Post-APEC eats: Restaurant Week deals
To all held hostage by APEC:I know you’re out there. You who took care of all your Waikiki and Ala Moana errands last week, you who get on H-1 and pray no dignitary has just landed, you who are still…
Mari Taketa
Articles
Dear APEC, Here’s where you should eat
Dear APEC,Aloha!The 15,000 to 20,000 of you who are descending on Waikiki as I type will leave an estimated $120 million in our economy, much of it in our restaurants. I know that just like me, you work for your…
FYI, five more days
I haven’t been out Kaneohe way in a while, so I’m a little late to the party, but I found out yesterday what’s going on with all the pink at Heeia Pier.It’s cancer, discovered three months ago in the breast…
Emotions: A story about lunch
First there was wonder, then came rage. I’m talking about my first taste of broth from today’s ramen at Shokudo.So round, the flavors, so deep. I filled my spoon for another taste. There was a pork bone base, obviously, and…
HIFF review: ’18 Meals’
A father collapses and dies after a dinner of Chinese takeout. Two old friends tentatively, fearfully try to rekindle an affair that never was. An actor pours his soul into preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner for an alluring love interest…
If you love unagi
When I was growing up, I got to spend a few summers on homestays in Japan. Once this happened while my family was hosting an exchange student from Saitama, so one day her mom arrived to take me to lunch.It…
Where the food trucks are
I stopped by Tacoako Tuesday a couple days ago. If the name’s not familiar, it’s a lunchtime gathering of food trucks launched earlier this year by Flipt Out Eats, the Filipino fusion taco truck that started out by itself on…
M&M eats: Prima
M&M eats: Prima ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 13 Crash, rumblerumbleMari: Where are we?Melissa: We're between Baskin-Robbins and Foodland and R. Field, so there's shopping carts going by in front of us. You didn't want to sit inside?Mari:…
Scoops: Shirokiya ramen fest
Seriously, have you been to Shirokiya lately? I was late to the ongoing ramen festival, finally getting there for a mid-September tweetup, and whoa! On a Wednesday night the entire second floor was packed, every seat taken and many tables…
ETS Kakaako debut: All Kine Ice Cream Truck
Eat the Street: Eat Local will bring a record 39 food trucks and street food vendors to Kakaako tonight, the last night of Hawaii’s Eat Local month, and that means good things for our taste buds and our islands. Every…
Where to eat local
Two weeks into Eat Local month, I was in the midst of my own First World, middle-class pity party: “eating local is really hard when ur favorite food in the whole world is spaghetti,” I tweeted to no one in…
Snout to tail 2: Sept. 26, 27, 28
It’s ba-ack! As promised, the menu for Snout to Tail 2 went up on Plancha’s blog in the wee hours of the morning, and here it is:Liver pate with Hobbs bacon and Maui onionsOrechiette pasta with shaved spleen, lemon and…
First dinner at new pop-up
I love pop-up restaurants: They ride the edge, put full focus on food, hold down costs. I’ve been to three of Honolulu’s four*. But for me the thrillers are the ones that take the gamble to the extreme, regularly switching…
Did this: Joy of Sake
It’s maddening, squeezing sake out of tiny plastic pipettes, but it’s like chewing your food slowly — it forces you to slow down and savor. And with 326 premium sake to taste, there was plenty of savoring at the 11th…
Joy of Sake: The how-to guide
Moonlight steeped in spring rain;blossoms of wisdom —all from one little cup — JoroIt’s the biggest sake celebration outside Japan: 326 of the best junmai, ginjo and daiginjo in the world, judged head to head to choose the best among…
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…
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…
