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

Omuraisu (Omelette Rice)

Ahh, omuraisu (omelette rice). Basically this is in every family restaurant, and Japan actually has restuarants dedicated solely to the preparation of omuraisu. The best one I've tasted was in Ehime, when Steff and I went to go see L'Arc~en~Ciel in concert. They had sizes based on how many eggs they put in....something like 3 egg, 4, egg, or 6 egg omuraisu. How's that for puny Japanese sizes!

I don't think that there is really an exact science to getting that lovely chicken ketchup fried rice into a neat little mound and surrounding it with a perfectly cooked fluffy yellow exterior. It's pretty simple in composition. And well, while you can't really mess up omuraisu, some do taste better than others. Department store omuraisu, usually tastes like family restaurant omuraisu. Okay, probably a little bland, but not bad--a safe bet if you don't know anything else on the menu. I always thought of it as more of a children's and young people food, but it's very versatile, so even old people and women will indulge in it. I've seen it with everything from curry rice, extra onions, and pork to cheese and tonkatsu sauce. The version Steff and I used to make was the poor college student version--bare bones, but still very flavorful. The recipe for one person/serving is as follows:

1 pack of instant microwave rice (or about 1 scoop of leftover rice per serving)

1/4 round onion, chopped

2 eggs, lightly beaten with 2 T. milk

1/4 cup cooked chopped leftover chicken breast or 4-5 pre-cooked chicken nuggets

oil

salt & pepper

1 T. oyster sauce

1/4 c. ketchup

1. Saute the onions in a frying pan in a bit of oil.
2. When the onions turn transparent, throw in the chicken and saute until cooked. (about 2 minutes)
3. Dump the rice in and incorporate into chicken-onion saute.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste and about a tablespoon of oystersauce per serving.
5. Add the ketchup in and cook for about a minute more. This is a quick fried rice, no need to overdo the cooking.
6. Set the fried rice aside.
7. Take scrambled egg mixture and pour it into another heated greased skillet. Start loosening the sides slightly and when eggs are no longer runny (i.e. half cooked), place fried rice mixture in the middle and fold over sides to make an omelette.
8. Turn over onto plate with egg side up.
9. Drizzle or decorate with ketchup and you've got a meal in less than 15 minutes!

I love omuraisu. Steff and I have this and college student okonomiyaki down pat. Sure you can add all sorts of fancy things. I love cheese mixed in with the fried rice with my omuraisu, but it's sort of like tomato soup. Pairs with a lot of different things--very flexible when it comes to experimentation, but yummy just by itself.

Suidobashi Cheesecake Shaped Shrubbery

One day, I think maybe after school or something, Steff, Miyu, and I went to Suidobashi's Tokyo Dome Amusement Park something or another. Anyway, I saw this in the little courtyard below and was like, "Is that a garden in the shape of a cake?" Lo and behold, it was a little shrubbery set just hanging out down there that looked like a chocolate cheesecake with strawberries on it. Notice the slice that's sticking out. It's half a strawberry!!! Sliced right down the middle~!! Only in Japan. Seriously. Only in Japan do they make shrubbery in the shape of food. I think this country has an almost unhealthy obsession with food (despite the average adult weighing in at like 90 pounds) and making unedible, unconventional things into the shape of various food items. I think it's funny and kinda cool, but most foreigners usually have the 'wtf is that?!' look every time they see something like this.

I have this stuffed toy that is in the shape of an ebi furai. Who makes a soft toy in the shape of a fried shrimp with tartar sauce? I gotta take a picture of it one of these days. It's not small either. It's a pretty big sized soft toy--probably about the same volume as a normal pillow...just in the shape of an ebi furai..... But, on the other hand, this is exactly why I love Japan. Where else in the world would you ever see shrubbery in the shape of half a strawberry in soil that is meant to look like a chocolate cheesecake?

