pake

I like Hanagasa Inn on River St. just below Vineyard Blvd. Orion beer, goya chanpuru, shoyu pork (rafute), nabera, tebichi...

Good stuff!

SK, Being from Hawaii I love Spam. Ate it in the usual way fried slices or in omelets, but also used it in my goya chanpuru when I needed a quick meal. Don't think I ever bought Tulip as it was just as expensive in Japanese markets as Spam. Since Spam was very cheap at the commissary I always bought that. This place my co-workers and I went to lunch every couple of weeks had this dish they called nishime. Not like nishime as we know it, but the dish in the Okinawan Cuisine site called Nunkwa. At this place, besides konyaku, daikon, egg, belly pork, tofu, there were slices of Spam or Tulip, plus konbu knots. Served with a bowl of soba and a bowl of rice. Was 800 yen I think. Very filling but delicious! Was hard to work in the afternoon! caroline, As far as the purple sweet potato I don't know too much. Have to ask my Okinawan friends about it. Only thing is the purple sweet potato chips they have in Okinawa is great!

Another quick dish from Okinawa is somen with either canned corned beef hash or canned tuna. After cooking the somen, it is mixed with the hash or tuna to heat through. Nice quick meal!

torakris, Will be keeping my eye on this thread. One thing I discovered in Okinawa was that seasonally, ong choi would appear in Japanese markets, really enjoyed that. Never found out how Okinawans prepared it but I went and made harm ha ong choi with pork! And my friends loved it!

So, so, so sorry PPC that I offend you. But SK asked about my life and eating in Okinawa. What makes you so great? You been there? Thanks SK for putting in the comment of being civil. There are dishes in Okinawa that surely would be welcome here in Hawaii. Did you check the site of Najimi I pointed out? Soki nitsuke would do very well here. I even learned how to make it. Along with rafute. As far as the chanpuru, there's one place that makes it with canned corned beef hash. Is good! All in the vein of the long American presence there. There's another dish I love in Okinawa that would do well here. Called hone jiru. Made in the same method of Hawaii's oxtail soup but uses pork backbones instead. Boiled for a long period, no shoyu. Served with slightly cooked local veggies and a fairly big dollop of grated ginger. Very good! One dish that would NOT go over here is the yagi jiru. Same thing as above but made with yagi - that's goat! That dish you have to grow up on. Very UNIQUE smell. Another observation is the Okinawans love of corn. There's corn soup in all the restaurants. Okinawan children love it. Seems to be like watered down cream corn to me. Remember when I first served canned corn to my neighbors, heated up with butter. They love it, so always served it after. Very expensive for a little can of corn in Japanese supermarkets. When fresh corn was available in the commissary it was a fantastic treat for my friends. I've always wonder about this like of corn. For us it just and easy vegetable to have! pake-san

sk, Here is a link to a page that has some places. http://www.japanupdate.com/en/?p=restaurants Kitadaichi is my favorite. They have since changed their name to Yoichi but not on this website. My "regular" table was the one in the corner to the left. Another favorite is Najimi. 5 minute drive from my apartment. A real mon and pop place. Always crowded. Check out the site. My favorites are the Soki Nitsuke or the Tebichi Nitsuke. The picture is of the Soki Nitsuke. Very, very filling. Cannot finish all the rice, usually asked them for only half.

