Kaiwa - Modern Japanese(?)

Today, I went to try the lunch special bento at Kaiwa, which is located on the 2nd floor of the back of Embassy Sweets hotel, on the beachwalk side.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a picture, but perhaps I will go eat again, and I'll try to take a picture then. In the meantime, about the food.

The bento consisted of Rice, Miso soup, Shrimp tempura, Beef steak strips, salad, sake (salmon) sashimi, and a desert.

The rice was just so so, not as good as some other restaurants such as Yoshitsune or Takeya.

However, I did go near the end of lunch, so the rice could have been a bit old or dried.

The miso soup was unexpectedly normal, or even less than.

I was surprised at that to be honest, I really expected to see some good miso soup ,judging from the fact that all the workers were Japanese (not even local nissei and sansei)... but life goes on.

Now to the other dishes. The salad, which I ate first, was pretty okay.

The dressing was something sesame based, unfortunately the miso soup tasted like smoke and clouded my toungue on this one.

It was fresh though, with various greens and a few halves of baby tomatoes.

The shrimp tempura was actually just deep fried jumbo shrimp that you can get at any seafood restaurant, but fried with some skill. The breading was just right, the tarter sauce was definitely home made, and the deep fried small japanese potatoes which accompanied them on the scewers were a good combination on both the eyes and the toungue.

The steak actually didn't have garlic slices on them like the advertisment pictures did, but the tare(sauce) that it was coated with was very good, and the meat itself was of good quality and cooked well, nice and tender and juicy. I actually prefered to eat it the way it was as opposed to dipping it in the other sauce they provided. The steak was over a bed of several grilled vegetables, which were pretty good as well.

The salmon was the highlight to me, although I think they intended the steak to be the main entree.

I say so because of all the items on the menu, the salmon was the only one that managed to really impress me.

After tasting the rice, soup, and salad, I had just decided that this was just another wannabe modern/fusion/east-meets-west place bound for failure in the near future, but I changed my opinion after tasting the salmon sashimi.

Granted, it wasn't as thick or big as the pieces shown in the advertisement, but man was it good!

It had that certain lack of icky fishy flavor that only good salmon sashimi have, while still delivering a subtle yet powerful punch of salmon flavor. It was aged just right, so that the texture was still there while the full flavor potential was pulled out.

If you've had good sake before, you'll know what I'm talking about. If you don't, I suggest you find a place that does serve good sake and try it, and I guarantee you'll instantly understand what I'm trying to describe here.

I finished the meal with the dessert, which was coffee jelly with a bit of cream and a small leaf of mint on top.

To be frank, I didn't like it one bit, but that's because I don't like coffee to begin with, and this one was very dark. Very. It's probably absolutely delicious to some people, just not me.

The cost of the meal was $15 plus tax, but after the Kama Aina discount it was $12 plus tax.

I thought that overall, it was worth it. Slightly expensive, I'd mark it at $10, but it's to be expected in that area, and it's not like it's easy to find better food at that price.

Also, the service was pretty good. The servers were courteous and polite, and the food came out in a timely fashion.

I don't know about dinner, but if you're looking for a place for lunch and you fill a little luxurious, try the lunch at Kaiwa! You probably won't regret it, although your wallet might sting a little.

The website for Kaiwa is http://www.Kai-wa.com , but unfortunately it is still under much construction. Perhaps you can call them and hurry them up.

An Awesome Christmas!!

Aloha all!! I hope you had a merry christmas!

I can't say too much about Christmas, but I sure have something to say about Christmas Eve! In Waikiki, there is a hotel called Halekulani. It is probably the most expensive hotel in Oahu, charging around 400 dollars for the cheapest Garden View room. In the hotel, there are several dining options, and one of them is called Orchids, which is famous for its brunch, but we'll talk about that at a later date.

What we did is go to Orchids for dinner. Although they did offer a Chef's Christmas Dinner course ($70), it didn't sound very appetizing, so Tricia an I decided to order other items from the menu. By the way, all the items on their menu are low fat/fat free, or so it says on the menu.

