TM loves Genki Sushi.  It is a conveyor belt sushi restaurant chain that started in Japan.  They now have locations in Hawaii, Seattle, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuwait as well.  Ryan (my brother-in-law) picked up some salmon nigiri for us.  TM had forgotten that they serve it with thinly sliced onions and mayo on top.  It was perfect.

I am not crazy about salmon skin roll but TM loves ordering it whenever we’re at a sushi place.  He bases how good a Japanese place is by comparing their salmon skin and spicy tuna to those at Genki Sushi.  The salmon skin has just the right amount of crunch to it according to TM.

I think TM’s favorite thing to order from Genki Sushi is the spicy tuna roll.  We usually order this at sushi places but are often disappointed because a lot of restaurants serve tuna drenched in Sriracha sauce.  I love the red rooster as much of the next person but that is not what spicy tuna should be.  Genki has a great blend of tuna, mayo, chili powder, tobiko, sesame oil and green onions to make up their spicy tuna.

When we visited Seattle last year, we were driving around after we had eaten lunch when we saw a Genki Sushi sign.  TM’s eyes nearly fell out of their sockets, he was so shocked!  We had no idea Genki Sushi had locations outside of Japan and Hawaii.  Even though we were full from lunch, TM insisted we pick up a few rolls of spicy tuna to go.  That is how much he loves his spicy tuna!

Ryan also picked up spicy poke from Masa & Joyce Fish Market for us.  There are so many different kinds of poke with different flavors.  They actually have ahi poke, shoyu (soy sauce) poke, limu (seaweed) poke, tako (octopus) poke, etc. to name a few.  Every restaurant seems to have their own variation and every person seems to have their favorite.  Personally, I like shoyu poke the best.  It doesn’t mask the flavor of the fish, just enhances it in my opinion.  TM likes limu poke the best because of the crunch and flavor of the seaweed.  The spicy poke was good although I felt like the spicy flavors covered up a little too much of the fish.

TM’s parents picked up cake noodle with minute chicken from Kin Wah Chop Suey for us.  The first time I had cake noodle at a friend’s house in Hawaii, I was in heaven!  It seemed genius to pan fry a bunch of noodles together and serve it with oyster sauce and chicken.  As a little kid, I used to search for chunks of noodles in chow mein plates so I wouldn’t have to subject myself to any vegetables.  Even though I’ve grown up some, I still love noodles and only noodles at times.  These were a bit on the oily side but since I rarely get to eat this dish, I figured it was okay.  Plus, we were on vacation!

TM’s parents also picked up kau yuk with buns from Kin Wah as well.  I actually didn’t get to try these because I was so busy eating everything else.  These are char siu pork that you wrap in the buns yourself to eat.

We were so excited to eat and watch the game that we didn’t even sit down!  We stood around the kitchen counter with our chopsticks and took bites of all the amazing food as we walked back and forth between the kitchen and family room.  Our crazy nine-day food tour in the 808 had begun!!

Genki Sushi (various locations)  45-480 Kaneohe Bay Drive  Kaneohe, Hawaii

Masa & Joyce Fish Market  45-582 Kamehameha Highway  Kaneohe, HI

Kin Wah Chop Suey  45-588 Kamehameha Highway   Kaneohe, HI

Our first adventure of 2012 starts this weekend to the Aloha State where TM grew up.  It’s been awhile since we’ve been back to the islands and our list of places to eat is twenty-one places deep.  Twenty-one!  We’ve got breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner and late night snacks planned out for the short time we’re there and I plan to diligently blog about our journey.

I apologize because I’ve probably shared this picture before but poke is one of the things I crave the most when I think about food from the islands.  It is a raw fish salad (usually yellowfin tuna) served as an appetizer in Hawaiian cuisine.   We love picking it up from Foodland or other places and eating it with rice.  The last time we were back, we practically went straight from the airport to buy poke to eat as part of our first meal.  I am hoping this time we can do the same!

They brought potato balls which I forgot to take pictures of… they are mashed potato balls with ground beef in the center of them.  It’s a Cuban dish that I had never tried before but I’m searching for something similar in our area.  They were quite amazing and filling!  I’m sure I’d order potato balls just about every other weekend if I lived in the vicinity.

For dessert they brought this ginormous and beautiful chocolate cake (also from Porto’s) to share with us.  It looks amazingly rich and decadent but it was surprisingly light, if you can believe it.  TM and I shared the cake with dinner guests the next night and then ate the remainder of the cake for days and loved every single bite!

