Food
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Eating My Way Through the LA County Fair
The LA County Fair was the first place my husband and I went after officially becoming boyfriend and girlfriend way back when. After that we spent every anniversary we had at the LA County Fair until we moved to Hawaii. While in Hawaii we tried to appease our fair desires with the Hawaii State Fair, but it paled in comparison. So, for nearly four years we waited for our chance to re-establish our LA County Fair tradition.
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The Hot Spot
The Hot Spot in Salina, Utah is an adorable little roadside drive-in that I've been visiting for as long as I can remember. They have a HUGE menu, great food, and excellent service. I've never had a bad experience here, nor have ever ordered anything I didn't love.
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Lanikai Juice
Summer has been in full swing the past few weeks here in Southern California and that means hot windless nights and daytime temps in the 90s (This week we’ve even been hitting the 100s!). California has turned into an oven and all I can dream about is Lanikai Juice. Sure California has Jamba Juice and Juice It Up! (which I do love) and little local smoothie shops, but since I’ve been back I can honestly say nothing beats Oahu’s Lanikai Juice. Lanikai Juice opened its doors back in 1997, serving healthy and fresh smoothies, fruit bowls, freshly squeezed juices, food, and cold pressed juices using local and fresh organic ingredients.…
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Where to get the Best Poke on Oahu?
Poke (pronounced POH-KAY) dates back to the ancient Hawaiians who would feast on freshly caught fish massaged with sea salt, seaweed and crushed inamona or kukui nuts. Since then poke has grown and evolved, in some circumstances, drastically. As immigrants from all around the world, and especially places like China and Japan, began arriving in Hawaii, new flavors began to shape poke. While the more traditional Ahi poke is made with tuna, shoyu (soy sauce), sea salt, green onions, Maui onions and limu, visit any poke shop in Hawaii today and you can find a wide array of flavors and options including kimchee shrimp, furikake salmon, miso tako (octopus), pipikaula…
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7-Eleven in Hawaii
It may sound crazy to anyone that has never been to Hawaii, but on the islands, 7 Eleven is one of the absolute best places to get a quick, cheap meal or snack. From ramen to sushi, hot dogs to sandwiches, Hawaii’s 7-Elevens have something for everyone and it’s not the lowest quality food you might imagine. I am in no way a food snob and I will proudly say certain gas station hot dogs aren’t bad. I on occasion have even purposely chosen to eat a gas station hot dog, whether it was from the ampm up the road from where I grew up or the 7-Eleven across the…
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Mochi Donuts from Modo
Chewy. Fluffy. Sweet. The most amazing, mind-blowing, sweet treat experience of my life. It’s been months and I still have not come up with an accurate, fair way to describe Modo’s mochi donuts. A hybrid of traditional American donuts and Japanese mochi, these sweet delights are made with sweet glutinous rice and, as Glutto Digest so eloquently explains it, “after these donuts are fried, the result is a slightly crispy exterior with a surprisingly chewy interior.” At Modo and other locations that serve mochi donuts, they are then covered with a variety of coatings and toppings adding an extra textural experience. Mochi donuts can be found throughout many countries in…
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Springtime Temperatures Call for Banan
Spring is in full swing here in SoCal and summer is fast approaching and that means the temperature is on the rise. As the days get longer and hotter I find myself craving a sweet treat in the evening, but nothing here seems to hit the spot like Oahu’s Banan. Frozen yogurt, soft serve, I’ve tried it all and yet I still find myself craving the sweet, cool, amazing creation that is Banan. Created by four guys with the idea to turn fruit into ice cream, Banan began selling banana based soft serve out of their roadside food truck December 2014. Based on a simple farm-to-table philosophy Banan has grown…
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Happy Birthday Teddy’s Bigger Burgers
This week Teddy’s Bigger Burgers turned 21! On April 15th, 1998 the first Teddy’s Bigger Burgers opened up at the foot of Diamond Head on Oahu serving fresh ground chuck burgers, fries and shakes. Today Teddy’s can now be found all across Oahu as well as on Maui, in Washington, Iowa, and even internationally. For a while there was even one located in Fullerton, CA, not too far from my hometown. (Although I never ate at this location, it was always on my list to try.) Teddy’s may not have been my #1 burger on Oahu, but it definitely became a big part of my life on Oahu. Burgers are…
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My Unpopular Opinion – The Pig & The Lady
Years before I even had any inclination that I would ever visit Hawaii let alone live there, I had decided that before I died I needed to try The Pig & The Lady. Known for their amazing Pho, that wasn’t what drew me there. I knew I had to go to The Pig & The Lady because they had a full dessert bar! Now I don’t mean they had a large dessert menu or a dessert buffet bar, they have a full dessert bar set up just like a traditional bar. You have your bar area, with your “bartender”, and stools that you can sit at all along the bar…
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L&L – Hawaii vs California
Right around the time I moved to Hawaii one of my best friends moved to Chicago. After both of us had lived in our respective new cities for a few months, I remember texting him about how it was living in Hawaii, the good, the bad, the different. I don’t remember how we got on the topic of food or what his exact words were, but my friend sent me a text message saying something along the lines of, “I bet the food there is so good, no gross L&Ls around.” Little did he realize, or I for that matter, when I moved to Oahu, L&L is everywhere on the…
