alanamoana

i thought that buddha's hand was also called citron?! also, if you use yuzu juice, make sure you buy the bottle WITHOUT salt. the added salt is very overpowering and destroys any sort of fresh flavor you might get from a bottled product (which is usually decent).

that's interesting...i wonder if those are the same people who (as KarenS posted on another thread) ordered three bowls of soup with ten spoons?! it is possible that people might tip a little more when they split the check, but more than likely if they are the same morons who split every course 5 ways during dinner, they're going to split hairs over how much the tip is

aussies are funny in that unlike the chinese, they don't tend to import their cuisine along with themselves. there's another thread about aussie restaurants in nyc or some such complaint that there are none. i've eaten at cafe de wheels. it was good, but NOT overwhelmingly wonderful. meat pies are ubiquitous in australia. i'd say it's more like pot pie than shepherd's pie. oh yeah, and the aussies eat them with ketchup?! strange people

i think it comes from an automatic defense mechanism where we know we've done silly stuff like that before. so in defending her, we're defending some stupid stuff we've done in our lives...but hey, let's not get freud involved.

foodman, to the point exactly right good on you

this is a little off topic, but in preparing your tart dough and puff pastry, do you use butter? does that go against being vegan? to all the people who defend this woman, regardless of her maybe having had a bad day, i would just think that people would have the consideration of realizing where they're eating. she knowingly entered a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. it all comes down to choice. whenever i complain about my job or living conditions or basically anything that i have control over....that's what it returns to...the fact that i have control over what is happening in my life! once again, humans show how little they appreciate the choices they have by relinquishing all responsibility or try to place the responsibility or blame on someone else.

that sounds really good. what about braised beef cheeks/veal cheeks? i recently ate "red cooked" veal cheeks at a local restaurant here in hawaii. not only were they "red cooked" chinese style, but they were heated in a kiawe (mesquite) grill so they had that smoky flavor infused into it also. this sounds like a great sandwich meat to me...maybe without the stilton

man, and after i spent 11 dollars on the steamer basket and pot to match! i'll have to give the cooker a try

i get all that stuff, but the thai sweet rice (which isn't really sweet) definitely has a different texture than rice which is cooked submersed in water. when steamed separate from the water, each grain is separate and "dry" but it all sticks together. that is where my questions come from. i feel that cooking it in water will change the actual texture/consistency of the sticky rice. the amount of water that the grains absorb through the steam alone has to be different than the amount it absorbs when submersed under a knuckle depth of water. i know that some people i have asked don't know the difference or have never had real thai sticky rice...they are just thinking of asian style rice or sushi rice. i can see the p.i.t.a. quotient, but really i just soak it overnight and the next day steam it until it is done. it really isn't that hard to do. no more difficult than measuring it out and pushing a button. i feel that if it were the case and you really could dump it in a cooker, nobody would bother to do it the "old fashioned way". when i get back home, i'll try it your way and see how it comes out.

I too love cooking with my mom...and hate cooking with my mom! My mom is the best cook that I know and I can't eat Chinese food out without comparing it to hers. She had a restaurant in the 70's when I was a kid. Until I lived in San Francisco (around 1999), I thought General Tso's Chicken was her invention (Tso is her maiden name and it was on her menu)!!! She hates her kitchen. She has one of those corning flat-topped electric stoves from the 70's. It takes about an hour to heat up and you can turn it off and the water will still boil for 20 minutes. She instead cooks outside under a little lean-to (sounds like little house on the prairie). She has a wok ring attached to a propane tank and mostly stir fries things she's grown in the garden. As a child, I remember sitting on the floor on newspaper peeling carrots or potatoes for whatever we were cooking. I would mince garlic and ginger. I was her little prep cook. She's upset that I didn't spend more time cooking with her...but not as upset as I am. Now I do spend that time with her and she teaches me something new each time. But...sometimes I hate cooking with her too! Having worked in restaurants, I waste too much food when I prep. She's always complaining that I'm throwing too much away. When we make potstickers and I think the filling is used up, she can use a rubber spatula and make four more dumplings! I guess that's why Chinese are known for being cheap! Squeezing blood from a stone is nothing to my mother...

