Friday, May 16, 2008

Flamingo's Pearl City - Banana Pie

There's this little hole in the wall restaurant in Pearl City that I used to frequent when I was a kid with my family and grandparents, called Flamingo. It serves local favorites like chicken katsu, hamburger steak, and fresh island fish at very reasonable prices. You can get a complete meal (entree, starch, veggies, soup or salad, drink and dessert) for in most cases under $10. The food is not what I would call exquisite, but it's more like comfort food. This is one of the places I would go if I had been away from home for a long time and I was in the mood for something reasonably priced and tastes like a home cooked meal.
This picture over here (sorry it's a bad shot), but is of their famous banana pie. Yeah, banana pie. Actually, I had never heard of banana pie before (except in the case of banana cream pie), but this is just like an apple pie with huge chunks of banana mixed with what tastes like a vanilla-y custard and baked in a buttery flaky crust brushed with a bit of egg yolk as you can see. It tastes the best when warm and is my grandpa's favorite pie. Everyone always said that was one of his pleasures in life. He was a typical ni-sei. Samurai-like and a man of few words. He seems crusty in his old age (he's 85) since he hardly talks and he's gone a bit hard of hearing in recent years (only because he used to work for the fire department back in the days when they didn't know those sirens caused hearing loss for the firemen riding on the truck). But, I am certain that he's as sharp as he was 30, 40 years ago. He's really old school--honest, good-hearted, hard-working and would never would hurt a fly. I haven't gone to see him in a while. I think I better bring him one of these this weekend.
I definitely recomment this pie to banana lovers. It's a little on the sweet side and very buttery, but definitely worth the calories! (^__^)b

No comments: