Genki Sushi Hawaii

45-480 Kaneohe Bay Drive
Kaneohe, Hawaii 96744
808-247-9595

Several locations on Oahu; Also located on Maui and Kauai.

A good Revolving fresh sushi place. Check out the site: genkisushiusa.com

The menu offers several different types of sushi, sashimi, fried items, and other small Japanese orders served on color-coded plates to distinguish price:

You can wait for the pieces to come around, or order it right away! Although it’s mostly self-serve, the service is also great.

Unlimited ginger right in front of you!! The wasabi goes around the conveyor belt with the sushi, and it’s also unlimited.

Conveyor belt action. Just pick it up and eat! Impulse-item sushi.

Nigiri. So fresh and tasty for simple fried tofu. Just the right amount of sweetness and the sushi rice was fresh, too. Tidbit about the rice from genkisushiusa.com: Known as the sushi robot, [a] machine can produce 1,000 rice balls (Gunkan) in one hour. Today, the latest model can produce double the quantity within the same period. Traditionally, these rice balls were made by hand and were time consuming. With the introduction of the sushi robots in 1980, Saito’s little army of mechanical arms once again set the way to bring sushi within the reach of everyone. $1.40 2/pc

Nigiri Ikageso: So fresh; So good. The squid legs were just the right texture. Only $1.40 2/pc

Set your own Natto roll. Natto, fermented soybeans, usually has quite a bitter after-taste, but this roll was really good. Practically not bitter at all, but we could still distinguish the distinct natto taste.

Vegetable croquette: This was very, very good, fresh, and warm. It was similar to a hash brown, but so much better. Potato, Corn, Carrots, Peas, Panko, Egg fried with light, flaky Japanese batter.

Once done with each color-coded plate, we simply stack them up and put them to the side where the server counts them up later.

Unfortunately, Genki’s only USA locations are in Hawaii for now. If you are in Hawaii, I definitely recommend stopping by when you are looking for good, cheap eats. It’s something different.

A Fish Called Avalon

700 Ocean Dr., 33139.

Tonight we celebrated our 10 year anniversary, my close friends and I…

“The best thing I know how to make for dinner is a reservation”

LOL! Don’t like my joke? Fine… anyhow, I made a dinner reservation for this restaurant at least one month in advance at OpenTable.com. The location was nicely tucked in the center of Miami Beach’s, Ocean Drive.

A Fish Called Avalon is actually a restaurant in Hotel Avalon. It is easier to spot the neon green Avalon sign, rather than the little reception desk out front. Most people going about the area will probably be in beach attire or summer gear… that is the pleasure of being in Miami Beach.

For seating, there is a choice between patio or indoor. We opted for the indoors because, well, we still had a long night ahead of us and didn’t want our ‘do’ to get ruined by sitting outside. In March, Miami Beach carries a small breeze. Inside, the ambiance was elegant; table cloth, real chairs, and of course solid dinnerware.

To start off the night, we did a few toasts to ‘us’! The 10 years we stuck by each other and actually survived through each other… no easy task there. Hooray sistahs! A cheer to the Fantabulous 4!

After the drinks, the waiter brought our lovely complimentary bread… oh, we love free things and bread is one of them. I believe it was a sourdough bread mixture and butter balls were served on the side, butter so good, it can be eaten by itself!

For starters, we ordered the pan roasted crab and rock shrimp cake. The crab cake is place on top of a mango slaw and encircled by chipotle aioli. It was good, just what weneeded to settle us down after a few glasses of white wine. It was brought to my attention that crab cake is not hard to make, but the important thing was the fresh ingredients.

For my entree, I ordered the special of the day. Don’t pass up a chef special when given the opportunity, because most of the time, the chef will make it and it includes the fresh catch of the day with the freshest ingredients. Plus, the chef really gets to diverge from the main menu and create something original. The special was grilled cobia over creamy leek polenta and a ginger-carrot bearnaise sauce. I never had cobia before, but I must say, it was an enjoyable experience. The texture reminded me of swordfish, which is firm and tight, but slightly less firm and hard. The cobia did not have a fishy taste, it actually tasted a little creamy and was grilled fork tender. The leek polenta was good of course, I have yet to have bad polenta. The ginger bearnaise sauce sounded weird but it didn’t taste misplaced at all. This dish was excellent, well worth the money and made me a new supporter of cobia.

This is the Caribbean spice grilled grouper over boniato mash and mango relish. Boniato is a sweet potato, fyi. I don’t recall the taste of this particular dish, as to I am very un-partial to mangos.

This is the pan roasted local snapper with sautéed spinach and sweet roasted pepper tapenade. Tapenade is the technique used to purée popular ingredients such as olives and capers. Decent flavors for a decent dish, again, I have problems recalling what it tastes like, but doesn’t it still look tasty?

This is the grilled local mahi mahi with lemon grass scented purple sticky rice, hearts of palm salad, and a coconut red curry sauce. Doesn’t the dish look complicated? The taste was probably equally complicated. I like how they made the sticky rice purple, it gave the dish more attitude.

