Here, Eat This! The Adventures of Kiki Maraschino

On Wednesdays, there is a big swap meet across town at the Aloha Bowl, so we rented a moped. We got a big one with a raised back seat so I wouldn’t have to cuddle my nephew. We stopped for breakfast at Sweet E’s Cafe, which not only lived up to its reputation, it surpassed it. Named for its founder, Ethel Mathews, the cafe opened in October of 2011.

I am a sucker for a benedict, so I ordered the Kalua Pork Benedict. Oh my God!!! It was amazing! Tender, flavorful pork and a bright lemony Hollandaise. Perfection! Oliver ordered the Hawaiian Omelette with Spam, Portuguese sausage, scallions, onion and cheddar cheese. It was fantastic too. This was one of my favorite restaurants of the week.

I was tripping out at the way this server juggled the cups.

Oliver picked up our cups and noticed a little slot at the top, solving the mystery.

It was a pretty cool place.

It was a really long ride to the Aloha Bowl. I didn’t realize it was 10 miles away. There are a lot of homeless people around Waikiki so it was sad; it sure wasn’t the scenic route. When we got there it was super hot. Most stalls had Hawaiian shirts or wood carvings. One woman told us how her family made these carvings and we bought a few. Then we saw stall after stall with the same carvings. We couldn’t find the food trucks, although we did get to drink coconut milk. I didn’t check my map, so I didn’t remember I had planned to go to Aiea Bowl, a reputedly awesome diner in a bowling alley nearby.

We decided to go to the second location of The Side Street Inn on the way back and get another peanut butter crunch. We kept circling the block and couldn’t find it. Finally we drove up the driveway of a mixed-use building called the Ioloni Center. Then we had to go to the back of the parking lot and walk down stairs, and when we found it, it didn’t open for two more hours. I guess it’s not called “Main Street Inn” for a reason.

The Ioloni Center did have a cool donut shop though. Thank goodness the Purvé Donut Stop has that accent on the final E. Founded in 2018 by Nicholas Cornford and Brion Zablan, the shop is all about speed, quality and service. All donuts are made fresh as you watch. The donut flavors are crazy and fun.

THE “SANCHEZ”
Tossed like a Salad in Cinnamon and Sugar

SMURF BALLS
Mixed Berry Glazed Teased with Captain Crunch & Cream Drizzle

UNICORN BUTT SNEEZE
Lemon Glaze Butt Sneezed with Fruity Pebbles

O FACE
Lemon Glaze, Graham Cracker with a Cream Cheese Climax

NA-NA-NUT BUSTER
Haupia Glaze Lei’d with Macadamia Nuts & Chocolate Banana drizzle

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at ili ili Cash & Carry. The name is short for the neighborhood, “Moiliili.” Alejandro “Aker” Briceno and Lindsey Ozawa are known for their thin New York-style crust and thick Detroit-style. I should have ordered a pizza or sandwich for later, but I wasn’t hungry at all. I got garlic knots. They weren’t the usual baked pizza dough. They were deep-fried, like garlic donut holes. Why doesn’t everyone make these?

Since I hadn’t ordered anything but garlic donuts, I eventually got hungry and wandered off into the night. Amongst the many tourist spots, I happened upon Tiki’s Grill and Bar.

They had standard upscale restaurant fare in a 1980s Gourmet Magazine style. The beets and goat cheese were stacked into a Napoleon

Tuna tartare was in an old school timbale

It was all delicious, and they had crepe cake! I relaxed on the lanai with my cocktail and listened to live music from a local with a ukelele. It’s a cliche for a reason.

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We ended the afternoon with dinner at the Highway Inn, a very traditional Hawaiian restaurant. Seiichi Toguchi was born in Hawai‘i, but was raised in Ginoza-son, Okinawa. He returned to Hawai‘i and worked as a dishwasher at the old City Café, where he met his wife. He was was quickly promoted to cook’s apprentice. During WWII the couple were tragically removed and put in internment camps on the mainland. At the end of 1946, the Toguchi family returned to Hawai‘i and opened the original Highway Inn in 1947.

Their son, Bobby, took over the restaurant and moved it to its current location on Leoku Street in 1984. In 2013 a second location opened in Kaka‘ako, in downtown Honolulu. Now with two locations, a fish market and catering, the Highway in is being helmed by a third generation of he Toguchi ‘Ohana.

We started with their Kahlua Pork in fluffy Chinese buns. I am obsessed with those buns!

The Highway Inn is famous for its lau lau–shredded  kālua pork and butterfish wrapped in lu’au leaves and ti leaves. The package is steamed, and when you open up the aroma escapes with the steam. I ordered a lau lau combo, which also included rice, steamed uala (purple potato), potato-mac and haupia, a coconut dessert.

