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LarryG

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    http://freerangegourmet.com
  1. I've been neglectful... there is another new blog, Sonia Tastes Hawaii, that's very worth visiting. Sonia has just added her RSS feed. Note that you still need the "www." at the front until they fix that. Sonia is a long-time member of the Slow Food Community and I'm looking forward to reading her posts, now available to everyone. I've tried to list the headlines of the most recent posts of Hawaii food blogs that interest me over on the right side of my blog, The Free Range Gourmet. It seems to work -- when I checked the states, it seems that some people visit my blog just to go off to the others (sigh). Well, that's ok, the idea is to tie them all together somehow. Maybe one day we can do a portal, with several blogs on a newspaper-like home page for people to read. Cheerz, --Larry
  2. Welcome to Pomai at The Tasty Island, and thanks to Reid for posting the notice of your new blog. I've added you to the blogroll over at The Free Range Gourmet which I try to keep somewhat comprehensive. Cheerz, --Larry
  3. I played around with listing both the food blogs and the titles of current articles instead of just a blog roll -- and I like it. I can't tell from conventional blogrolls what's happening on a blog, so I don't know whether to click or not. This is soooo much better - I can see what happening and decide to go have a look. It's possible these days to put together one's own "home page" of links including RSS feeds, so why not join the trend.
  4. Hmmm... not too difficult to do. For those blogs that have feeds. (See right side of freerangegourmet.com for results. I could also have included a few lines from each post.) If anyone wants to steal the code, feel free. I used FeedDigest, maybe there are better ways to do this)(please clue me in, I'm not very experienced at this, via eGullet email). (Thanks). --Larry
  5. Reid, thanks for the list! I am Googling around to find how to include the current item title of each of the Hawaii food blogs on the right side of my blog. Maybe time also for an article someplace to point traditional print readers to this wonderful resource. If anyone discovers more food blogs, please post them here. Let's keep the food blogs rolling. Cheerz, --Larry
  6. LarryG