Ah dessert, first on the list is a pretty traditional cheesecake with caramel syrup and vanilla bean ice cream. The cheesecake was nicely plated and formed into pyramids, certainly made it that much more fun to eat. But, cheesecake never made it on to my top list of sweets, so I wasn’t as excited as I should be to eat it.

The second dessert, yes we decided to go all out that night, is the chocolate marquise with candied hazelnut, raspberry coulis, and fresh raspberries. The chocolate marquise is essentially a cake made with bittersweet chocolate and some type of liqueur or brandy or cognac. The dessert proved moist and fresh, the raspberry syrup was good, but I think the cake held its ground just fine.

For kicks, I’ve decided to show you our bill (eliminates the need for me to mention the price of each dish, one by one). It was not a cheap dinner, but who says that being together for 10 years would be cheap? We could of done much worse if we got another bottle of wine… I’ll mention that one for our 20 year anniversary.

I didn’t like the addition of the automatic 18% gratuity, no it’s not convienent… but what can you do? Overall, I was so glad that everyone liked this restaurant. I got the task of picking out all the restaurants for our trip (because I love food that much) and I felt like I had to redeem myself after the restaurant from the night before. The crowd on a Friday was just right, not too much but just enough. This is a great place for anniversaries and birthdays and other occasions. The Maître d’ joked with us throughout the night and came by often to ask if we were having a good anniversary dinner.

“HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GIRLS!” Until next time… 5 years?

Captain’s Tavern

9612 S. Dixie Hwy, 33156.

And off to Florida we go! This is the first of a batch of 3 for restaurants in Miami. Me and the girls went on a little vacay in the MIA during mid March. When you go on vacation, you have fun and you eat. A lot. In Miami there is seafood and there is Cuban cuisine, that is what the sunny paradise is known for.

I found out about this place through online searches, it has gotten high rating by several review sites so I decided that we should give it a try. Because, I was given the daunting task of finding places to feed the crew, a fellow foodie will never turn such a task down! This place was not the easiest to find, it was located in a dark shopping center where majority of the stores were closed.

Once inside, you can see the decoration they have along the walls: reviews, articles, awards, etc. You can also tell that they tried to stick to their theme and decorated accordingly. We waited for about 20 minutes on a Thursday night. There was a good crowd and they seemed understaffed, which I will get to later on.

Salmon tartare with caviar, avocado, tomato, and a cucumber chili salad $10.95. We were so hungry by the time our waitress brought us the appetizer, we just scarfed it down without much thought. It was good, I think tartares are heavenly and as long as you put in fresh ingredients, it can do no harm. I did however, take the time to eat the caviar by themselves… pop pop pop, it was fun but I can’t describe too much about the difference between the two. I think the red roe was juicier/fattier than the black roe. Next time, I will make sure I evaluate accordingly.

Our main dish appeared about 45 minutes after the appetizer. Absurd! Result of under-staffing number one. There was almost a point were we didn’t want our main dish anymore and just wanted to leave. It was well after 9 before we got our dishes. This one is scrod with imperial topping, a cream and dill based sauce $24.95.

I ordered the Admiral’s Platter in attempt to try a variety of seafood. It comes with broiled lobster, stuffed shrimp, shrimp scampi, scallops, and oyster Rockefeller $26.95. The broiled lobster was dry, too over done to enjoy fully… disappointing. And to be honest, It seemed more like a giant prawn to me than a lobster. The fish was cooked nicely and tasted pretty good. The shrimp was alright, the oyster was… not memorable and scallop was scallop. For the price they charged, it wasn’t really worth it… I mean, if it tasted good, thats a different story.

Oregano Salmon, oregano, parmesan, wine $2o.98. A lonely thing all by itself… tee hee. I didn’t really take the time to taste this… but I honestly can say that if you really wanted to make this dish, it was dang possible! Nothing special about herbed salmon.

Flounder Imperial comes with cream and dill sauce with crabmeat, onion, and shallots $19.95. The cream sauce was delicious, cream is delicious period. Flounder was fresh and moist, cooked to the right done-ness.

Okay, one positive thing I have to mention first is the seafood was indeed fresh and it came out to me hot. They rotate fresh seafood on the chalkboard for all to see. If I wasn’t so hungry and didn’t have to wait so long for my meal, I would have savored the freshness too… but that was not the case.

Bad notes, service and staff. It does not and shouldn’t take 45 minutes to get my dish out, unless you messed up during cook, which then you make sure your servers bring your customers plenty of bread. The restaurant was busy, but not full, no excuses. A nice restaurant charging $20+ per entree should find servers of equal latitude. Do not staff your restaurant with people who barely know how to speak English, trust me. I had gripes about it the last time I went to a certain restaurant and it hasn’t gone away yet. You can tell that they cut major corners hiring barely legal workers here… I mean hate to say it but it is true, you think I am mean that I believe these workers need to stay in the back of the restaurant? Nay. If you want to charge high dollar, your customers better get high dollar service. I do not want to have this encounter again mid meal (under-staffing sign number 2);

our waitress came up to us and started talking to us, since we were all Asian, she asked if we lived in Miami. We dont, you can tell by our touristy attire and camera gears all strapped around us. She said that the restaurant was looking to hire Asians like us, but they can’t seem to find good one. I said why? She gave me a wink and said that they are hard workers. As I looked around, I noticed that 90% of the wait staff were Asian.

