Doraku Sushi-2.28.10

"There is sushi, then there's Doraku Sushi" ~Doraku Sushi

Hello everyone!!!! Sorry that I've been slacking on my blog for a minute! Paul & I have been very busy with all the wedding planning going on and I must say, everything is starting to fall into place!!!!

It's Sunday, February 28th. Paul & I had been arguing the night before and what's worse was that Paul went to work for the whole day and we didn't even get to talk or work things out beforehand. Going to work mad at your loved one sucks. Makes going through the day hard, and concentration is out the door, is draining and also tiresome, both physically and mentally. So Paul & I have come up with a rule of thumb-Never go to bed mad at each other...

Moving on...Paul & I had smoothed things over between us and decided to go out and eat dinner. A means to get away and forget about the past 24 hours and have "make-up dinner" instead of "make-up sex"! :-D We just to decide to just leave and walk around our neighborhood that is Waikiki and try to think of a place to eat. And we've decided on Doraku Sushi because it deemed appropriate because that's where I took Paul on our first date! Yes, I said it...I took Paul out on a date!!!! So Doraku is our spot!

Paul & I were seated in a booth and was served by our lovely server, Amy. She was very cordial and accommodating. We first ordered two bowls of Miso soup to cleanse our palates. As we finished off our bowls of Miso, we looked over the menu and had a really hard time ordering dinner for our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs at the time! For our appetizers, I had ordered the Salmon Carpaccio and Paul had ordered the Shrimp Tempura. My Salmon Carpaccio was made with thin slices of Atlantic Scottish Salmon Sashimi and red onions decoratively garnished with a creamy
Ginger Sauce and Tobiko. The dipping sauce to the salmon was real soupy, almost broth-like. The broth was really tasty! It was topped with caviar and the red onions really set the flavor of and meshes really well together! I've acquired a taste for caviar and would only pair it with salmon myself. Paul's Shrimp Tempura came with 4 Tiger Shrimp lightly battered and Tempura fried served with Kakiage and Tentsuyu Sauce. Very delicious, light and buttery to the taste!

For my dinner entree' I ordered the Emperor Roll and Paul ordered the New Style Doraku Roll. My Emperor Roll was conceived with tuna, Salmon, Crab, Shrimp, Scallop and Avocado rolled together, crusted in Panko Breadcrumbs and flash fried, served over bed of Spring Mix and Tempura Sweet onions and topped with special Aioli Sauce. It tasted exquisite!!!! Paul's New Style Doraku Roll was molded with crabmeat and Avocado Roll, topped with seared tuna, Daikon Radish, Shiso Leaves and crispy Garlic Chips, finished with a special Wasabi Yuzu Citrus Sauce. It was delectable!!!!

A sake sampler was also ordered to go with our dinner. The sampler itself came with 3 different types and different tastes of sake. It also came with a description card describing the taste and flavor of each sake. The sake sampler starts off at about $17 and is really worth it if you're a sake novice!

Overall rating of this place, staff was really cordial and polite. Restaurant is really clean. Quality and quantity of food is really favorable to the prices [average price of each entree or food item runs between $9-$15]. Highly recommend this place and go back just for the Emperor Roll [if I wasn't too lazy to walk from home!]

Doraku Sushi is located on the 3rd of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Validated parking. Check out the website on www.dorakusushi.com.

Kincaid's Fish, Chop & Steak House-02.26.10

“I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food” - Erma Bombeck

Friday. Paul & I had the day off from work! Yay!!! We spent our afternoon watching the premiere of "The Crazies". Movie was alright. The plot was textbook outbreak virus movie. Right after watching "The Crazies", Paul drags me to go sneak into another theater to watch "Shutter Island"! I wanted to go smoke a cigarette! We felt like we were kids again sneaking into another movie!

I finally get to smoke my cigarette with Paul after the movie and massaging my own butt awake from getting so numb after almost 5 hours of watching movies! We're at Ward and trying to figure out where to eat. We decide on Kincaid's.

We were seated and our server's name is Chris. He was a very pleasant server and made us feel comfortable and we were able to rap with him like he was one of our homies. We looked over at our menus and were a bit overwhelmed with so many different things to order because we were so hungry and our eyes were bigger than our stomachs!!!

So we decide to order just water for now [to cleanse our palates since we looked over the extensive wine list] and soup. I ordered the soup du jour and had the Cream of Tomato while Paul ordered the New England Clam Chowder. My soup tasted really creamy and delicious! Paul thought that his Chowder was by far the best clam chowder he's had, although he loved my soup and kept eating mine and sopping up the dinner bread in my soup!

We decide on an appetizer and ordered the Lollipop Scallop Skewers. They were 3 pieces of scallops wrapped with smoked salmon and drizzled with ponzu sauce. We were delighted with this appetizer!!! Although there were only 3 pieces we were satisfied by the size of each of the scallops.

Next we've decided to order a bottle of Kendall-Jackson Vintners Reserve Meritage 2005. Paul had me taste the wine out first. In fact every time we order a bottle of wine anywhere he tells the server that I'll try it out for the both of us. It smelled like prune, fig and smoky. It tasted even more smoky and woodsy on the palate. Nice, velvety texture, though. We toasted to being spontaneous!