OT went with flame-grilled short ribs in an Asian soy marinade. Maybe it was the familiarity, but the charred meatiness made it our favorite dish.

We watched the sunset on the beach before heading back to the hotel.

I just liked these plants and OT good-naturedly posed with it.

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The first reservation I made was at Fete in Chinatown, on my brother’s recommendation. I had to ask for a spot inside because there was an unhoused man yelling at us on the patio, and as a result, the table next to mine was saying uncharitable things, which actually bothered me more. The restaurant kindly squeezed me in at the bar, which is fine, because I was alone anyways. There was a couple on the corner of the bar who were super friendly and recommended more great restaurants for me to try. I just found their list on a napkin after returning home. Oops. This is someone else’s drink; it just looked so good.

Everything on the menu looked awesome, but I went with the beef cheek pot pie in spite of the warm day, because I LOVE cheeks. It was rich and delicious, with bits of potato and carrot nestled under a cozy blanket of pate brisee.

As you would expect, this was not your usual pot pie. The grass-fed Kua-aina ranch meat was more intensely flavored than your usual beef, or as Alina joked on her season of Top Chef, “Why is the beef…so…beefy?” The bill was also very reasonable for such an upscale experience.

Anyone from California will find this menu item amusing…if a little blurry

I wandered around Chinatown, which has some cool old buildings with dim sum shops and delis selling lacquered ducks out of tiny shops, like the little Hurricane booths in the French Quarter. The dim sum was tempting, but I was stuffed from that beefy pie!

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My nephew wasn’t scheduled to arrive until the next day, so I went out to an indulgent, chef-driven 7-course tasting menu at XO that I thought would be too fussy for him. The ambiance wasn’t fussy at all, with your standard cafeteria chairs and walls that looked like each one had been decorated by a different person altogether. The service was very friendly and personalized.

I ended up here because it had occurred to me that there might be such a thing as a foie gras Loco Moco in Waikiki. Maybe there is and I couldn’t find it, because, seriously. Foie Gras Loco Moco. I did keep seeing Crispy Rice with Foie Gras popping up online, and it was on the tasting menu at XO. It was a $75 tasting menu, with some courses having either an upgrade or addition available for not that much more money. Like $3 to $8. The server discussed their cocktail menu with me, and although it was tempting, we decided that the Ube Lemonade would be way too sweet for me. I believe this is a Lilokai (Passionfruit) Margarita, but I can’t remember exactly. Nonetheless, A+

The first course was deliciously crispy fried chicken skin, an underutilized ingredient in my opinion. It was lacquered with an intense sticky sweet and sour coating that was a bit much for me. It seemed like it belonged on little pork ribs on a pupu platter. But points for a creative fusion of cuisines. B

I added on a second app for $8. They started my meal out strong with an Oxtail Xiang Long Bao, or soup dumpling. There wasn’t any soup (which is made by putting a gelatinized cube of broth in the dumpling), but that didn’t matter, because it was fantastic. As I told my server, you can’t really go wrong with oxtail. A+

The second course was titled “Veg.” Everything in this course was vegan and gluten free. The heavily Instagrammed Beet Lotus with Emulsified Chimichurri was gorgeous. Unfortunately, the timbale of beets beneath the halo of radish was bland and mushy, with more of the texture of sweet potatoes. I was disappointed. C+

The third course, “Starch” offered a dish that didn’t appeal to me–Seaweed Potatoes Gratin. For $5 I subbed it out with the dish I had come for–Crispy Rice and Foie Gras. Although the foie was small, I was able to get three nice, fatty bites, and it paired perfectly with the crispy rice. If I could have ordered this as a full appetizer course size, I would have been ecstatic. It occurs to me now that I might have been able to add on more plates at $8 a pop. I think I missed an opportunity. A+

I was interested in adding the Herb Gnocchi with Arbequina (fancy olives) and a whiskey carrot puree. My server guided me instead toward the Mushroom Tofu Lasagne with Ma po Tomato and Crispy Tempeh. I expected the tofu to be crumbled between the sheets of pasta. I did not expect the tofu to replace the pasta. It looked so dull and gray I didn’t even take a picture, which you know is not like me. And it tasted dull and gray; it was nearly flavorless. The waiter forlornly took away 3/4 of this dish, and I felt our relationship start to crumble. D-

Things started looking up again with the three protein courses. The Scallops were perfectly cooked. I wasn’t fond of the Mussel Sinigang (A Filipino sweet-sour tamarind soup). But that is not their fault, because I am quite unfond of mussels. The Crispy Kale was purely decorative to me, like a parsley sprig. B.

