~ Wait, What? This Isn't Hawaii?
That’s right, in Hawaii, today has been designated a holiday, so no work til Tuesday brah!!
So live it up!
Have a terrific Bento Box lunch at Gyotaku Japanese Restaurant (we went to the one in Aikahi, but it’s closed now, dang it!). HEH! This is mine, go get your own!
Missus Dear Friend and I try to get together every so often and it’s just us, no boys! Sometimes we do some retail therapy first and then go to lunch, on this occasion we went over to Gabby’s Grill (the four of us have breakfast over at their sister restaurant Gabby’s Kitchen).
A glass of wine was the first order of business; aren’t these glasses cute?
Mrs. DF said that we simply must try their Crispy Avocado Egg Rolls. Howdy Doody! I’ve got to find a recipe for this. It seemed pretty straight forward, sliced Avo, some diced Tomatoes and a bit of Cilantro, Lime Juice and maybe chopped Jalapenos… and that dipping sauce was outta sight! Not sure what it was but it was really good.
On to our entrees. My friend had the Fresh Strawberry and Spinach Salad, asking that it be Dairy-free as well as Gluten-free. I can’t recall what all was in it but it sure looked tasty, and that dressing!
I had the Smoked Chicken Salad Sandwich with my side being a Garden Salad. WOW! That was a lot of food! I wound up taking the salad home.
We lingered for awhile over our lunches, chatting and sipping our wine. What a lovely way to spend on afternoon. Thank you Dear Friend.
Yup, that’s right.
My husband made a request the other day, he said that he was really ono (hungry for) for some Poke and Sushi. Well, I was out and about and stopped into my favorite green grocer. HEH! They’ve got a Sushi Counter, ya know the kind were they make it right in front of you to take home, complete with Wasabi, Pickled Ginger and a small packet of Shoyu (they had chopsticks and forks too 😉 ).
Also in the fresh fish case they had Ahi fillets, CHEAP…I love this place.
DING DING DING!!! LUNCH! YUM!
When I got home, I made up a batch of Shoyu Ahi Poke with a beautiful half pound Ahi steak and served that with the Unagi (Fresh Water Eel) Nigiri Sushi.
What a treat!
In the past month or so, Missus Dear Friend and I have been doing a Girl’s Day Out every other week. We’ve been meeting at different local restaurants for lunch and then we go grocery shopping together. My favorite green grocer, Sprouts, opened a second location in our area and we both wanted to check it out. So what to do about lunch? The Raven Café, they offer lots of vegetarian and gluten-free options and a lovely menu of beers and wine, that’ll work for us.
This a cool, funky, laid back joint; they have loads of unique works of art for sale on the walls. You order your food and drinks at the bar; you get a “letter” and find a seat. We both decided that it was close enough to noon that a glass of wine would be a good thing.
Mrs. DF ordered Sweet Potato fries and Guacamole with Blue Corn Chips.
For myself, I decided on a Turkey Panini and a side salad. Everything was yummy.
What I enjoyed about the Raven Café is that we never felt rushed. We sat, chatted and savored our wine for more than two hours. As we looked around, we noticed that there were several “business meetings” being conducted over lunch. I mean we’re talking about folks with their easel stands, presentation boards and all! We’ll need to go back again and try some of the other dishes as well as the upstairs outdoor patio.
If you’ve been following along for awhile now, you’ll remember my post about Tuna Sandwiches.
Having lived the majority of my life in Hawaii, THE mayonnaise of choice is Best Foods (it’s known as Hellman’s on the East Coast of the US). Although, there is a brand from Japan that has some pull in certain circles…
Kewpie Mayonnaise, YUM!
I’ve never bought this brand of mayo before, mainly because it’s not cheap! As you can see, I got the smaller, less expensive bottle XD
So I’ve had this container in my pantry, waiting for the right moment to break it out… Today’s the day!
I brought back a BUNCH of these lovely cans of my most favoritest canned Tuna in the whole wide world (along with an entire suitcase full of other goodies … all food items, of course 😎 ) the last time we went home to Hawaii; I figured if I was going to do it, let’s go whole hog!
In Hawaii, we LOVE our mayonnaise and make our Tuna Salad very simply. Tuna and mayo, that’s it, well, you do need to use alot of mayo. My husband doesn’t do care for mayonnaise, so he can’t watch when I do this, “Don’t tell me what’s in there! All I know is that I like your Tuna Sandwich.” Ssshhhh! Don’t tell him, but I only use a little mayo in the salad, just enough to moisten it all up and then slather GOBS of it on the bread for my sandwich, MMM.
The Kewpie was phenomenal! I turned the packaging over to look at the ingredients, thinking how different could this be? MSG, Pepper, Pepper Extract and Apple, interesting (and yes I know that MSG is not good for you, but if you don’t eat it everyday…). Since DH wasn’t looking, I figured I’d taste-test the two brands side-by-side… WOW! They’re worlds apart. That MSG gives the Kewpie Mayo a very savory flavor, they call that Umami.
If you get a chance, do try this different mayonnaise. If you don’t see it in any of your neighborhood markets, you could always order it on line.
*Note: As I’ve made mention previously, products that appear here on my personal blog are items that I enjoy and want to share these thoughts about them with you the reader. I am not compensated in anyway by any company, corporation, individual, group or foundation. If you see any advertising on this site, it is placed there solely by WordPress.com and I have not done so. I’m not in this for money, just my own amusement. 🙂
A few days back, I was telling you about a new find I discovered at Trader Joe’s, Soft Pretzel Sticks.
YUM!
WELL! On my most recent journey to one of my favorite places to shop for food, I grabbed a bunch of these culinary delights and stashed them in the deep freeze for later. I was looking for something for lunch a coupla days later and thought THAT would make a terrific sandwich!
DING DING DING! We have a winner folks.
I heated the rolls, split them open, slathered them in some Spicy Brown Mustard and lastly layered on Ham and Swiss Cheese. DE~LI~CIOUS!!!
Me: So how’s that tastin’ ?
DH: MMM [garbled mouth-full mumbles] Where did you get this, this is really good!
Me: Trader Joe’s
DH: Can you make this again?
Me: YUP, you betcha. 😉
I don’t usually post recipes that we did not care for, but I had such high hopes for this one and have been wanting to try them. We have been away on another road trip (I’ll tell about that in my next blog post) and finally got into the kitchen today.
Let’s go!
Cheesy Party Burgers (aka Diamond Burgers)
I found this recipe on Pinterest and was VERY disappointed with it. Sorry guys, it’s just not very good at all. DH used much stronger words to describe it after taking just one bite and he was done. Way too much butter for the glaze on top, it came out as soggy, mushy bread and some ground beef, not appetizing.
I made this up for lunch today, and served it along with something called Summer Slaw that I found at the Deli counter in our local grocery store; I need to look that up or plead with the store manager for the recipe for that, it was DELICIOUS!
But the Cheesy Party Burgers were not a party. But ya know, maybe your family might like these sliders, for us, not so much.