Merry Christmas!

Porto’s Bakery in three locations: Glendale, Burbank and Downey, CA

I had considered taking TM to Cyprus Bistro & Cafe for his birthday dinner this year but we ended up going somewhere else for some reason.  I’m glad we were able to try this place out since it’s so close to where we live.

We started out with a hummus plate to share (not pictured).  It was your run-of-the-mill restaurant hummus.  TM’s Mom ordered a salad with greens, beets, gorgonzola, apples, walnuts, and an aged balsamic vinaigrette.  I tried a non beet and gorgonzola bite of the salad and enjoyed the dressing and greens combination.

She also ordered the Aleppo chili garlic prawns.  She said they had a kick to them but they were very good.

TM and his Dad both went with the Cyprus kebab platter.  It came with beef fillet, kefta (lamb) kebab & marinated chicken breast, rosemary roasted potatoes & tzatziki.  I got to nibble everything and the beef was probably my favorite.  TM and his Dad both cleaned off their plates and seemed to enjoy it although TM did mention, “I thought it would be bigger.”

I went with the jumbo prawn with brown rice linguini.  Along with the prawns, it came with roasted tomatoes, baby spinach, fresh herbs, shaved pecorino with a creamy white wine sauce.  I was concerned about the cream sauce being too heavy but it was perfect.  I was impressed with the presentation – the baby spinach was a beautiful green and not wilted at all.  They must have blanched the spinach then shocked it in ice water immediately in order for it to look so nice.  I’m not sure I would be able to do that.  Everything in this dish went so well together, I was excited to eat my leftovers for lunch the next day.

I love eating on the outdoor patios of restaurants on Campbell Ave.  The best part is Koa being able to join us for dinner!

379 E. Campbell Ave.   Campbell, CA

When it was time to cut the cake on our wedding night, we were instructed how to hold the knife together and to cut the second tier where the piping was because it was the ideal location for the photographer to get perfect shots.  We held the knife together and started to cut the cake together.  This is supposed to symbolize the first task we do together as husband and wife.

Except we didn’t.

The cake was rock solid!  I had a mini freak out moment but my photog told me to cut what I can and feed it to TM.

All we got was a pathetic lump of frosting.

It turns out our cake had toppled over in the van during delivery to our venue.  Unbeknownst to me, the bakery had decided to make a styrofoam cake that resembled our real one.  They had inserted a piece of cake on the second tier and drawn some piping on it so we’d have a target place to cut.  Everything would’ve been fine except they inserted the slice of cake in the wrong place!  Or they drew the piping in the wrong place!  Either way, TM and I attempted to cut styrofoam when everyone was taking pictures of us wondering why we weren’t feeding each other.

I finally heard this story a couple of days after our wedding – the day we were leaving on our honeymoon.  I was livid to say the least.  I spent quite some time in Fiji corresponding with the manager at the bakery and she offered us a 60% refund.   To make a long story short, I spoke with the owner, argued it down to free and got an anniversary cake out of it.

We picked up our anniversary cake after we got back from our trip.  We chose to get it in green tea flavor since that cannot be found just anywhere.  It was light with a wonderful subtle flavor of green tea.  I wish we could get one of these free every year in September.

I don’t think our cake catastrophe was worth getting an anniversary cake but I must admit, TM and I ate every last bit of it.  Maybe I’ll have to look for a matcha cake recipe to try next year since we won’t be getting one for free.

200 Main St.  Los Altos, CA

Mangoes.

We spent 8 days in the Caribbean this month celebrating our one year wedding anniversary.  I can hardly believe a year has passed.  I don’t think I ever documented our wedding food on this blog.  <insert sad face here>  Time sure flies!

So back to the mangoes.  We stayed at one of those luxury, all inclusive, adults only resorts in the Dominican Republic.  It was so luxurious that we didn’t even bother leaving the resort.  There were 8 restaurants, 10 bars and 24 hour free room service so TM was in heaven!  We literally ate everything under the sun (including multiple packages of Oreos left in our room daily by the free mini bar.)  We found out we really enjoyed the breakfast buffet and lunch buffet at one of the restaurants on the resort.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a breakfast person so TM loaded up on the omelettes, pancakes, bacon, etc. while I loaded up on boiled egg whites and the fruit bar.

On any given breakfast and lunch, my plate usually looked like this.  I’d eat at least two plates of mangoes.  They were so sweet and ripe, I got quite hooked.