sk, I lived for over 5 years in Okinawa, returning about a year and a half ago. Trying hard to get back there. It's a great place. Great food, great drink, great people! Where I lived in Hamby Town, located in Chatan, were quite a few places (restaurants, izakayas, little hole in the walls, etc. One thing about the peopple of Okinawa they love to eat and drink. Within a 15 minute walk of my apartment were a couple dozen places. Hamby Town is a newer area, being developed only 15 years ago on a former airfield. Any older folks would know it as Hamby Aarmy Airfield. But it's the place to be. One izakaya about a minute's walk from my apartment was my favorite, called Yoichi. I have a menu so maybe I'll take pictures of it and submit them to you. Izakayas are like the small plate thing happening now in the US, but it's been the mainstay for a long time in Japan. Happy hour from 5 to 7 PM with mugs of Orion or Kirin draft beer for 190 yen. Normal price 400 yen. So after work would go there to have a few and eat something if I felt lazy about cooking. Hard to tell about all the dishes available, but favorites were goya chanpuru, two different kinds of deep fried fish, one of which was flounder that was so deep fried you ate everything - bones, head fins, etc. And sashimi. If it was with other friends or co-workers and everyone wanted to continue because of some celebrartion, then the awamori would be ordered. Awamori is drunk all ways - mixed with water and ice, on the rocks or straight w/ water back, or beer back, to each his/her own. Of course if it continued more food is ordered to pick on. There was a local bar on the ground floor where I lived. Just a long bar with a few tables, and with one lounge area with sofas. So I spent a lot of time there. You can buy a bottle of awamori that you enjoyed and have a "keep" there. Same all over. And these types of bars open late, usually at 8 PM. Met lots of people and became friends with a bunch. A lot of them would come in and order a beer or two, then start with the awamori. Have a lot of stories. Maybe I should start up my own web site. Another fantastic memory is of my neighbors. The building I lived in had only 2 floors of aprtments, 3 apartments per floor. Was a small building. My 3rd. floor neighbors were a Japanese dentist and his wife, and another Japanese lady who worked for Cisco Systems. The dentist spoke good English and the Cisco lady (as my daughter called her) spoke very good English. The dentist was from Kobe and his wife was from Osaka. The Cisco lady was also from Osaka. But each weekend one of us would have a dinner. The dentist's wife is a great cook, and I eaten so many fine dishes of hers. But the best has to be her sukiyaki with Kobe beef. My dinners consisted of Hawaiian style or Chinese foods. The favorite of everyone has to be Chinese steamed ground pork stuffed bitter melon with black bean sauce. The Okinawans know bitter melon or goya but always stir fried. So after that, I made it quite often, plus even had a little class time to show them how to make it. Other favorites were my char siu baby back ribs that I cooked on the grill. Though they did enjoy steak a lot. But they enjoyed black bean shrimp and Chinese style steamed fish. Okinawan markets did not have Chinese parsley (cilantro) but the commissary brought it in. The dentist from Kobe (lots of Chinese onfluence there) enjoyed it so much, he used to just munch on it as a pupu. So whenever there was Chinese parsley I always bought a lot and gave him. Chinese food is Japan is different, a lot sweeter to me. I didn't like it too much. That's why I cooked my own. Having commissary priviledges, meat is very cheap. Cheaper than here in Hawaii. Beef in Japan is very, very, very expensive. The commissary also sold Redondo's Portuguese sausage, and that went over like gang busters. Heat and burn a little it on the grill then slice it. Taught them about poke too. Since there's no ogo like we have here in Hawaii, on trips home I used to take back fresh ogo to Okinawa, than freeze it in salt water so I would always have ogo. Another good thing is the Noh poke mix with the freeze dried ogo. Not bad stuff. There's another story, getting inspected at customs with ogo in my luggage. Think I've gone on too long. Will give another chapter again.

I have been to Hatsune-ya and also when it was Kariyushi. Enjoy it much more now. Really has the same feeling as an izakaya in Okinawa. Just start with the Orion, start eating the rafute, goya chanpuru and soki, then start to drink awamori.

Here are some links from the Okinawa Prefectural GOvernment, from their Wonder Okinawa site. One is the Japanese site with the English mirror. Only thing different is that the Japanese site has the recipes in Japanese while the English site does not have the equivalent English translation, so no recipes in English, only in Japanese. Japanese: http://www.wonder-okinawa.jp/026/cuisine.html English: http://www.wonder-okinawa.jp/026/e/cuisine.html It is a very good site, showing history, ingredients, etc.

