Maui Pineapple

Sooooo they used to grow tons of pineapple in Hawaii. Capital of the pineapple-growing world, brought in a huge portion of the Asian immigrants to the US through the pineapple plantations and search for work, etc. Then the pineapple companies discovered cheaper, un-unionized labor abroad and Dole left for third world countries. Pineapple fields in Hawaii slowly stopped growing pineapples until last December when the last pineapple company in the state of Hawaii finally left. Their fields lay un-harvested. Then Kapalua Adventures (ziplining+eco-tourism company) bought out the Maui Gold pineapple plantations to do the tours again (YAY!). They only produce enough to sell on the islands of Hawaii - not even California - so if you want an authentic, delicious Hawaiian pineapple, you have to go to Maui.

Luckily, we went to Maui :D

Here's me picking the pineapple on the Maui Gold Pineapple Tour:


William & I each got to take one home:


There was also all-you-can-eat on the fresh pineapple in the fields (you know Will loved this part). It was so sweet! The ones that were more green than yellow were still super sweet, juicy. The ones that were half green, half yellow were my favorite, tasting not only sweet and acidic, but also had a distinct pina colada taste that was really so unique and tasty in a beautiful pineapple fruit! All yellow were almost all sugar, no acid, tasted super sweet - not my favorite because it was so sweet and didn't really taste that pineapple-y. Anyways, I loved eating all the pineapple, with it's faint coconut sweetness, and ate until my mouth felt fuzzy.


Yay for pineapple!

sakura toast

well. . . since our names are both literally, from bread, i just have to show you these!!


so these are toasts that had a sukara flower stamped/ burned on them. beautiful, no? originally, these toasts were meant to be served with the teppanyaki beef/ steak, to soak up the grease, like this:


but then what you saw in the first pic, pay close attention, the chef was buttering the toasts! the chef said that because there were so many kids, who were not interested in any sort of teppanyaki fancy foods, one day, he decided to use grill a piece of the sakura toasts on the teppan, butter them and sprinkle sugar onto them, and made them extra crispy sweet toast for the children! since then, it has become a big hit amongst ALL the customers!

here, smell it! mmMMM!! glistening!


<3 breadie

craving satisfied!

so remember yesterday i messaged you in the morning continuing with our discussion of how cute those emoji icons were, i told you that i was craving for riceballs? i guess my sis read my mind or something, and suggested going to a ramen place across from the gelato place that we were supposed to have try out. this ramen place is called "mi so cool". it's pretty cute! look.. the plate, i guess, ought to be a COOOOLLLLL afro (more acceptable stereotype version of "darkie toothpaste? haha.):


then we ordered one of the "chef's recommendations": daikon gyozas, which were actually quite tasty. and beautiful.


and then of course, ramen


we also ordered a cold noodle, and of course, the main player of this post, the Riceballs -
!!

so these riceballs were in fact part of a set, they were supposed to be the side dish of a tomato beef soup. but since we really just wanted the riceballs, we asked the server if we could ONLY get the riceballs without the soup. he said no. BUT get this, on the menu, the picture of this item was a bowl of the tomato beef soup with ONE riceball floating on top of it, and then on the side of the soup bowl, was a separate little plate with 2 riceballs. so we asked if we'll actually get 3 riceballs, and the server said, yes. then we proceeded to ask if it's possible to have all 3 riceballs on the side, and the server replied, "no. we can't do that". my sis, my bro-in-law, and myself all gasped in unison, and asked, "why?" so the server kindly went to ask the chef, and he came back, smiling embarrassingly, and said, "yes, we can do that."

I MEEEEAAAAN.... wtf!? that was only ONE of the many no's we got, and they messed up our orders. however, i've decided not to vent anymore, because in terms of food, it was not bad :D and it was a nice day, delightful lunch with my sis and bro-in-law!!

-breadie

The quality of shave ice in Hawaii

... is incredible.

And I strongly feel that Ululani's is the best on Maui (if not in the entire Hawaiian island chain). It's run by the nicest, friendliest couple named Ululani & David and they are so dedicated to making the most high quality shave ice you've ever seen. Ululani makes all of the syrups by hand, from real fruit and Hawaiian cane sugar (none of the corn syrup junk) and it truly truly makes all the difference in the world. The shave ices taste amazing!!



My lilikoi & tropical punch shave ice, with macademia nut ice cream.

The mac nut ice cream was also Hawaiian made, really high quality ice cream. It tasted home made.

Can you also tell from the picture how FINE the ice shavings are? This was not little chunks of ice like you see in American snow cones, even finer than what you get from an Asian cafe. The ice was so fine it scooped up like soft sorbet and had the smoothest texture in your mouth - the natural fruit syrups + perfectly shaved ice = heavenly dessert. I am a huge fan.

See the mac nut ice cream at the bottom?


William's shave ice, coconut and something else + condensed milk cream on the top!


More to come on deliciousness from Hawaii!

back-blogging CALI! .wedding.

this wedding - the supposedly primary reason that brought me to LA. so i must write about it, no? first of all, my apologies for not fully documenting the meal. but the ones that i thought were the highlights of the banquet were here :)

the wedding program - liked the design a lot - the couple loves to travel, so they made it a passport! side note: the groom's goal is to collect 1 million air miles or something to make it to the united airlines or cathay pacific diamond VIP. only one person in the world has it so far.


the menu + gigantic rose


"paul bocus" soup - the puff pastry was beautifully done.


and.. the 7G wedding cake. mmHmmm. . 1G per layer. USD 20 per bite (my bite size, btw)


so that was the wedding! also.. the ceremony ended with a flock of 50 doves or something flying from in front of the newly weds, right after "you may kiss the bride". yes, it was quite the show. whoa!

Doughie's Catch-up Post

1. Cupcakes from the wedding of Jen & Travis - Jen was my guiding teacher at HHS and was an incredible mentor! Her and Travis are perfect together and they had the most beautiful cake stand that my UCLA advisor built for the wedding!! I usually don't like cupcake wedding cakes, but this was definitely an exception. The cupcakes were a tad sweet, but still very yummy. She also had ice cream cones! These are red velvet & peanut butter chocolate cupcakes.

2. I bought Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc cookbook right after we went to Bouchon (using my new Amazon Prime trial!). This is the summer vegetable gratin I made from the book (tomato, zucchini, & eggplant).

3. Sushi House: dragon roll & bay scallop roll (our favorites!)

4. Donuts from a place called Psycho Donuts near San Jose airport. William & I went with his friend Ted who lives nearby.

5. Finally, the meal after the big drive after 3 days of packing up William's stuff. I loveeeee crispy noodles!! I haven't had them like this in forever, I was really happy :D

back-blogging CALI! .homemade.2.

in this post, i'm recording some of the foods that were made in la villa. mmhmm, la villa 802 in pelican hill. ha!

1. in collaboration with costco. . ..
(l > r) my mom cooking up the pasta bolognese > auntie christine searing the costco steak > anita dissecting the costco roast chicken > the dissected and re-assembled costco chicken > costso cherry tomatoes + burata cheese



accompanied by red wine, beers, diet coke, and diet lipton green tea. delish!