Dining Editor Mari Taketa - Honolulu Magazine

Snout to tail: Pigfest in Manoa

Hello, pig.I’m feeling very close to you tonight. Meeting you face to face, in a sense, reminded me of how much we’ve lost in how far we’ve come. When I lived in a Third World country, I ate your intestines,…

Eat the Street debut: Puffettes Egg Puff

ETS Spicy loads our favorite Kaka’ako block with 38 food trucks and street food vendors tonight, people, and in addition to the expected stars of the Scoville scale — jalapenos, wasabi, Thai spice, Korean spice, Indian spice and the like…

Beyond gyros and baklava: Greek Fest menu preview

Greek Festival ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 11 The 31st Greek Festival happens at Ala Moana Park's McCoy Pavilion this weekend, promising major eating, drinking and dancing. Organizers expect 10,000 people per day for the two-day fest.Co-chair Eres…

Snout-to-tail: Coming? Here’s the menu

Get ready to swoon, people. I met today with Bob McGee, the chef who’s cooking our snout-to-tail dinner next Monday, and his menu had me licking my chops.SNOUT-TO-TAILMonday, Aug. 298 p.m.Morning Glass Coffee + Cafe2955 E. Manoa Road$55 per person,…

Snout-to-tail set for Aug. 29

UPDATE: Unless I’ve counted wrong — and that’s not unlikely — it looks like this dinner is now full. Snout-to-tail 2 is being planned for late September. I’ll keep you posted about those details as well as any cancellations for…

Last meal before you die

What would be your last meal before you die?It’s a question I randomly throw out at people, because I love hearing what comes back. Foodies always tell me the best thing they ever ate. Others name childhood dishes cooked by…

Can you cook like a 12-year-old?

I was always jealous of my colleagues Melissa Chang and Ed Morita, who were constantly being called upon to judge contests for beef stew, rice dishes, cookie houses, homemade cookies and all kinds of drool-worthy goodness. How was it? I’d…

Local Ingredients

Keep Your Picker Out of My Tree!

You don't want to mess with someone who counts all 300 avocados on her tree.

Last two weeks: Ethiopian pop-up going on hiatus

Word: Addis Ababa Hawaii, the Ethiopian popup restaurant that’s been serving three-course medleys in the Le Cacao Bistro space on Waialae every Thursday night, is vacating the premises to look for new digs. Which means if you’ve been wanting to…

It’s official: Shirokiya now totally food-crazy

Forget the electronics and most of what you walked past on your way to the upstairs food. In the latest phase of its 350-year evolution, Shirokiya — whose Ala Moana store is the last in Hawaii, and locally owned —…

Sayonara Osaka: Final look

12:05 a.m. Friday in Hawaii = 7:05 p.m. Friday in Japan. The sky over Osaka is dimming; moist heat from the day radiates off the sidewalks and the air is soft. I walk and walk, dodging hawkers, dodging crowds and…

Ichiban oishii

It’s too much to bring you here, all that I ate and tasted in four days in Osaka and Kyoto, but thanks to research, good friends and tips from many of you, this was one of my best gustatory ventures…

Sensory overload

It started with a blog by a couple of Aussies eating their way through Japan. After a morning of disappointing coffee from a Doutor shop in Kyoto, they redeemed the day by stumbling into a market and straight into a…

Osaka eats: First unagi, first sake

Everywhere in Osaka is warm: trains, department stores, even the refrigerator in my room (luke-cool) as Japan powers down after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The streets blister under a moist blanket of 95-degree heat, but even this pales against Kyoto,…

First night in the Big O

Face it — it’s not a hard gig covering Hawaiian Airlines’ inaugural flight to Osaka, when the upshot is I get unleashed in a city known as the kitchen of Japan. My 96 hours begins here: in the throbbing, pulsing…

Konnichiwa Osaka!

12:30 a.m. in Japan = 5:30 a.m. in Hawaii. I am so full I cannot breathe. I know you want more than this one photo of the heart of Osaka’s street food district, which throbs in all directions outside my…

Did this: Mangoes at the Moana

Mango fiends were out in force on Saturday, converging on Waikiki for the annual Mangoes at the Moana fest. Recipe contest (free tastings!), best mango contest (more free tastings!), mango seminars and wellness products: The king of summer fruits in…

Next mission: Street food adventures in Osaka

So I’m sitting at my computer after lunch last Wednesday, waiting for the java to snap me out of my fog, when this email lands in my inbox.“Aloha Mari, YOU’RE INVITED TO OSAKA!”Wha—?“Celebrate with Hawaiian Airlines as it launches its…

Summer preview: Best bon dance eats

Summer’s not summer in Hawaii without the sounds of drums and flutes and the scents of beef sticks and andagi wafting across neighborhoods. But what, now? Blueberry andagi? Waffle dogs? Okinawan gumbo?That’s right, bon dance food has evolved way beyond…

