I think Kam Bakery is famous for their haupia donut. But my co-worker raves about their poi donut and she brought a box to work so all us guys could taste. Overall was one good tasting donut. Slightly chewy outside crust with just right amount of sugar glaze. Inside was moist and not too doughy. Had mild poi flavor, but not the sour poi flavor. I like the ultra purple color. The box donuts got wiped out pretty quick by my co-workers.
We had Ono Seafood's Hawaiian Style Poke and Taro Brand Poi at the Pipi Kaula Prestige Pupu Potluck. So judge Soft Warm Juicy gave us a demonstration of how to eat this classic local grinds combo. Some folks say poke taste best with the poi, not with the rice, but with the poi.
At the blind tastings, we usually do a small pupu potluck so we have other stuffs to munch on besides the taste tested food. So far, people been going all out and bringing some winnah grinds. Here's a quick video highlight of some of the pupu potluck at the Pipi Kaula Prestige.
Tanks judge Yamanoha DNA for suggesting Utage's Shoyu Pork Donburi. Okinawan style grinds. The shoyu pork was winnah by itself. Was pork belly meat I think. Supa tender, almost melt in your mouth. Good meat to fat ratio. Flavor was ono salty sweet. Then they infuse the shoyu pork in to their donburi. The donburi sauce was subtle enough so still could taste the ono shoyu pork flavor. And the egg and onion all over...! I wonder if Utage's shoyu pork more better than Ige's?
After we did the post on the Lemon Drop Crunch Cake from The Alley at Aiea Bowl, we got curious if anybody had a recipe that could duplicate this cake. A few months later, a guy named "Bruddah Bill" went to The Alley, tasted the Lemon Drop Crunch Cake and came up with two recipes that he thinks can duplicate the addicting qualities of The Alley's Lemon Drop Crunch Cake. The first recipe is complicated and the second recipe is simple. From what we hear, Bruddah Bill get some sharp baking skills and judging by the way he wrote up his first recipe, looks like get some action. If anybody interested in trying out these recipes, here they are. If can, let us know how came out and we can post your comments and pics. What you figgah...can Bruddah Bill's recipes duplicate the magic of The Alley's Lemon Drop Crunch Cake? Mahalos Bruddah Bill.
Heights Drive-in Aiea Medical Building (map) 487-8884 (as listed on the musubi)
Mahalos to Heights Drive-in for taking care us customers. If you park in the building, Heights give you one free spam musubi to make up for the new $1 parking fee imposed by the powers that be. Used to be free 10 minute grace period. I guess Heights never like the idea of charging customers $1 for just come grab food and go, so they using the unassuming spam musubi to mount and all out rebellion. Viva La Resistance!
Mahalos to Cory for telling me about "The Special" at Heights Drive-In. With intense passion, Cory described "The Special" as a plate of ono fried noodles with one of the best teri beef she's ever had along with one scoop rice and mac salad. When I order em, was exactly what she said, but was even more special in person. Noodles was al dente and seasoned just right. I wonder how would compare to Sato's fried noodles? Teri beef was tender and marinated all the way through. Then the mac salad, oh yes choke mac salad. The lady, she plop one scoop mac salad on the plate, then she went back for one more 3/4 scoop and plop that on top the first scoop. Yeah-Ya! Mac salad over load, but was ono mac salad. Not too mushy watery, but just right consistency and good flavor too. Btw, you might think that's only little bit fried noodles, but you only seeing the tip of the noodle iceberg. Come to find out, the noodles reach all the way under the teri beef and mac salad. 3 starch, one meat, only in Hawaii o wat?
We know how serious us local folks are about our chicken katsu. And we know get supa plenty places for winnah chicken katsu out there, but we only know the places we know. On top of that, we like make sure to include places from all over the island and not just the areas we go plenty. So we decided to approach this titanic battle in a slightly different way. This challenge will have 3 rounds as follows...
ROUND 1 We've already completed this round. To ensure that the biggest names in local chicken katsu are entered in to this challenge, we've guaranteed spots for Grace's Inn, Diner's Drive-In and L&L (Liliha). Please do not add these places to the voting polls.
ROUND 2 Via online voting (see below), your personal chicken katsu-ing experience will determine the #1 seeded chicken katsu from each region on Oahu. The #1 seed from each district will represent their district in an all out chicken katsu cage match. Voting will close on 6/19/09.
The regional voting polls are divided up as follows... Leeward District (Makaha to Nanakuli to Waipahu to Pearl City) Central District (Salt Lake to Moanalua to Aiea to Mililani to Wahiawa to Wailua) Honolulu District (Kalihi to Waikiki to Kaimuki to Hawaii Kai) Windward District (Kahuku to Kaneohe to Kailua to Waimanalo)
Hopefully this process will give us the ultimate battle that our beloved chicken katsu plate lunch deserves. We might even have a courageous home cooked chicken katsu risk his neck on the battle field. Brah, you get "alas" (as in "karang your alas").
The polls are set up below. You can vote for as many places as you want within each district. If we didn't include your favorite chicken katsu in the polls, put it in the "other" box or leave a comment under the article with your suggestion and we'll add it to the poll. In the case of plate lunch chains (i.e. L&L), if you feel other locations makes better katsu than the original L&L (Liliha), we'll add that to the polls too. We might have several L&L locations competing against each other...siblng rivalry. Lastly, we are looking for plate lunch/diner chicken katsu and not fancy sit down restaurant kine. Sit down restaurants might have unfair advantage so we trying to leave them out of this fight for now. Now touch gloves and let's get it on!
The results of the Pipi Kaula Prestige settled a heated dispute between two pipi kaula lovers. From what I hear, choke other people have a similar dispute about which pipi kaula is better, Helena's or Highway Inn. In the end, we got exactly what we were hoping for, a show down between Helena's and Highway Inn for the #1 spot. Most shocking was how the #1 pipi kaula buried the other 10 competitors scoring a defining victory.
Mel's Market was included as a competitor, but their scores/comments weren't included in the results table. After the tasting, we did some research and found out that Mel's Market's pipi kaula should've been cooked before serving (i.e. fried, grilled, etc.) and was not meant to be served "as is". Due to this preparation error, we didn't think it would be fair to compare Mel's Market pipi kaula with the other competitors who were prepared properly. Sorry for the error Mel. Click "read more" to see the full results table.
After we did the post on the 