fifi, how did you steam the thai sticky rice in the rice cooker?! did you add water, if so, how much? did you soak it ahead of time like you're supposed to? did you use the real "sweet rice"? i'm curious. i don't have a fuzzy logic cooker...you can only find them on vulcan (bad joke), but i do have a regular electric rice cooker. i need details!

i think you can find powdered ascorbic acid/vitamin c at your local vitamin shop. this may be easier to use than vitamin c tablets. also, they don't add sugar to this, so you'll need to add a little less. in my pastry department, we used a liquid called "fruit acid". i think this is the same thing in liquid form. we use it to balance flavors when making fruit based mixtures like sorbet base, etc.

hey kimo: i'm on the same page as you are...i'm sort of looking to start my own business and i'm wondering what would fit here. i guess that is one reason why i followed fifi's advice in starting this thread. one thing i've noticed is that no one in hawaii is really on-line...notice the geographic section of the discussion forum...if anyone talks about hawaii it is as a tourist ... of your ideas...there are several that have a fighting chance (imho of course): bakery wine and cheese shop trader kimo's but seriously! family friendly restaurant that isn't "diner" style (not rainbows, not L&L, not grace's etc etc) maybe not so good: there are already hundreds of steak houses (yeah, i tend to exaggerate) the "farmers' market" behind ward center/warehouse has the poke market...but you could do it better, i'm sure NO ATKINS! (that's just me talking) anyway, i'm leaving the 25th so...have a great trip. aloha p.s. my mom's store is in dole cannery where strawberry connection was. i think the location sucks, but my mom doesn't really pay too much rent, so that's okay. if you like chinese tea, etc. stop by "tradewind east" at dole cannery. my mom works on saturdays and tuesdays.

tra vigne - italian mustards - california julia's kitchen (copia) pinot blanc - california CIA greystone restaurant (student run, not for profit) how about just the barbeque at Visattui (spelled wrong i think) winery? you can have a late picnic lunch with sausage, etc...outdoors

well, if we're going there...little samples of viagra! this means we'll have to have gender specific happy meals...sort of like the sundaes...you want that male or female (with or without nuts)? p.s. pardon my vulgarity

seems to me fifi, asians can't understand that foreign palates can take the heat/balancing act that the food would require if produced authentically. i guess they're doing our thinking for us and trying to make the food universally acceptible to "everyone's" palates. just like your local chinese delivery place makes that disgusting deep fried, artificially flavored, artificially colored, corn syrup based, corn starch thickened sweet and sour pork! ugh!

you're right kimo. i guess one of the unfortunate things about HRC is the nature of hawaii itself. we don't have a large population from which to produce a lot of chefs (who are interested in local/HRC)...the tourism industry being large and in-charge sort of dictates the presence of hotel restaurants which end up being staffed by swiss, german and french chefs who are usually transients. there are some who stay, like gerard in maui and i'm sure some others, but i think you get my drift. i have yet to eat at alan wongs and i hear he's the best. i certainly respect him more than most. i mean, how many different ways can you eat loco-moco?! aren't you on your way to hawaii soon? i was hoping to meet you but i think i'm leaving the day you're arriving. aloha, a

to reopen this thread: i've been in hawaii for the last several weeks. i just went to maui last weekend and ate at a couple of places there and on oahu whose food qualifies as HRC...here's something i noticed across the board: SWEET!!!!!!!! what is the deal with making every sauce tooth numbingly sweet (at least to my taste)? my boyfriend posited that a lot of asian cuisines (which has a heavy influence on HRC) have sweet elements: hoisin, sweet/sour, etc. but i felt this was across the board too much and not balanced. the asian cuisines in question, when cooked properly balance the flavors really well. HRC chefs seem to be unable to offset the sugar. i'm confused. with such fresh produce (and increasingly diverse produce) available, not every sauce has to be mayonnaise or "aioli" (in quotation marks because they rarely make real aioli) based, with a ton of sugar. okay, i've beaten that point to death. i'm going to have to re-read the article that food zealot linked to in order to argue this better any ideas, responses, defenses?