Chinese food for non-Chinese: Try these

The most interesting thing about a Chinese dinner I got invited to at Ming’s last year wasn’t the deep-fried chicken knees. It wasn’t the slivered pork belly arrayed around a volcano of pickled mustard cabbage, or even the 110-proof maotai…

Where small kid-time flavors come to life

It’s hard, hard, hard to review a restaurant anonymously these days, when new media has reviewers blogging, tweeting, facebooking, doing video and in general all sorts of handstands to keep up with the digital age. It’s not that I mind…

Eat the Street debut: Tiki Truck

You heard, right? Tonight’s the night for Eat the Street May, THE most happening event for street food in Honolulu. ETS v5 brings to Kakaako 33 trucks and vendors, 10 of them new, with a lineup that introduces ETS’ first-ever…

New eats: da ala cart

da ala cart ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 10 By Mari TaketaNonstopI screech into the parking lot of the Kaheka Street Don Quijote, intent on a mission. A hot tip (thanks @FliptOutEats) has alerted me to a new…

Snout-to-tail: Moving to 12th Ave.

To all who signed on for the snout-to-tail dinner, and to all who may see this and want to join in:Wow. I thought this would be a hard sell, a meal made from the parts of a whole local pig.…

Snout-to-tail dinner: Who’s in?

Who wants offal?This is a legitimate proposition, born of a random question on Twitter that got me wondering why we eat some things and not others, and really why that should be.The question was where to find good offal dishes…

New eats: Let Them Eat Cupcakes

Let Them Eat Cupcakes ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 12 By Mari TaketaNonstopA tale of cupcakes, this, a tale that begins in gritty reality and modern displacement and ends with a motto: When life nips one career in…

Did this: Lei Day for Japan

Lei Day for Japan ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 27 By Mari TaketaNonstopAloha Tower Marketplace last night: Like no other night before. jQuery(function($) { new NggPaginatedGallery('b38ba081711628b45c5f6b0257aac83d', '.ngg-imagebrowser'); });

The day has come … saimin and Spam OnoPops

If you never thought you would see this day, believe me, I didn’t either. That’s why my brain nearly exploded Monday night, when I snuck into the Nonstop content management system for a peek at the lineup for today’s Eat…

NATTO+DURIAN: Just natto meant to be

Ayyy, people, it wasn’t meant to be.It was all so promising, the way it came together. It started with my reveries about Izakaya Naru’s natto ice cream, the stinky fermentation neutralized by black honey and mixed into a delectable goo…

If you love sake…

The email nearly made me cry. It was a blast from the Sake Shop, outlining the tremendous damage to northeastern Japan’s sake breweries from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Warehouses collapsed, tanks toppled, bottling lines broke, fermenting sake was…

Beyond kalbi & mandoo: Night at Duck Butt

I remember the time I talked Anna, my hairstylist, into telling me what hard-core Korean dishes she orders when she goes out. She didn’t want to tell me.“Oh come on, Anna, Hawaii people know kalbi and mandoo, meat jun, fish…

M&M eats: Kissaten

You asked for it, you got it. M&M returns with Melissa Chang and Mari Taketa going at it in another yin-yang review. And this time, we’re taking it up a notch: M&M Eats recently premiered on KITV’s Island Television News…

Did this: Great Hawaiian Lunch Wagon Festival

Great Hawaiian Lunch Wagon Festival ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 31 By Mari TaketaNonstopKakaako yesterday, broiling under a hot sun, and yet an estimated 4,000-plus turn out for the Great Hawaiian Lunch Wagon Festival. The lineup: 21 lunch…

Did this: Taste of Marukai!

Taste of Marukai ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 47 By Mari Taketa and Melissa ChangNonstopYes, it's a warehouse. Yes, it's on Dillingham just past the prison. And yes, you can really taste it.Last night an estimated thousand people…

Self-serve udon hits Waikiki

Ever since the demise of Go Shi Go last year, the loss of Honolulu’s best udon shop has been a gaping hole in my heart. So it leaps when I get word of the impending arrival of a new udon…

Eat the Street Japan: The heart of the matter

Honolulu’s biggest ever food truck rally rolls tonight, and it’s all about Japan.Thirty-two trucks and booths will converge on the massive open lot at South Street and Halekauwila for the third Eat the Street rally. More than half are pushing…

HIFF foodie films: Our take, where to eat

Korean miso stew, French pastries in Tokyo, and honey: Three foodie films made the roster for the Hawaii International Film Festival’s weeklong Spring Showcase, which runs April 1-7 at Dole Cannery, and Nonstop scored preview DVDs. We’re stoked. Not only…

Mari Taketa

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