Baskin Robbins Popping Shower

This is from one of my shopping adventures with Steff. We always get ice cream every time we pass by a Baskin Robbins. This looks like the Shibuya branch. My all time favorite flavor, which unfortunately is a Japanese innovation is the flavor, Popping Shower. It's a white chocolate and mint (maybe?) based ice cream with red and green pop rocks mixed in. It is a must if you are ever in Japan and you pass by a Baskin Robbins. I remember the first time that Steff introduced it to me. It was at FujiQ Highland, the roller coaster amusement park. They have a food court that has a Baskin Robbins on the bottom floor. And Steff was telling me about this flavor she really liked. She was raving about this flavor and so I was like, I gotta try this. Ever since then, I have been hooked. It's probably the only ice cream flavor I could see myself eating an entire gallon of without even showing signs of tiring of it. It is that good. (^_^)b

Ryuuhou Ramen

This little hole in the wall of a ramen shop called Ryuuhou was right on one of the side streets near Kagurazaka station. It has one of the best recipes for ramen that I have ever tasted in Tokyo. The portions are huge and the average bowl runs between 700-900 yen, which is normal for ramen bowls of that size. They're also known for their chahan (fried rice), but I always order ramen. Chie and I often went there for lunch before we went shopping. Chie usually got the Ryuuhou ramen, which is pictured here. It's their signature dish with pork, lots of cabbage, vegetables, corn, bean sprouts, and a little quail egg. Last time I ordered it, it was 700 or 750 yen. They do not skimp on anything! Most Japanese people cannot finish it. The last couple of times I went, I ordered the char siu ramen which was my favorite so far! I don't have a picture of it unfortunately, but it wasn't like char siu we have in Hawaii. It's not really hard and red, but it was like kakuni, the fatty braised shoyu-sugar pork. There were 5 huge pieces floating in there and it was worth every yen of the 900 yen I paid. I definitely recommend this hole in the wall if you're ever around the Kagurazaka/Iidabashi area.

Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes to Maid Cafe NOIR

So Chie's childhood friend, Yuki, former Host Club well, host and owner, decided one day that he had a lot of money and that he wanted to move out of the host club business and into the maid cafe business. It's a long story, but basically, when it opened, Chie and I went to go see him and the cafe (which was in Ikebukuro, I believe Nishi-Ikebukuro), which is odd, as most maid cafes are in Akihabara, the electric town and home to computer/video game otaku geeks and their stores that cater to their odd obsessions. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to bring something, sort of a grand opening, house warming thing all rolled into one. Most Japanese businesses receive bouquets of flowers when they first open, but Yuki had a modest little area on the third floor on a side street that I could have sworn was yakuza territory, but that is only speculation.

I made these cute cheesecake cupcakes for Yuki's new maid cafe, NOIR. I wanted to make cupcakes, but to be honest, cake-like desserts are not my forte. They always end up too dense or with some sort of flaw. They always taste okay, but the texture or the appearance is off. Pies, cookies, cheesecakes (which are more like pies in my opinion) are more my pace. This recipe is super easy. Virtually fool-proof might I add.

For each 8 oz package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, and 1 egg. I usually go with the following:

3-8oz packages of softened cream cheese (do not use whipped)
1 c. granulated sugar
3 eggs

Beat together until smooth and you can add a teaspoon of vanilla extract for a bit of richness. Put cupcake liners into your muffin tin. Place an oreo cookie into each liner (this will be your crust). Use a large serving spoon or ladle to pour the batter into the liners. I usually fill them up 2/3 to 3/4 of the way, since they expand just a tad while baking. If they overflow it can get messy, so don't fill them too high. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees F. Cool in refrigerator overnight and top as desired. They taste fine without anything, but you could drizzle melted chocolate or fruit sauce on them.

Utahiroba Karaoke Abstract Art

People often tell me that they think I'm mental. I agree. I take pictures of food, can quote lines from Disney movies I saw as a kid, and make abstract art from things as you can see to the left. This one's not so artsy, but I wanted to capture what my karaoke adventures at Utahiroba usually end up like. They have a drink bar which for 1000 yen, you can sing and drink slushies, corn soup, and fountain drinks to your heart's content from 11am-7pm. It's not a classy karaoke bar. It's individual rooms, with a screen, two microphones, and a couple of remote controls. It can be dingy, but who cares for 1000 yen. You can pay 100 yen for 30 minutes, no beverages included, at the Karaoke-kan across the street and they have a 1 drink minimum (the cheapest of which is 380 yen. 380 yen for oolong tea? I don't think so...)