Our main entree's came out. Paul ordered the 12 oz. Prime Rib [cooked medium] with fried onions and red jacket mashed potatoes. I ordered the dinner special. It was the Asiago-Almond Crusted Opah made with basil pesto beure blanc, roasted pepper coulis, asparagus with a side of red jacket mashed potatoes. Paul's prime rib was perfectly cooked. It wasn't chewy. My Opah was very light. Sauce brought out the taste of the fish. I know that I had red wine instead of chardonnay with my fish but I have a preference to red wine.

For dessert we had the Strawberry Sorbet. It was basically 3 scoops of strawberry sorbet with a load of freshly cut strawberries cut in half. Surprisingly went very well with our wine!!!

Paul & I were very satisfied with our lovely dinner at Kincaid's. We want to come back on Sundays because all day on Sundays ALL of their wine is half off. And love how Kincaid's have 2 Happy hours-one from 3-7pm and a late night Happy Hour from 10pm-1am.

Kincaid's Fish, Chop & Steak House
1050 Ala Moana Blvd #2100
Honolulu, HI 96814
808-591-2005
www.kincaid's.com

Dinner at Vino Italian Tapas & Wine Bar

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” -George Bernard Shaw

Happy Valentine's Day!!! Paul & I are celebrating our very first Valentine's Day together!!! He keeps it a surprise for a whole week on where he's decided to take me out to dinner!!! And I must say, he hasn't disappointed me at all today!!! And it's actually the first time that I've gotten ready on time for our dinner reservations as he was balls deep in a nap and rushing to wake up and get dressed!!!

The restaurant-Vino Italian Tapa & Wine Bar located at Restaurant Row!!! We've never eaten there before and were excited because it was something different and liked the idea of going somewhere with wine pairings that came with our courses, since Paul & I are a bunch of newbies when it comes to wine!

We were greeted by a server and he was very friendly and seated us promptly. We loved the ambience with the low lighting and decor. Walls were painted with old bricks and vines and made it feel like you were in "Old Italy".

We were seated and handed menus...although Vino was serving only a special Valentine's Day menu, no ala carte menu was served. So it was a set menu of five courses. A basket of warm fresh bread was served along with glasses of water to cleanse our palates. As soon as we were seated and had the menu explained to us, Paul & I were served four empty wine glasses each for our courses to come.

For our first course we were served Ahi Chu Toro Crudo. It was made of red jalapenos, Maui onion, roasted garlic aioli, thai basil, osetra caviar. After first trying caviar on Christmas day when I took Paul to DK Steakhouse for brunch, I've acquired a taste for caviar not by itself, but paired with food such as smoked salmon like when we had dinner at Sarento's. After telling Paul that I love caviar and want to eat it everyday, he got a bit nervous! When the Ahi Chu Toro Crudo was served to me, I looked at it and to me it reminded me of cat food straight out of the can because of the shape of it. As soon as I took my first bite, to me it was a glorious bite!!! The taste and the texture, along with the wine pairing of Elvio Tintero Grangia [white wine] was delectable!!!!

Our server cleared our empty plates from our first course and our server came out with a bottle of DeMedici Lambrusco "Concerto" and I was quite impressed with how knowledgeable she was with all the different wines being served to us. Then our second course of Roasted Heirloom Beet Salad was served. It was made of Big Island hearts of palm, Nalo Farms red ruby mix, pancetta bacon , raspberry Champagne vinaigrette. I wasn't too impressed with the salad because of my preference to iceberg lettuce than to spinach salad and leaves. Paul enjoyed the salad while I just picked and ate the beets in the salad while eating bread and drinking the red wine served with this course...I was ready to move on to the third course.

As we sat and enjoyed the company and conversations together at our table, another couple sits at a nearby table. The woman had her back facing me but I was quite irritated by her throughout the night because she kept turning to look at me like she knew me when I don't think I've even met her before. The more she kept turning to look at me and the more I got lit from the different types of wine we were drinking, the more I wanted to throw bread at the back of her head and tell her to take a picture because it'll last longer!!! Paul managed to calm me down and didn't want something like that to ruin our night. If all of you know me well, it would've been a different story. Thank God for Paul to calm me down! Sorry, I just had to vent about that event of the night!!!

Once again, plates were cleared and server comes to pour us white wine for our third course, 2006 Feudi di San Gregorio Fiano di Avellino. 2006 was a good year for me! Poached Kona Maine Lobster was the third course. The risotto was real creamy and suberb!!! Whenever the risotto tasted too creamy, the wine paired with this entree actually evened it out!!!

Empty plates cleared out from in front of us and our wine glasses filled with 2007 Querciabella Mongrana. I loved this red wine best out of all the wine we've had that evening!!! For our fourth course we were served Chianti Braised Maui Cattle Co. Short Ribs. It was made up of ricotta cheese gnocchi, rapini, horseradish gremolata. This entree was also my favorite that I actually took my sweet-ass time savoring every bite because I felt like I wanted seconds of this one particular dish!!!