Their signature dish, a 4-hour braised Adobo Fried Chicken, was a boneless chicken breast of good quality, like Mary’s in LA. It was probably Jidori. It was crispy and had a nice seasoning, plus a sauce made with a peppercorn Togarashi (a Japanese pepper, often used to refer to a spice mix containing the pepper). It was a hearty dish, and I was starting to get full, so I didn’t finish it. This caused the waiter some concern, and he wanted to pack it up for me, but I was going back to a hotel. A-

The final protein was a Kalbi Pork Belly Ssam, with a Gochujang Aioli (Korean chile paste). A Ssam is usually something vegetable wrapped, but again we had the timbale. It was dense and hearty. Although it was meant to taste like Korean Kalbi, it still reminded me of Kahlua pork. It was just too much for me to eat, but this time I let the waiter pack it up in order to avoid an incident. A-

In spite of my full belly, their signature dessert, Fluffle of Brown Butter Bunny Butter Mochi, seemed small and not too filling (Wafer thin!). There was a cute little chocolate poop behind the bum. Rabbits actually poop pellets, but why get all pedantic about a rabbit-shaped confection? It was absolute perfection. Brown Butter is such a classic American flavor. Combining it with mochi was the pinnacle of fusion genius. I can see why it is so popular. Again, it occurs to me, I probably could have ordered a second one to take home. I’m just so used to eating whatever the chef gives me on a tasting menu and not making a fuss. A+++

It was definitely a mixed bag. There were a few dishes that would have made for a better meal had they been left off the menu completely. But the highs were very high. The restaurant is relatively new, so maybe they just need to find their legs. Vegans rave about the place, so maybe there was less seasoning on the night I was there. Or maybe vegans prefer less seasoning?

The mission of the restaurant group is to provide opportunities for chefs and restaurant workers to be able to collaborate and experiment more, feel supported, have opportunities for training, and better working conditions. Chef/owner Kenny Lee has hopes for “a massive variety of different concepts that are new and unproven.” XO wants to take risks and move Hawaiian food into the future. XO seems to be a step in the right direction.

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I promised my nephew that I would use some of my inheritance to take him on a trip. I invited him to Cancun, but he wanted to go to New Orleans. Then he called me out of the blue two weeks ago and invited me to Hawaii! The RT airfare was only $199, so Honolulu it is! The hotel I got was only about $1100 for a week, but then I had to upgrade to get two beds (for obvious reasons), and the add-on “resort fees” are highway robbery, but standard, so the room ended up being 2 grand. But when I got here yesterday–what a room! Worth every penny! The view of Diamond Head is breathtaking, and I even got upgraded to a “partial ocean view,” which is a very flexible term here, but the bit of blue when you look to the right off the balcony is nonetheless wonderful.

It’s a bit like a Holiday Inn that has been hipsterized. The hallways are sprayed with an overly sweet air freshener that smells like the ones they use in ladies’ bathrooms. Otherwise, it’s super clean. No bugs. The workers are incredibly nice. Our room overlooks the bar and pool so it can be a little noisy. but by 10 pm it’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Here’s a little story…I use a shopping service called Shipt. I was using them this week to send stuff to my brother’s care home, and to a friend, and I also checked to see if they deliver in Hawaii so I can save money there. In other words, I was changing the address a lot. So, the other day I placed an order at Target. Bob said get ALL the drinks so I ordered enough for weeks. Then I ordered sooo many snacks for on the plane.

The shopper and Bob were texting back and forth because the guy couldn’t find our house.

Bob says, “You’re on Mariposa Street?”

The guy says, “No, man. I’m on Kapahulu Avenue.”

Bob shouted to me, “You sent our groceries to Hawaii!”

I convinced the front desk at the hotel to hold the SIX 12 packs of diet coke and EIGHT cases of La Croix, along with a big bag of snacks until I arrived, and I told the delivery guy to just take the perishables home.

So we have plenty of drinks. Maybe I will wander the streets handing out Diet Cokes. There will be legends about me.

“…and on a very quiet, moonless night, you can still hear the clanking of her cans…”

I often ask taxi drivers on the way home from the airport to stop at their favorite spot, and I will buy them lunch. My cabbie wanted garlic shrimp, a specialty of the island.

Everyone here is so fuckin’ friendly! They get really excited to learn you just arrived, or that it is your first visit, in spite of the fact they must hear that a million times a day.

I tried an island specialty–shell-on shrimp with a creamy garlic sauce.

I was disappointed to see the “tempura shrimp” looked like fish sticks. I was so wrong. It was so hot you had to hold your mouth open after a bite, and the shrimp was so tender as if barely cooked.

…and the first thing you have to do in Oahu, is get a Dole Whip!

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