For appetizer, we ordered a thing called Variation of Island fish. It is two pieces of lightly grilled kobachi with a coat of cajun spices, a cute little lump of poke style maguro, and three slices of maguro sashimi. Unfortunately, I cannot provide you with a picture because Tricia and I were both too busy enjoying the fish. I imagine that we will be ordering it every time we go there, because it was that good.

For the meal, Tricia ordered a Fillet Mignon with a Truffle Glaze, with Fresh Roasted Vegetables and Gratin Potatoes with Brie Cheese.





The meat was lean and tender, and was grilled perfectly. The Truffle Glaze was a little too reminescent of A1 sauce for me, but Tricia liked it, so all's well, eh? The Garden Vegetables were really good, I especially liked the way they cooked it. It looks like they just chopped the vegetables, put them in the stone pot with some butter, and then just closed the lid and put the entire thing in the oven. It was good!! I would like to try it one day if I can get similar looking stone pots. As for the Potatoes with Brie Cheese...not that great, to be honest.

For my dish I ordered the house Signature Dish: Steamed Onaga(Ruby Snapper, or Tai), Oriental Style, Sizzled with Sesame Oil and garnished with Shiitake Mushrooms, Green Onions, Ginger, Chinese Parsley and Soy Sauce.



I have one word for you: GOOOOOOOOOOD! The fish was cooked to just the right tenderness, and the soup was just exquisite! That's one dish I'll be having again for sure. Here's the website of Orchids just in case you want to know more.
http://www.halekulani.com/dining/orchids/


After dinner, we came home and opened a bottle of Champagne to celebrate.



...what a bad idea. I've had some bad champagne/sparkling wine before but this really took the cake. It cost $23.50, but we just couldn't bear to take another sip and ended up just pouring it down the drain. It was really that bad. Seriously, I really love my alchohol. Give me a Kill Me Now and I'd drink it just so the alchohol wouldn't go to waste, but this champagne...ugh. Here's the label again, so remember it and DO NOT buy/drink it when you see it.



So instead of the champagne we had something I'd been cooling in the fridge for quite a while, like one month. It was a Moscato D' Asti, from I Vignaioli Di S. Stefano. (Italian, as you can obviously tell from the name.)



Now THAT is a drink you can celebrate with. It still had that slightly sickly sweet aftertaste that you can expect from any moscato/muscat, but it was relatively light, and the flavor was just wonderfully crisp. The fact that it was bubbly (Hence Asti) just made it even better, like icing on the cake. Here's the lable again, so if you see this one on the shelf, I promise you won't be disappointed!



Watch out for more random upadates! Have a Happy New Year!

FOOD - Hawaii, Tanaka Of Tokyo

Aloha, and welcome to Beary's Den!

Today I am going to introduce to you a restaurant in Paradise, otherwise known as Hawaii. Some people would probably dispute the Paradise name, but let's save that for some other time :)

This restaurant is "Tanaka of Tokyo", a "Teppanyaki" style Steak and Seafood restaurant with 3 locations in Waikiki. Teppanyaki means cooked on a "teppan", which means a metal plate. Don't really get the picture? Well, here you go:



The cooks literally just cook all the food on a heated piece of, well, I'm guessing iron and copper and whatever else they put in to making that sheet of metal. Of course, only the center is heated, and the sides of the teppan is usually used to keep materials that is not being cooked yet.

When you go to one of these places, expect to have a table full of strangers sitting together in front of one grill, unless you are with a group that'll make a table full. Usually, they cook will not start until the table is full, but that's only during peak hours. If you go really early, at opening time, you might even be the only people at your table! That's what I like to do, since I don't especially enjoy having uncomfortable conversations while being concious that the people next to us can hear everything. But eavesdropping problems aside, the food is to die for!