By this point of our dinner, that woman at the other table had already turned backwards to stare at me for the seventh time [and yes, I was keeping track on how many times this broad had to look at me], and as soon as she turned back to face her date, she whispers something to him and by now I want to throw the whole bread basket at the back of her grape!!! paul told me to woo-sah and rub my ears!!! LOL!

Finally, dessert is served! For dessert we were served “Frozen Kula Strawberry cheesecake”. It was made of graham cracker ice cream, chocolate almond biscotti, raspberry gastrique. It was scrumptious and Paul & I loved how they had deconstructed the cheesecake dessert to fill the whole plate and make it look pretty and colorful!!!

Paul & I would highly recommend going to this restaurant if you haven't yet!!! Price for dinner I would say is reasonable, especially with the wine pairings for each course!!! Loved the service and hospitality!!! Food was awesome and the ambience of the place!!! It was an amazing wine experience for us!!!

Italian-inspired 'small plates' by Keith Endo, Chef de Cuisine and wine selections by Master Sommelier, Chuck Furuya

Vino Italian Tapas & Wine Bar
500 Ala Moana Blvd.
Suite #6D-1
Restaurant Row
Honolulu, HI 96813
(808) 524.8466
www.vinohawaii.com

DK Steak House-12.25.09

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

It's Christmas 2009. Our very first Christmas together as a couple!!! I surprised Paul with brunch at DK Steak House located in the Waikiki Beach Marriott. It was lovely because it was a 4 course brunch and we had reservations for 10:30am.

We started out with our first course of appetizers. We ordered the smoked salmon with caviar and the carpaccio with capers. The smoked salmon was cooked perfectly!!! The lemon set it off! I've never tried caviar in my life until today. I was really impressed only because I thought that I wouldn't like the taste or the texture. As for the carpaccio, we didn't think it was special at all. Taste was superb the way carpaccio is supposed to taste, which is smoky, but the texture was a bit chewy and rubbery. We might as well have eaten a Slim Jim from 7-11. The best carpaccio that I've tasted was at Ciao Mein in the Hyatt Regency Hotel.



For our second course we shared a lobster bisque soup and a Caesar salad. Loved how the Caesar salad had huge chunks of cheese and the salad itself was very fresh. And the lobster bisque...was to die for!!! I loved how creamy and the buttery-ness brought out the lobster taste. The lobster had a perfect texture and wasn't over cooked as well. By this point in our meal, Paul & I started to get a bit full and had to sit back for a bit...Paul even ordered a cup of joe to fight the itis!!!

Our main course arrived and we both ordered the ribeye steak smothered in bleu cheese butter with a side of garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. Paul & I both ordered our steaks cooked medium and of course, the texture and juiciness was perfect. Thought that the bleu cheese butter already on the steak was gonna be too much flavor but it actually evened out the taste and texture really well. The garlic mashed potatoes could've been better if they added more garlic to it because it was a bit bland.

Last but not least-dessert!!! I had the Chocolate Decadence Cake and Paul had the Warm Breaded Apple Pudding. The Chocolate Decadence Cake was delish!!! The warm chocolate cake paired with the chocolate ice cream and hardened chocolate syrup wasn't too sweet at all! Paul's warm breaded apple pudding was real yummy as well! I'm not really a pudding person but this dessert hit the spot!

I can't remember the name of our server, but he was very friendly and courteous! Awesome service!

Check out their menu and website at www.dksteakhouse.com. Reservations highly recommended.

Prologue to Our Food Diary

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. ~Fran Lebowitz

Since Paul & I have started dating 4 months ago, he got me into watching the Food Network with him. At first, I wasn't too keen on the whole idea. What's the whole point of watching people with their own cooking shows like " Down Home with the Neely's" or reality shows like the "Next Top Chef" make all this wonderful food and yet you're unable to taste them for yourselves? It's such a huge tease!!! Well, I'm an open-minded person and Paul has opened up my eyes, and my world, on the joys of cooking and enjoying food.

Sure enough, Paul & I have started eating at and discovering all these wonderful restaurants and taking pictures of all of our dishes. I guess you could best describe us as "foodies". It may seem a bit silly that we take pictures of our food before digging in because we were once those hypocrites who made fun of the Japanese tourists here in Waikiki who like to take pictures of their food and throwing up the peace sign with their fingers followed with a huge smile.

There are also times when we'd rather stay home and enjoy food in the comforts of what we call home...also known to us as 'the love shack"! [Haahaa! >_<] Paul would gather what we've learned from these cooking shows that we watch together like cooking techniques, ingredients, etc. Then we'd happily go shopping together and go home and cook. To me, it's one of many bonding experiences that Paul & I love to share because after all, all of our love, time, joy, patience, sweat, tears and frustrations are put into it...but in the outcome of it all, it works out just right and fine...just like our relationship.

So without further ado, I hope that you enjoy our little food diary/blog...and our little adventures that come along with it!!! Feel free to leave comments and/or restaurant suggestions!!! And of course, feel free to make plans with us to join us to eat as well!!! The more the merrier! ^_^

Ciao,
Mae & Paul