthday “cake,” Alan [...]

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Although I have been keeping up with my reviews over at Yelp, I realize I haven’t done a food post here in a while. Sorry about that. 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 [...]

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Local reviewers seem to have conflicting reviews about the assorted “side” dishes at Go Shi Go (903 Ke‘eaumoku St.), but ask anyone about the cold udon here, and you’d best have something on hand to clean up after the Pavlovian drool. Cold soba topped with tanuki chips, green onion and wakame, Go Shi Go. “Cold [...]

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It’s weird to write about something that happened last year, when we just flipped over into a new year . . . into a new decade, even. But I would be remiss if I didn’t write something about dining at Carnevino, Mario Batali’s new(ish) restaurant at the Palazzo. Carnevino is a winehouse as much as [...]

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I made Yelp!’s Honolulu Review of the Day today! The screen capture above is from Yelp!’s front page today. Woo hoo. Check out my “award-winning” review of Hank’s Haute Dogs.

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