These are NOT mangoes.  I learned the hard way.  Our last full day in the DR, I had already planned out in my head that I’d gorge on mangoes since it’d be my last chance.  I got to the fruit bar and saw papaya, pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe… but NO MANGO!  I grabbed what I thought was a mango and asked our server if someone in the kitchen could cut it for me.  I apparently handed them a green/orange grapefruit to cut for me!  (In my defense, I even asked TM if I was holding a mango in my hand and he said yes.)

So I asked another server if I could have a mango and they brought out this beauty for me.  But it wasn’t enough.

So I had to ask another server if I could have a lot of mangoes cut up for me.  Score!  I wonder when I’ll get to eat them again.  I’d imagine they don’t taste as good on the mainland and will be quite a let down after all of the mango I ate in the Caribbean.

I followed the recipe almost to a tee except I cut down a little on both the regular and brown sugar.  These still turn out pretty sweet without a full cup of sugar.  My mini muffin tin holds 24 so I filled that up and used a regular muffin tin to do 12 more.  The ones in the regular muffin tin turned into cute, flat cookies but of course, they tasted the same as the minis!

36 Reese’s Miniature Peanut Butter Cups
1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
a little less than a 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar (not packed)
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 375.  Remove the wrappers from the Reese’s and set aside.  I had TM help with this step because it actually took longer than I thought.  Spray a mini muffin pan with cooking spray.

Beat the butter, sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, egg and vanilla until fluffy with an electric mixer.  In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together – the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and beat.  Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and drop into the muffin cups.  They should not be flattened.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until they are puffed up and lightly browned.  They are so adorable when puffy!

After removing them from the oven, press a Reese’s into the center of the cookie.  Let them cool completely in the muffin pan.  They actually took a long time to cool and even after they were removed from the muffin tin, the chocolate was very melty.  I stuck them in the fridge and they tasted oh-so-good!  I’ve given quite a few away but the rest are for TM.

The entire time I was working on these, I had this adorable little face looking up at me asking me to share.  I was sad that I couldn’t!

One thing I know for certain is that we were pretty stuffed from lunch when we ate this.  We had just eaten Market Grill then ventured over to “Gourmet Dog Japon” (a Japanese hot dog cart) for TM’s snack before we ended up in line for mac & cheese.  My parents thought we were crazy.  Or they just thought we had a tapeworm.  This mac & cheese was good enough to wait in line for and to risk feeling stuffed after consumption.

That is exactly why it is so pleasantly surprising to see a place I visited on my own, featured on the show.  It’s even more special when something I ate there is on the show as well!

Rahm Fama chose Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings from Pok Pok in Portland as his favorite finger food.  Guy Fieri visited this place on DD and D.  The chef, Andy Ricker, creates his recipes based on his travels through Asia.  It is described as fresh natural chicken wings marinated in fish sauce, garlic and sugar, deep fried, tossed in caramelized Phu Quoc fish sauce and garlic and served with Vietnamese table salad on the menu.

Chef Andy mixes garlic, salt and water together then strains it through a cheese cloth.  If actual minced garlic is on the chicken wing, it will burn when fried.  Genius!  He then adds fine sugar and fish sauce to the garlic water and marinates the chicken overnight.  He dredges the wings in rice flour and some tempura flour and deep fries them.  They are then topped with the “wing caramel” which is fish sauce, water and sugar.  He adds some chili paste and fried garlic to it and you’ve got some spicy-sweet Vietnamese chicken wings!

We went to Pok Pok with our dear friends Elisa and Matt, who live in Portland and hosted us that trip.  Everything we tried had wonderful flavor to it and our plates were licked clean.  I’d definitely want to go back the next time we are in town!

3226 SE Division St.  Portland, OR 97202

We spent the luxurious weekend in Carmel!  When TM and I first started dating, Carmel was the first trip we went on so I’ve always considered it to be our special place.  This time the newest member of our family joined us!  Koa experienced the beach for the first time and loved sand a little too much.  He sniffed it, snorted it, licked it and rolled around in it much to my dismay.

Luckily, Carmel is one of the dog friendliest cities I know and we didn’t have a problem dining or shopping with our pup.  Our favorite place to grab a sandwich in Carmel is Bruno’s Market and Deli.  They don’t skimp on the meat and every sandwich is packed with flavor.  I got a turkey sandwich yesterday and chicken salad today.  Yes, we went twice for lunch in two days!  I actually wasn’t a fan of their chicken salad… it had too many huge celery chunks, bits of apple and seemed a little too heavy on the mayo.  Next time I’ll stick with regular turkey or ham.