Okay, maybe I probably wouldn't kill someone to get a seat, but I might get pretty close! Even though the seasoning is simple salt and pepper with soy sauce, the power of the grill, plus quality materials, and a touch of the right balance of the spices, create a most flavorful meal. And even though it's a grill, since it doesn't involve any charcoal, you won't have to taste any! Hooray!

Assuming that you've ordered an actual meal, instead of just one item, they usually begin with an appetizer of shrimp, and some vegetables (onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, bean sprouts, etc.). Then you'll move on to your meal, whether it be sirloin, teriyaki, ribeye, salmon, scallops, shrimps, and lobster. And while all this is going on, you will also get salad, rice, pickled vegetables and miso soup.

Afraid that you'll get bored and fall asleep before your food is done? Don't worry! The cooks are usually equiped with little tricks and jokes that'll keep you awake while your food is being prepared. The popular ones are the flying shrimp tails, the "egg-roll", the flaming volcano, etc. They also like to show off their juggling skills as well as their knife skills.

Even though there are a lot of teppan places, I recommend Tanaka of Tokyo because they seem to have the best raw materials (you REALLY want this when you are having seafood!), and their food just tastes really, really good. Of course, it is a little pricy, but hey, somethings are just worth the money! Beware though: if you get caught with a bad cook......ugh. Just hope the shrimp tail doesn't fly in to your cocktail!

If you want to know more about them, you can visit their website at http://www.tanakaoftokyo.com.

Bon Apetite!

Beary out.

FOOD - Sushi Village, Whistler, Canada

Aloha, and welcome to Beary's Den!

Today I wish to introduce to you a favorite restaurant of ours that we discovered on a skiing trip.

One winter, we decided to go to a place called Whistler, which is in Canada, not too far from Van Couver. It is a place well known to ski fans, and attracts crowds from all over the world.

One thing about Whistler is that it is somewhat far away from everything else, but that is perfectly fine because Whistler has its own little town called, well, Whistler. It's got all your necessary ski shops, lots of restaurants, bars, clubs, gift shops, and even grocery stores.

I wasn't too impressed with the stores and what not, and since we were early in the season the slopes weren't that impressive either(no snow!). But what DID impress me was the FOOD!!!! Oh my gosh!!! I know the saying goes that cold places have the best food but this was just way beyond expectations. I'll tell you about the most impressive of them all: The Sushi Village.

The Sushi Village, conveniently located right across the courtyard in front of the rental stores, is a world-famous(to the people who know it, anyway) Japanese restaurant. Of course, at the time, we had no idea that it was such a famous place. In fact, we thought it was just one of those wannabe fake westernized Japanese places. Oh, how wrong we were!

My friends ordered the yosenabes, but me just being me, I went and ordred the Sushi, even though I fully expected it to be less than satisfactory. But when I first put that Hamachi in my mouth.......................I was just lost for words. The aging was just right, giving the morsal of yellowtail an amazing flavor, but what struck me most was the rich texture, with the right mix of softness and chewiness at the same time. The Maguro was excellent too, but to be honest it paled in comparison to the Hamachi. Still, I was not disappointed, because it was still absolutely delicious, better than most Maguro that I had tasted previously.

The biggest event of the day was the Toro. Toro, for those who aren't as familiar with the Japanese names, is Fatty Tuna. Toro also gets divided in to a few seperate parts, but that's not important. This is what it looks like:



And trust me, that is what is SHOULD look like. I have rarely seen and tasted better Fatty Tuna, and for about 150% the price. The moment those pieces hit my mouth, it just started melting, so much that I was barely chewing(that's what it felt like, anyway.) You looking for a bit of heaven packed in to a bite? That's it, right there.

There yosenabe was actually pretty good, too, and their appetizers were great, especially the agedashi tofu on top of stir-fried bean sprouts. If you ever happen to visit Whistler, make sure to put this place on the top of your list!

If you wish to know more about Sushi Village, go to

Another Beginning

Aloha, and welcome to Beary's Den!

I've started up yet another blog...Hopefully this time it'll stick!

Beary out.