7 posts tagged “hawaii”
[ Cross-posted from my yelp ]
Note this Review is for the 617 Kapahulu Ave location
I picked Tenka-ippin for my next stop on the Honolulu Ramen tour because it is colocated with a Kozo sushi, so my non-ramen-eating wife could eat too. Apparently the Kapahulu corridor is a hotbed of ramen activity, but the alluring poster-size shot of their signature Kotteri ramen facing the street and the inviting yellow walls would probably have drawn me in regardless.... At any rate I'm very glad I tried it!
The place is small, clean and is dominated by the counter down the middle of the restaurant. There are three 4-person tables on the left side but (like most ramen shops) this would not be a good place for a large party. The company-issue posters are all in Japanese but on one wall there are pictures of the owner with various Sumotori and celebrities.
I started to order my usual Miso ramen but the waitress convinced me that the Kotteri was what I really wanted, so I acquiesced. There was almost nobody else in the shop so the bowl came out quickly and from the first slurp of the broth I knew I was in for a treat. As others have noted the Kotteri soup is thick and creamy. Perhaps the yelper who noted an unpleasant powdery taste got a freak bowl-- all I know is that mine had a deep, delicious flavor to it that I couldn't stop slurping.
Once I got into the bowl, I found the noodles were perfectly done, the chashu slices large and tender, the bamboo shoots were crisp and there was a giant pile of fresh green onions on top. The waitress also supplied a soy sauce bottle labelled 'kotteri' on top, which she said was a Japanese mixture of shoyu and pork flavor. What more could a noodle hound ask for?
(Maybe a little larger bowl, and maybe some spinach or tamago, but griping about it would be manini grumbles...)
On vacation, I have been replacing my morning bike commute with some rides out to some of the scenic destinations here on Oahu, including my Tantalus loop the other day. Today was a typically lovely ride out to Makapuu Point. As soon as I turned out from my parents' house onto Kalanianaole, it started pouring rain on me, but I could see it was a blowing through pretty quickly so I kept rolling. Up past Hanauma Bay, the easterly winds were really knocking me around; combined with the still-wet road conditions I took it pretty slow down the descent towards Blowhole, where I stopped for a moment to snap a picture.
Past Sandy Beach, a few triathlon bikers were coming back and as we traded shakas I envied their downwind heading. There were quite a few folks teeing off at the Hawaii Kai Golf Course, undaunted by the gusts. The weather report said the winds were gusting to 20mph which seemed a little conservative as I turned to climb up from Kaloko Beach towards Makapu`u. I was tempted to keep going but I had gotten a late start and wanted to get back, so after snapping a few pics at the lookout point I turned and headed back home.
There's a saying I saw on somebody's forum sig a while back that sticks with me on days like today: "There's no such thing as a tailwind. Either it's blowing in your face or you're having a really good day." With that in mind, I was having an awesome day on the ride back to town! I zipped through Hawaii Kai and was blasting back along Kalanianaole when the day's only bit of mechanical drama manifested: accelerating from a stoplight, I shifted up the to the big chainring and derailed the chain right off! Fortunately I caught it on the right side crank arm and was able to finesse it back onto the gear without having to stop, which I was pretty happy about. The rest of the ride passed without incident and I was unable to reproduce the problem back in the garage, so I must have really cranked the shift lever over. I gave the outside limit screw a quarter turn just for safety's sake, rinsed the bike off and came inside to have a cup of coffee and write this up.
A guy could get used to this vacation stuff....
After two days of nice but not particularly memorable vacation, we headed up to Manoa Valley this morning to hike around at the Lyon Arboretum. I remembered the grounds as being very well-tended and beautiful, which they were indeed, but I had not remembered the explosion of colors and life that we experienced today. I dropped a donation into the box at the visitor center for all of us and we skirted a fifth-grade class on a field trip to head out into the fields and up the cobblestone trail towards `Aihualama Falls.
I don't think I'd ever hiked all the way to the back of the valley before, but we made there today, even encumbered with a toddler. Hooray for the Ergo carrier. In point of fact, Gunnar held up like a champ; he walked up nearly the whole last mile up, after the improved trail had given way to loose rocks, roots, and damp earth.
The valley was misty and damp, as Manoa is supposed to be, and it was really beautiful to see everything with a sheen of tropical moisture on it. It didn't actually start to rain on us until we'd already made it to the falls and started to head back down. Except for the extra slipperiness on the roots and rocks and the way it seemed to intensify the already-thick clouds of mosquitoes, the rain was not really a big deal. In a way it completed the experience, because the environment is inherently dense and moist and, well, rainforest-y, it was neat to see the rivulets and pools fill up with water; there's a very real sense of the watershed (and, more broadly, the entire island) as an interconnected system.
We took our time hiking back down to the visitor center; came across a hidden buddha and a macaw escapee from the now-defunct Paradise Park; and returned to Andy's for Papa Tostadas and smoothies, muddy, mosquito-bitten, and happy.
The photos, by the way, are j3n's.
One of those signs that you'll only see in Hawaii.
I skipped the spam musubi (sorry monkey! I'll bring one back) but you can't beat a Kimchee tuna roll for $2.
I'm back in Honolulu through next weekend, which is the punahou alumni festival. I haven't been to any of the previous reunion events but this one marks the 15th year since I graduated which I guess is cause for some kind of celebration. I'm glad that I'm able to go back wearing the same size pants as when I left (Don't think I have any of the exact pairs of pants from 1992 however -- which is probably a good thing). I'm very glad that I have the freedom and ability to go; I missed my 10th reunion because I was under "heavy manners" at home.
Should be a great week. Not much planned until June 9th (which also happens to be my birthday!) which is just the way I like it.
What's your favorite radio station, past or present?
Radio Free Hawaii, no doubt. It was alive, in various iterations, throughout the 90s and determined the playlist by voting every week. They distributed the votes in record stores, coffee shops and other hangouts and tallied up both the top 36 positive vote-getters as well as the bottom 10 "Never Play This Again" songs. You'd get these bizarre situations where TLC "Waterfall" was #1 one week due to fanboy and -girl ballot box stuffing, then get SLEDGEHAMMERED OFF THE RADIO FOREVER the following week as everybody else got so sick of it they were motivated to go out and vote against it.
Thanks to the magic of the internet, five seconds of googling brought me this trip down memory lane, courtesy of the Radio Free Hawaii Chart Archive:
1. ASSHOLE (Dennis Leary)
2. PETS (Porno For Pyros)
3. CAT'S IN THE CRADLE (Ugly Kid Joe)
4. CREEP (Stone Temple Pilots)
5. I'M GONNA GET YOU (Bizarre Inc.)
6. CANDY EVERYBODY WANTS (10,000 Maniacs)
7. ONE CARESS (Depeche Mode)
8. FREAK ME (Silk)
9. TONES OF HOME (Blind Melon)
10. OTHELLO (Dance Hall Crashers)
11. MR. TAMBORINE MAN (William Shatner)
12. DOGS OF LUST (TheThe)
13. SKIN OF MY TEETH (Megadeath)
14. COME ON EILEEN (Dexy's Midnight Runners)
15. NEW MISTAKE (Jellyfish)
And that's actually a pretty typical week.
Best radio station. Ever.