Steff and I have an unspoken 2 hour minimum and we are cheap. So we will always opt for the Utahiroba with the lemon and apple slushies, corn soup, and milk tea. If we're hungry, we might order a kalbi kim chee fried rice with hanjuku tamago for 280 yen, but for the most part, it's a bargain afternoon. We don't smoke, well, Steff doesn't when we go to karaoke. We usually consume like 20 cups of liquid and sing to our heart's content.

It also goes the best when it's just the two of us. Me, then Steff, me, then Steff. Sometimes we sing together, but it's always awkward going with karaoke noobs, cuz then they go hogwild and put in like 8 songs at a time and don't understand the concept of a queue. And they'll also put in songs that are virtually unsingable or that they don't know and everyone just twiddles their thumbs for three and a half minutes awkwardly. And of course, we sing everything from Aqua to L'Arc~en~Ciel, My Chemical Romance, random Chinese song, 99 Luftbaloons, and obscure anime songs. I miss karaoke with Steff.

State Sausage of Hawaii - Vienna Sausage

This is the state sausage of Hawaii. Vienna sausage is as Steff calls it, "wiggly sausage". Let's not focus on what it is made out of but rather, what it means for the people of Hawaii. Vienna sausage, like corned beef and spam, is basically what people from the mainland (i.e. I believe they refer to it as the continental United States) call dog food and poor people's food. I know some of the people I went to school with would never admit to eating vienna sausage, corned beef, spam, even hot dogs. Those stuck up pompous pricks had something against processed meat, I swear. But I am proud to say that I am really one local girl at heart. I love my vienna sausage, corned beef, spam, hot dogs, portuguese sausage. My grandma makes it the best. It's always got this thin crispy shell (even though vienna sausage technically doesn't have casing like portuguese sausage) on the outside, peppery, and soft on the inside. Whoo, wit' da hot rice and shoyu shuga scramble egg, broke da mout man!

Anyway, there was a point to this post. Notice that this box is blue. The cans are also blue. This box was bought on Yokota base by my coworker for me while I was still in Tokyo. This is what vienna sausage sold all over the world looks like, everywhere except Hawaii. In Hawaii, vienna sausage cans are yellow. The cans and the box for the 18 pack are yellow. Apparently, Hawaii people really like the color yellow and the color yellow is significant as vienna sausage is synonymous with yellow, as well as Hinode and Diamond G medium-short grain rice. I am not sure if it's because it's eye catching or if Hawaii people are just more attracted in things in yellow packaging, but we're apparently a special market. Well in terms of the color, yellow is the official color of Oahu (as opposed to say Maui, which I think is pink) and the state flower is the yellow hibiscus, which is native to the Hawaiian islands. Any ideas on why Hawaii packaging is unique?

One final note, Hawaii people are known to be a lot of things--naive, stupid, nice, scary, country bumpkins, hoarders, but one thing is for certain, they know their brands when it comes to food. When it comes to luncheon meat, there is only one--Hormel Spam. When you make spam musubi, it's called SPAM musubi, not luncheon meat rice ball. Only Hormel Spam will do it for most people. None of this TULIP brand. Vienna sausage, while not as big as spam is pretty much the same. You gotta buy Libby's, which is under the manufacturer ConAgra. Vienna sausage does not taste the same if you buy any other brand. Unlike when they do those blind tests for cola and wine, I am sure most Hawaii people could point out the brand in a blind taste. There is no substitute. So next time Longs or Daiei (presently Don Quijote) runs the 18 pack on ad for $5.99, go out and buy yourself a case. (Hawaii is also probably the only state where there are LIMIT 5 or LIMIT 10 signs on ad items at the supermarkets. I told you, Hawaii people hoard like there's no tomorrow--it's like the war-rationing mentality got rolled up with the frugality of the East Asian mother.)

