January 2023: Our Top 3 Most-Viewed Posts About O‘ahu’s Food Scene
Comfort food, Chinese festival must-haves, O‘ahu’s expanding food scene: Roundups dominated the top of the list.
No. 3: Comfort Food for the Soul: My Top 6 Restaurant Picks on O‘ahu Right Now
Photo: Thomas Obungen
Originally published May 26, 2021; republished Jan. 2, 2023
‘My Top 6 Restaurant Picks’ was Maria Burke’s first article for Frolic. Maria came to us after years as a financial adviser, a student of Spanish and mostly, a gazillion roles in the food and beverage industry. She brought that perspective to her job as our digital dining editor, deepening our coverage while never losing her infectious love of food and food adventures. If you saw her in our social media, if you met her at a random eatery or cocktail bar, you got a glimpse of that effervescence. Maria has moved on to a new full-time job this year, but she still drops off homemade soup to our doors. You’ll see her name and face again here, just not full-time, because as this post shows, Maria’s big heart resonated with readers, and she has a permanent place in ours.
No. 2: All the Food at This Weekend’s Chinese New Year Festivals in Chinatown
Photo: Sarah Young
Published Jan. 12, 2023
Unfettered Chinese New Year festivities came back in a big way this year, but with notable changes after two years of pandemic caution. Night in Chinatown moved from Maunakea Street and environs to the broader Beretania Street and A‘ala Park, and the Chinese New Year’s Celebration at the Chinese Cultural Plaza introduced Asian street food offerings from a slew of food trucks and other eateries. With so many new and moving parts, organizers of both worked down to the wire, with the result that Frolic’s post announcing the food lineups—especially the must-have gau, jai and jin dui—was the only comprehensive guide for a hungry public. Shoutout to the lead organizers: Kalene Sakamoto, who updated us permit by permit; and Leonard Kam, who compiled his list and emailed it to us at 12:35 a.m. the day before the festival.
No. 1: 10 New & Coming Eateries on O‘ahu: January 2023, Part 1
Photo: Mari Taketa
Published Jan. 5, 2023
Newsy posts are an integral part of Frolic’s content, as you saw with our recent James Beard Awards coverage and occasional Foodflash news bulletins. Each is reported, written and edited by our team—including our New and Coming Eateries series. As concise as the writeups are, 10 new and coming eateries means 10 times the reporting, writing and editing—including in-person visits, phone calls, press releases, emails and texts to corroborate and confirm info. Which is why we can only publish the series periodically, and why we split it into parts 1 and 2. Readers get excited by these updates but invariably give more love to Part 1—even though Part 2 always covers more places. So if you were among those who made Part 1 of New and Coming Eateries our top post for January, check out Part 2, with 14 more newsy morsels.