Here's the Phan recipe. I have the picture but don't know how to add it. LEMON-GRASS-GRILLED RACK OF LAMB w/ TAMARIND SAUCE Charles Phan, Slanted Door, SF 4 stalks lemon grass, trimmed, minced 4 ea. shallots, peeled 2 ea. Thai chilis (or 1 sml. jalapeño), stemmed & seeded, (or ~1 tsp. crushed red chili flakes), or to taste 1/2 cup sugar 1 Tbs. neutral oil (corn or canola) 2 Tbs. fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc mam) 2 ea. sml. racks of lamb, ~1-1/4 lbs. ea., cut into riblets salt & pepper Tamarind Sauce 1. Combine lemon grass w/ shallots, chilis, sugar & oil in mortar & pestle or food processor, or mince finely w/ knife, add fish sauce. 2. Sprinkle lamb w/ salt & pepper. 3. Marinate in mixture 2~3 hrs., wrapped & refrigerated. 4. Start grill, rake coals so fire is quite hot on 1 side & cooler on other, grill rack is ~4'' from heat source. 5. Grill lamb, start on hot part of grill, until crusty, turn as necessary. 6. Move to cooler part if threatens to char. 7. Cook until temp. in center of meat measures 125° ~ 130° for rare, 10~15 min., serve hot, w/ Tamarind Sauce. (4 servings) Tamarind Sauce 1/2 lb. dried tamarind pods, or 1 lb. tamarind paste 1/2 cup sugar, or to taste 2 Tbs. fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc mam), or to taste. 1. Simmer pods (w/ husks) or paste in hot water to cover, stirring & mashing until soft, ~10 min. for pods, 5 for paste, if use pods, remove husks, press pulp & seeds in fine sieve. 2. While warm, stir in sugar & fish sauce, serve hot, w/ lamb. 3. Sauce can be refrigerated ~1 day, reheated just before serving, adding little water or lime juice if necessary to thin out. (1 cup) The Chef © 2004 The New York Times Company

Another place in the 50~60s that my family used to go to was Golden Duck on Piikoi and Young Streets. Other than that the only places I remember were McCully Chop Suey, Wo Fat and Lau Yee Chai (only for special occasions though).

Out there...What was the little place on Hotel Street that was great? Was in the late 70s. Mini Garden?

Speaking of Maple Garden, if you ever go there, you gotta try the Tungpo Pork. There's a nickname - "Beautiful Lady's Rolling Bottom". It's a pork belly dish that you have to order the day before, like their Peking Duck. Takes a long time to prepare. Braised and steamed for hours. It is so delicious!

My mother used to make chutney with ripe Chinese white piree mangoes, when our tree had too much. Very hard to find piree magoes now-a-days. But half ripe piree are the best ever!

Oh, this was at the Puck's Alley place. Daughter, son-in-law and I ate alot of the zuke on the table. I used to like to eat curry with mango chutney my mother used to make. Actually ate mango chutney on steak.

Sad to say Coco has stopped the sliced garlic addition for a topping. Was so disappointed when I went there last night. Had to settle for just shrimp and spinach.

SKC When I was in college in upstate NY and used to go visit my sister in NYC in the late 60s she used to make this real good fried chicken. She told me to marinate the chicken in teriyaki sauce overnight then fry it haole style - breaded. Was, still is real ONO! My haole classmates and friends loved it! Never thought of adding chili pper in those days.

Message for SKC Way back in the beginning of this forum you mentioned about an exhibit at the World Uchinanchu Conference, "The Hawaii Okinawa Restaurants Project". If it is, here's a site for it. http://www.hawaii.rr.com/leisure/reviews/a...9_ocihawaii.htm

I'll confirm where she is and let you know, then you can go talk to her!

Back in Honolulu for a year now, previous 5 years in Okinawa.

Couple other saimin places...now gone. Hall's in Kalihi Tanoue's in Kaimuki When I went away to college (40 years ago) instant ramen was in it's infancy. My mother didn't want me to use the soup package that came with it, because of the MSG. So she told me to use canned chicken broth and add in some dried shrimp. Also she said to cook the noodles separate and add to the broth. Was a lot of meals in college! Especially good on cold nights in the Northeast!

Alice, known as "Chicken Alice" is still out there working, though not with chickens. Saw her a month ago at Club Touchdown on Keeamoku Street, though I think they've moved since then. Think her old place was "Korea House" where her chicken was first served. Place was on Kamailee Street, now gone under the new WalMart. Lots of other bars were in that area- Vichon, Nightwings, Burgundy Lounge, to name a few.