Mom & Pop Shop - Milk Tea

This is my favorite drink. I love milk tea. I swear Japan has this drink down pat. I was waiting for my coworker, Josie and her family in Ropppongi one day. They came to Japan to visit their family, who were stationed at Yokota, but they were for some reason meeting up at a smaller base, which was in Roppongi. Who knew? And this base in an area that you would have never guessed was Roppongi. It looks so...suburban. It was like a 20 minute walk from the station. No problem for me, but for the Americans...they wanted to take a taxi... Anyway, back to the food aspect. I was a little early and they told me they would call me when they got close, so I wandered around and found myself this cute little mom & pop shop that was the only shop for what seemed to be a good 5 block radius. It was run by this ojiichan and obaachan who looked like they were in their 90's. They were so cute shuffling about the shop. So I ordered milk tea that came in its own little flask, complete with mini cream pitcher and even minier beaker (behind the cream pitcher) filled with gum syrup.

Gum syrup has got to be the best part about drinks in Japan. Most American places only have the granulated sugar for its patrons, but in Japan, granulated sugar is for hot drinks (as it dissolves very quickly). But granulated sugar does not dissolve so well in iced drinks, which is why most places will give you gum syrup, which is basically simple syrup for your cold drinks so that it is sweetened instantaneously and you don't have those granules at the bottom of your drink while the top portion remains unsweetened. Talk about instant gratification for the customer!

Anyway, milk tea. Milk tea is basically tea that has been brewed to double strength, to which you can then add cream and sugar to taste. The best bargain milk tea was the Lipton 500ml carton that you can buy at any convenience store for 105 yen. It's very good, though this past winter, they had a premium milk tea which was really milky, very rich and creamy for 137 yen. That was excellent, though sometimes my cheap side got the best of me and I had to rationalize paying 32 yen more for the premium brand.

They also had milk tea Alfort chocolate cookie biscuits at one time and Super Cup made a limited edition milk tea ice cream. Those were both fabulous. I love milk tea flavored anything. I love the combination of sweet and creamy with the fragrance of the tea leaves. My former dorm buddy Lindsay (self-proclaimed tea snob) from Cali introduced me to Lady Grey tea, the more floral and I guess spicier, for lack of a better word, companion to the standard Earl Grey. I've always bought the Twinnings blue box and have never been disappointed when I have used it for milk tea though I am certain you can use any black tea brewed to double strength.

This is the one drink I wish we had on a regular basis in Hawaii.

Shakey's Japan

I remember these pics. Steff and I went to Shakey's in Shinjuku Higashi guchi. It was the Sunday after my birthday, last year (i.e. 2007). We went to go exploit the lunch buffet, something like 1000 yen for all you can eat pasta, pizza, and other odd Japanese side dishes like curry and rice (yes, at a pizza parlor). They have the best green jello I have every tasted in my life (pictured left). He's so wiggly and while I'm not too sure what flavor he is, he just tastes so nice. But getting back to the pizza, as it is supposedly a pizza parlor, Japanese pizza is really weird. You just have to accept it. They have weird combos like ham and scrambled egg (these are all pizza toppings), bacon mayonnaise potato, and maccha shiratamako anko. The last one is a dessert pizza (green tea mochi balls with sweetened black bean paste).

The pasta flavors are okay. I'm not really a spaghetti person, but they have stuff like peperonccino (sorry if that's spelled wrong), basil and olive oil, meat sauce, and of course the Japanese of all Japanese flavored pasta, tarako cream spaghetti with nori. If you don't know what that last one was, it's better that you don't. Most foreigners I've met in Japan are really weirded out by Japanese pizza and pasta flavors. There's a restaurant in Hawaii called Angelo Pietro's that serves something like Japanese-Italian fusion cuisine. I think it's in town, by Ala Moana, but my friend ordered natto spaghetti from there. I'm not really a natto person, so the thought kinda gives me goose bumps, but I always say, to each his own.

Oh, this thing here on the left is like the most amazing thing at Shakey's. It's some sort of breaded potato thing. Not like French fries, but it's nice and fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside. I've never been able to figure out what it is, but it is very nice. He has some sort of peppery seasoning in the breading, not herby, but very savory. This Higashi-guchi branch of Shakey's is towards Isetan, on the Tsutaya side, in the basement of some building. I forget where it is exactly--I'm getting Daiwa Securities Building for some reason, but don't hold me to it--anyway, the entrance is in the back of the building. It's better to go early as it fills up quickly. Not many foreigners at this one, mostly young Japanese people frequent this joint.

This post isn't really about a cooking adventure per se, but I just felt compelled to document some of my food pictures.