My Nonstop favorites
With 2011 arriving within days, it’s only fitting for me to close out 2010 by looking back at some of my favorite galleries and video that have run on the site.
It’s been four months we launched, although it feels far longer than that (in a good way, of course…). Every morning, my routine has been to wake up, fire up the iMac, load our content management system and see what content awaits. Even though our core team is small, there are always good choices to draw from, whether they’re blog posts, video or food galleries.
Everyone working on Nonstop has far exceeded my expectations, both in terms of the quantity of content being produced to the creativity being shown to vary the offerings and delve into new areas. I’ve liked far more content that I can include in this post, but here’s what, to me, stood out and why:
New eats: Gogi Korean Taco Truck by Mari Taketa
I chose this gallery because it represents the new Mari that has emerged via Nonstop Honolulu. I first started working with Mari back in early 2008, when she helped write venue listings for the not-yet-launched Metromix Honolulu. From that somewhat staid assignment, she moved on to write food reviews and galleries for both Metromix and the TGIF section of The Honolulu Advertiser. Although Mari’s personality and passion for food was evident in her earlier work, she’s become a much more outspoken, food-critiquing personality while working on Nonstop. Active on Twitter (a platform she previously shunned), she’s now organizing dining tweet-ups, interacting with readers and basically letting herself go as one of the island’s most fervent foodies. This gallery, which involved Mari hunting down this truck on opening day, showed me a new, bolder Mari had arrived.
Gogi
By Mari Taketa
Nonstop
6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8. Parking lot behind the haunted house on Ala Moana. One month after we first hear that an L.A.-style Korean taco truck is coming to town, here it is!
Gourmet Asian-Mexican fusion food with freshness, Gogi promises. Like what exactly? Spicy pork tacos. Kalbi sliders. And holy potato, creamy kimchee fries! Cheehoo!
Gogi Korean Taco Truck
805 Ala Moana Blvd.
www.eatgogi.com
Did this: Chopsticks & Wine by Melissa Chang
I’ve also been working with Melissa since those early Metromix days, and have also seen her evolve from being a relatively under-the-radar blogger to one of the most recognized writers/bloggers around town and a social networking powerhouse. I chose this gallery because not only does it show Melissa’s ability to write about and photograph food with authority, but it shows her skill at working a crowd. (You don’t get party pics like this, unless you’re comfortable with people.) As the editor of a food-oriented website, I can’t tell you how valuable it is to have someone like Melissa, who can go to a big dining event and bring back fun, entertaining shots and captions like this.
Did this: Chopsticks & Wine
By Melissa Chang
Nonstop
Every October for nine years, the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce has put on one of the biggest food and wine events in Honolulu. Chopsticks & Wine has grown to a mega-event of 1,300 people with 16 food stations and hundreds of wines, beer and sake. It was my first time, and from the moment I set foot in the ballroom, I could feel the incredible energy. It was overwhelming.
Tip for first-timers: If you can get out of work early, aim to get there as early as possible. I thought I was early — a half hour — but when I got there, the parking lot traffic was slow going. Once parked, the rest of the night is an amazing blur of people and food.
Cat Chat episode 3: Whine and wine
Cat Chat is the brainchild of its star host, Catherine Toth, who had worked in TV news before and was interested in starting a regular Internet talk show. It took about two seconds for me to agree that yes, Cat would be good at this, and that a regular talk show would be good for the site. Since the first Cat Chat launched in early November, we’ve had weekly shows, thanks to the shooting and editing efforts of Nonstop’s go-to-guy John Garcia. Cat is a natural on video. She’s fun, charismatic, funny, and perhaps most importantly, she knows how to bring out the personality of her guests. There’s definitely a future for her in this line of work should she chose this route.
The video below was my favorite Cat Chat to date because of the natural chemistry between Cat and regular guest Shannon Ball. They had fun shooting this, so naturally, people will have fun watching it.
Daughtry concert pics by Ed Morita
I was thrilled to see these two galleries shot by Ed Morita at the Daughtry concert because they showed that Ed is more than just a pastry chef-turned blogger and food writer. Because we’re a small team with big ambitions, I need everyone in the Nonstop crew to wear as many hats as possible. I wasn’t sure if Ed was up to be an event/party photographer until I saw his terrific Daughtry coverage.
Party pics
Black Friday madness by Nonstop team
The Nonstop crew had met earlier in the month and decided that as a team, we would cover Black Friday as a multimedia event. The only way to really capture the retail craziness happening around the island was to send people out to different Black Friday hotspots, so we had Melissa, Ed, Tracy Chan, John and Jermel Lynn-Quillopo out at the malls and stores.
Here’s the page with what we came up with. I feel we provided some of the best Black Friday media coverage here on the island because we were nimble, quick with our cameras and worked as a team.
“Hawaii Five-O” premiere at Sunset on the Beach
This was one of the first big events we covered as a team. John, Tracy and Ed divided up the responsibilities and brought back these photos and video. Again, we showed we can be scrappy and cover the heck out of a big event with some wherewithal.
Party pics: Hallowbaloo
Led by Tracy, Nonstop’s nightlife photographer/blogger/writer, we brought Hallowbaloo to life on our site with these pics.