    Pho in Oahu

    Pho 97 is at the Maunakea Street entrance to the Maunakea Market. It's one of our favorite places for Vietnamese food. It's been a while since I've had their pho, tho, since we're busy working our way through their menu. I had #17 last trip, separate cup of broth and bowl of noodles and seafood stuff. Reminded me of something in Japan out in the boonies, couldn't find it in Tokyo. Bac Nam on King Street is worth a visit. I haven't tried their pho. See skchai's writeup here. Cheerz, --Larry
  7. The current Eat Feed podcast features an interview with Joan Namkoong and chef Peter Merriman. It's good publicity for Hawaii and its cuisine. To listen, you can click here. Eat Feed is getting popular, and if you like the podcast, please click here to vote for the program on Podcast Alley. It's at #17 now, so just a few more votes could get it onto the Top 10 list which really attracts listeners. Cheerz, --Larry
  8. Glad to hear that you're doing a podcast and I look forward to hearing it! I have to update my own blog with food podcast links, I've been neglecting to mess with it for too long. If you see this in time, there's a meeting of Hawaii podcasters and interested people today (Monday) at noon in Kakaako Park, just inside and to the left of the entrance to the park at the Ohe Street parking area and the blue engraved sign, but it could move to the pavilion on the water nearby. There's a cellphone contact which I don't want to post here, but it's in a June 17 message about the meeting in the podcasting group of yahoogroups.com, which you might enjoy joining anyway. I don't have a podcast in me yet, maybe one day. But meanwhile I'm enjoying being a pod-listener and reviewing some of the food podcasts on my blog. Cheerz, --Larry
  9. One step beyond blogging is podcasting. There are a number of food-related podcasts already, even though podcasting has been around only a few months (check out the website of the Hawaii Association of Podcasters for info on podcasting). My favorite is Eat Feed. I've been suggesting that they do something on Hawaii and introduced them to Joan Namkoong. Looks like the program is about to happen. Usually it's available on a Sunday or Monday, so maybe tomorrow. You don't need a podcatcher to listen, just click on the link to listen on the computer speakers. Of course, having it in the mp3 player is even better (I listen while folding the laundry). If Nanette and I are listening together, we also stop the player when we want to say something about the program. You can't do that with real radio. Cheerz, --Larry
  10. We were both craving something spicy today, so we visited So Gong Dong Restaurant for lunch. They have an additional new menu besides the usual one. We tried the Kim Chee Pancake from the new menu and the thick noodle with spicy sauce from the regular menu. It seems that each time we go there we want to try something different, to work our way around the menu, but we end up ordering the sundubu because we love it so much. Maybe we just need to eat there more often. I was feeling grateful to Sun-Ki for introducing us to this restaurant through his original post last year. Cheerz, --Larry
  11. >Better to try Siam Garden on Nimitz. Its in the same shopping center >as Eagle Cafe, clean, comfortable and very good food. Yes, we enjoy Siam Garden also. Among restaurants, it's right up there. And very attractive interior also. > I can only speculate that there may be an ethnic Thai cook in the kiitchen. [Club New Pattaya] Yup. When Cookie is there, the food is great. Trouble is, she and her husband are building a new house in Thailand. Her plan is one day to go back there. She's made a few trips during which the food wasn't up to par. We were in there last week and had some home-made sausage that I don't think was on the menu. Essentially we now put ourselves at her mercy and it has always worked for us. We don't mind the seediness of the bar, but I wish smoking weren't permitted. I'll put up with it because one day Cookie will be outa there, and then so will I. Meantime, I can't get enough of the place, we brave the tobacco fumes about once a week pretty regularly. --Larry
  12. I'm going to change the hosting for my blogs soon, and maybe all the permalinks and things will work better then. So my apologies. The event docs can be found at: http://freerangegourmet.com/Docs/CFSAgenda.pdf http://freerangegourmet.com/Docs/WorkshopSummaries.pdf http://freerangegourmet.com/Docs/CFSGenInformation.pdf http://freerangegourmet.com/Docs/CFSAdult_Reg.pdf and the image I cut out of their docs is at: http://freerangegourmet.com/Graphics/hands.jpg I have no connection with this event, just I noticed that there isn't much publicity. I wish them great success, it looks very worthwhile. Please feel free to link directly if you wish, I'm not having bandwidth problems. The entire server was down much of today and I see that they are re-connecting themselves gradually to the rest of the world, but I mention this in case something stops working for a while. Thanks and regards, --Larry
  13. I wonder if other food bloggers could consider mentioning the sustainability conference coming up. Please see my blog, freerangegourmet.com for the details. I don't see much publicity for this worthy endeavor. If it fits the style of your blog, perhaps you could put in a mention. It's ok to link the documents from my blog. They don't have the info available on the web that I am aware of, though I could have missed something. Thanks! --Larry
  14. I've been going back to VivreManger's post a few times wondering if I should say something and how to say it. Well, I'm reckless enough that I will post something, even if it's controversial. At least I've had a month to figure out what bothers me about Hiroshi's place, which is certainly fine dining, even if I don't care for it. Nanette and I decided not to go back. I'm thinking that it is probably because we were compensated well in Japan and learned the various traditions, rituals and the art of different cuisines. We ate at the best eel joints, the kind you need an introduction from someone more important than yourself, to get into, and also neighborhood yakitori dives. And that probably explains my reaction to the fusion cuisine at Hiroshi's. We were also exposed to different cuisines in other Asian countries we visited, even if we can't now tell anyone much about them because we can't remember all the names and places and things we enjoyed. I mean to say that the names in the different Chinese dialects didn't stay with me, and I didn't pull out my notepad to write things down... In a way, I found the tampering with the food at Hiroshi's to be almost alarming. I didn't put it in words, but if I have to now, I'd say that too much tradition had been abandoned, leaving me wanting the dish done, well, "right". There's such a pressure in fusion cuisine to depart from customs that have been preserved, for good reason, for a long time, even unto the hundreds of years. This is my personal reaction. A person who did not have my experiences would also not have my prejudices. It's just me, I admit it. And yes, I know I'm living in Hawaii now, not in an idyllic past life in Japan. I know, I know. My meal at Hiroshi's simply made me want to get back to Japan when I can, and to savor the ingredients prepared in those places that have survived for perhaps hundreds of years because they know how to cut the ingredients, the order of serving and the temperature they should be served at, the art of applying the appropriate technique or preparation to the ingredients, even the appropriate vessel to present the dish to the diner. Not that food doesn't evolve, of course it does. But I'm not used to it going crazy. It's supposed to behave! That may be part of it. Another part was that we felt that there was competition in the plate, some of the ingredients were fighting with each other, not cooperating. So there, I've said it. Most people will greatly enjoy their dining experience at Hiroshi's, but I won't be going back. <sigh> I think I'll start saving for that eel joint in Akasaka, if I can ever figure out how to get an invite to it again. Cheerz, --Larry
  15. When we lived in Japan, shuu kurimu was a popular joke. I think it was mentioned in one of the books by foreigners about Japan. My individual problem was that I don't speak French, and so my pronounciation of many French words was derived from reading Japanese kana. It was good for many laughs, all on me. Some Japanese people of course did speak French, and I noticed that they pronounced shuu kurimu correctly in French, not as it was written. It was a time, I think, when people were beginning to try to pronounce foreign words (including Korean and Chinese) as they might be spoken by the foreign speaker. Japan was notorious for Japanifying Chinese names - that is, using the Japanese readings instead of the Chinese, totally ruining people's names. There was also a great leap in interest in foreign food. Bagels were available in many department stores - actual bagels! Anyway, just then, darn, we had to leave. These kind of shuu kurimu were available all over. Near where we lived there was an excellent bakery and their shuu kurimu was quite nice, although I have no way of course to compare them to Shirokiya's. And I doubt that they had the fully automated machinery. --Larry
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