Just Pictures: Big Island Eats

In terms of cooking, I've been MIA for awhile. The reason?  A certain tiny human being has taken over my life and I am either too tired or too achy to step into the kitchen and whip up something.  Yes, we are expecting and our ever growing baby boy is currently at 27 weeks!  We cannot wait for his arrival this late September!

Before the baby's arrival, we decided to have one last go at a real vacation and spent a week on the Big Island of Hawaii.  It was an amazing, relaxing, and food-filling week of sun-soaking, island-exploring, and food-tasting fun.  Take a look at some of the great things (and a couple of "THE BEST" things) we tasted:

Da Poke Shack

Because I cannot eat raw fish (trust me, I was kicking myself over and over again the entire week), I have to rely on my hubby's equally good taste buds to let me know if this place was good. With a raving 5-stars from 223 reviewers on Yelp, and the hubby grinning, savoring each bite of the fish every time he had it, I knew I was missing out on something big.  Daily, there are usually about 4-6 choices of poke, and you can choose 1 or 2 styles of poke, a side, and a big blob of white or brown rice with nori (seaweed) flakes sprinkled generously on top.

Top to bottom: sesame poke with kimchi mussels and white rice; Pele's Kiss with crab salad and brown rice.

Yes, I am drooling along with you.  To top it off, this place was literally right outside our rented condo, so I have to walk by it every day, watching everyone enjoying the delicious poke!  I'm not sure if we'll ever be back, but if we get the chance, I am definitely going to try it, multiple times!!

Island Fruits

Left to right: kona mango - it's just so much better in Hawaii; apple banana - tangy and sweet banana; papaya -  a MUST!

Rotana's Thai Cuisine

One of THE BEST I've ever had - a super fresh papaya salad.  It was the perfect combination of green papaya, tomatoes, carrots, peanuts, lime juice, and fish sauce.  There may be other secret ingredients.  I can eat this every day! 

Sam Choy's

A nice meal with amazing views to round out our week on the Big Island.

Left to right: complementary salad and coconut curry soup, lava flow (virgin and non-virgin), and Kona chicken wings.

Top to bottom: braised short ribs on a bed of chow mien and Kona orange duck with a side of brown rice.

Scandinavian Shave Ice

One can't go to Hawaii without eating some shaved ice!  Super fine ball of ice drenched with mango and passion fruit syrup, with a delicious macadamia nut vanilla ice cream in the center.  Creamy and fruity!

Two Ladies Kitchen

Another THE BEST, AND THE MOST AMAZING MOCHI I HAVE EVER HAD.  EVER EVER HAD.  EVER.  If you are going to visit the Big Island, I highly recommend visiting this small store in Hilo downtown for amazing mochi.  Their signature strawberry mochi is out of this world, and it really is THE freshest thing we've ever had.  I've had the same strawberry mochi in Japan and it wasn't as good as the ones here.  It is as big as your head and can seriously fulfill you with just one.  The nice lady that helped us also gave us an extra one for the road - how nice!

We also tried other flavors, from top left to right, clockwise: lilikoi (passion fruit), marshmallow, peach, chi chi (milk-flavored), peanut butter, and brownie.  We were not able to finish them all in one day, but because they are SO fresh, it was still delicious the next morning.  After we finished them all, we were sad that we did not get 2 or 3 more boxes!

It was a great excuse to get away, and maybe we should have went on multiple babymoons. :)

We love Hawaii...

Baby and Me (at 19 weeks)

Catfish

For me, it is usually a treat to eat freshly steamed fish on special occasions, such as Chinese New Year or out for a banquet dinner.  During a regular visit to my mother-in-law's in SF, we stopped by Chinatown (our usual hangout spot), devoured some delicious dim sum from our favorite restaurant, Great Eastern Restaurant (yes, where the President was this past February!), and went grocery shopping on the busy and crazy Stockton Street.  Both my mother-in-law and I bought a fresh big catfish to eat for dinner.  You can truly taste the freshness in each bite!

Steamed Catfish with Black Bean Garlic Sauce

Ingredients
- 1 fresh catfish
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp garlic black bean sauce
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp rice wine
- 1 stalk green onion, thinly sliced

Steps
1. Wash fish thoroughly. Pat to dry.

2. Mix minced garlic, garlic black bean sauce, soy sauce, and rice wine together.  Place washed fish on plate and pour mixture all of the fish.

3. Fill a large pot with water. Ensure that you have a stand or some type of device that can place a plate on top, in order to steam the fish. Turn heat to medium and let it cook and steam for about 20 minutes. The fish should be flaky when done.

4. Place thinly sliced green onions on top of the fish and serve.  Serves 2-4.

Just Pictures: Tea Party For Our New Niece!

My older sister is having a second child, a girl (yayy!), and didn't want a baby shower this time around. Well, I made her have one.  A surprise tea party baby shower.

My sisters and I have been talking about holding a tea party for awhile now, an inspiration from my talented friend, Cin Cin Let's Eat's annual tea party (examples here and here). My younger sister and I planned this party together and decided on 3 savory sandwiches (my responsibility) and 4 sweets (sister's responsibility).

The menu...  

-- Curried Egg Salad --

(inspired from here, without the celery and green onions and added about 1 Tbsp of yellow curry powder to the mix of 8 eggs)

-- Chicken Salad (courtesy of Safeway, haha) --

-- Cucumber Sandwiches with herb butter, half with proscuitto on top --

(mix softened butter with chives and salt, thinly slice an English cucumber and nicely layer cucumber pieces on bread)

-- Raspberry Coconut Thumbprint Cookies --

-- various cupcakes from Frost Factory --

-- Passion Fruit Tart with Strawberries and Raspberries --

-- Fruit Salad (not pictured) --

The spread 

It was a fabulous time on a Sunday afternoon of April Fools Day.  We cannot wait for our little niece to arrive in the world (just a few more weeks, yeah!).

Discovering New Vegetables: Kale!

Kale is like the "hip" vegetable lately.  I'm not sure if it's because I suddenly have a new appreciation for it so that I notice, but it's everywhere!  I first encountered this vegetable due to the juice cleanse I did last year.  One of the two green juices I drank everyday for 3 days had kale in it.  Soon after the cleanse, we purchased a Vitamix in order to make healthy smoothies.  Oh man, the Vitamix blender is the most amazing thing and may be my second most favorite tool in the kitchen!  For green smoothies, I sought out different vegetables to use and a lot of the recipes I found used kale.  I initially ate a lot of kale in a blended fashion, but after finding this salad recipe and still having lots of it in the fridge, I decided to give solid kale a chance.  What a great salad.

Fully-Loaded Kale Salad
adapted from Healthy. Happy. Life.

A few variations...
...I used marinated artichokes, pears, romaine lettuce, persian cucumbers, plum tomatoes, and avocados.

A surprisingly nutty and tangy dressing.

Refreshing!