unfortunately because of the fruitcake giving syndrome attached to mooncakes, most of them are a little on the crappy side. there are some good ones out there...ask a dedicated chinese person to tell you which brand or type to buy. i had a five nut one the other day and it was pretty tasty. jinmyo: you won't make friends on the pastry forum with your attitude , but i understand your point of view as you are obviously asian. i am a card carrying pastry chef but my mother is chinese (my father is american). i didn't grow up with sweets and i don't really love most desserts. i love fruit at the end of a meal instead of something insipidly sweet. but i do have to agree with some of the arguments made earlier on this thread. if you are at the french laundry and have just had an incredible meal, wouldn't you feel as if you didn't have the entire experience if you decided to skip dessert? i'm sure, or at least it would be my goal if i were working at such a restaurant that i would make the dessert an integral part of the meal/menu. it would have to match the food and vision that the chef was trying to impart to the guest. therefore, no kahlua mudslide ice cream cake with four ounces of whipped cream on top with hot fudge topping, nuts and a cherry...something simple, clean, in season, balanced in flavor with the "proper" garnish, if there is such a thing. some people don't see that pastry can be more like savory cooking in the approach to sauces, etc. not everything needs a creme anglaise/raspberry coulis swirl...i do things like make reductions from the sauce of the fruit in the dessert, salt is an all important ingredient...that sort of thing. pass on the desserts at tgif or denny's but at least make an effort to taste something once in a while at a fine dining restaurant. this encourages our ilk to continue in our chosen profession , regardless of how little respect, money, recognition we receive . p.s. score one for KarenS on the white rice come-back! my mom has to really watch her rice intake now that she has to monitor her blood sugar level every day...imagine a chinese woman watching her rice, what a pain...and she doesn't even eat sweets

i think one of the small distinctions between viennese bakery and german bakery: if you're thinking on the level of "viennoiserie" or viennese konditerei...that's mostly pastry and petit four type of things?! german bakery meaning a place that sells really good dark breads, etc? another try at sounding like i know what i'm talking about...any other ideas?

i just had to add my two cents worth because of the topic title. i would agree to trim the butt fat, but that would require liposuction in my case and i can't afford it man, the fat on the pork butt is the best thing. when my mom buys pork butt and trims it down, she makes cracklin'...damn the american "health consciousness"...

just the other day, i'm at work and the moon strikes (i think this thread may scare some of the male members of eGullet )...i rush off to the local drug store to buy supplies... you guessed it: mini m&m's mini snickers mini three musketeers mini milky ways needless to say, everyone else was happy even if i needed about 20 alleve!

this may sound like a strange recommendation, and i may be a bit outdated, but have you tried espresso from any of the il fornaio restaurants? i know it is a chain and mostly just a restaurant, but at most of the restaurants they have a little retail cafe. this was my first real cooking job (before i decided to attend culinary school)...i worked in the kitchen and then in the cafe. so for a while i was a barrista and was trained pretty vigorously on the proper technique, etc. on making espresso. granted, this was in 1995...i worked at the il fornaio in irvine (off the 405). but there are a couple in the la county. also, their ciabatta (when fresh) is the best. i could eat an entire one pound loaf with evoo by myself in about 10 minutes!! again, my disclaimer, this was a while ago and i think the original owner sold his interest in the company (based in northern california). give it a try and let me know

in addition (which may be where this trend started) there's a restaurant in spain doing only desserts. i think it is a prix fixe multicourse type of thing with multiple dessert courses. of course, being in the home of el bulli, one would imagine it much more of an envelope pusher...there was an article about this place in the ny times...i think spring of 2002. sorry i don't have more info. p.s. the sugar dessert bar in chicago. i think i read an article about that...didn't they say that it was sort of a club-like atmosphere and overall i didn't get a very good impression from it (the article and the place). i feel that just from pr alone, chikalicious appeals to my sensibilities more than these other places. it seems more attainable (for the proprietors) and more approachable (for the customers).

i guess this was a good thread to start getting people to "reminisce" (sp?) about their hawaii food memories. it is such a wonderful place to live and to visit. yes, foodzealot, i'm thinking a lot about starting a business here. i'd have to do a lot of research though. you know how picky locals can be . oh, i only get my long rice from so and so, and my manapua from so and so...hehe but the more i think about it, the more i miss this paradise. and you'd be surprised at the variety of produce now available on the island. i guess the chefs (higher end) are pushing the farmers to grow some of the things which were only available on the mainland. this really makes it an exciting time here in hawaii. now, if only the economy and thus tourism would pick up to get people out here