Frankly, I was a little agitated after this approach and comment. Underlying racism all around… Just because we are Asian does not mean that we have to work harder for less pay. Blasphemy, I hate how the society treats it as so… and just for the record, our waitress sucked. We constantly had to ask her for drink refill and she barely checked up on us while we waited 45 minutes… this was probably not all her fault due to the fact that they were understaffed and she had to wait too many tables.

I digress, I should have saved that whole section for my personal vent blog… grrr. I would not go back, period. Don’t really like the atmosphere and hate to see fellow Asians get degraded. I don’t care how good the food is, and it wasn’t great. The end.

Rockfish Seafood Grill

11805 Westheimer Rd, #370, 77077.

[Dec. 21, 2007] Rockfish Seafood Grill, my friend and I haven’t had the easiest of times finding this restaurant, even though it is located out in the open on Westheimer… I guess long story short, we weren’t sure how many locations this restaurant had around town. She raves about the fried seafood here and I though that I should definitely give it a go.

Feeling excited about our night to come afterwards, we decided to get two appetizers. The first one was the Mexican Shrimp Martini. It is called such because the waiter will take all the ingredients, shrimp, salsa, spices and mix it in a shaker like how martinis are made. But forgetful me got so caught up in the making of the shrimp salsa, I didn’t take a picture of the shrimp actually in there. The presentation was pretty, I assure you. The taste was good but nothing really different than any other shrimp salsa.

The second of the appetizers was crab and fried asparagus. Not an original name, but definitely an orginal dish. Fried asparagus! I had to try it… and I must say, I do fairly like it. I really don’t even need the crabmeat lemon butter sauce, but I think that it is there way of holding up to the elegance of having asparagus. Eh. Would get it again, but I will eat the two thing separately.

With the onflow of two appetizers, I wimped down on my main course. I didn’t want to be too stuffed for my night out later. I got the salad and soup combo… although I forgot if there was a combo like this on the menu. I started with the Southwestern Caesar salad, which really just consist of caesar salad with some tortilla chip strips on top. They could of made it even more southwestern by adding corn or black beans…

Next, I had the Boston clam chowder. While peering over the soup section of the menu, I was mentally trying to distinguish my clam chowders… Manhattan clam chowder is the one in the tomato broth, the one which I don’t care for. This Boston clam chowder was done right. I would so so go back for this soup. Loads of clams in it and even whole clams with shell and all. Comfort food for the winter.

My friend had the Fisherman’s basket with shrimp. Lots of fried goodness. Once in a while I would love to just splurge on fried food, but that night was not the night. Everything was fried to golden, shrimps were fresh. This dish came with jalapeño corn fritters, which you can’t see, and apple cider slaw. The corn fritters were really good and different than the normal hushpuppies I am use to getting in a dish like this. I’m not going to make fun of my friend for not finishing this platter, it was good amount of food… and she did considerably better than the last time I ate with her. :smiles:

This is a great chill, local place to get some decent seafood without the fuss and they also have a wide bar selection.

Americas

1800 Post Oak Boulevard, 77056.

[Dec. 14th, 2007] Americas is New World Latin Cuisine restaurant… that is what it says on the website. Americas is owned by the Cordúa restaurant group, all of which has some sort of Latin inspiration. I got the pleasure of being taken on a date here… and I have to say, the ambiance is quite nice. The setting, very romantic and dim light, even though I prefer the company of bright fluorescent light cascading down on me with my meal… one still needs to understand mood setting.  Getting to this location, however, seemed like a daunting task.  Parking is underground and when you walk up to the big sign, you actually have to enter the mall.  Then, you must twist and turn till you come to the restaurant entrance in the mall… perhaps there was another location to enter from, but we did not see it.

These are fried plantain chips, aka my addiction. When I go to their sister restaurant, Amazón Grill, I can honestly nibble up to 10 bags of these. They are fried so crisp, not too greasy and dips well with the provided cilantro pesto dipping oil. But, I still prefer to eat these by themselves, just have to remember to practice portion control.

This appetizer, what I thought was a twist on crab cakes, is actually corn smoked crab fingers with herb yuca polenta and jalapeño lime sauce. It was very good, the crab fingers I could do without, but that yuca polenta is magnificent. The dish is called Marineros and stacks in at $16.

For my main dish, I skipped all the specials and went straight for the paella. I knew I wanted paella at a Latin restaurant for some time now. The dish is called, Arroz, paella with grilled fish, chicken, crab, chorizo, shrimp, scallops and calamari with saffron rice $29. In my opinion, the best bet, it came with everything on the menu except for red meat. I wanted to eat lighter, so I chose seafood and it did not disappoint. I think my favorite was the scallop and calamari. The shrimp was grilled too much on the salty side for my taste. The saffron rice was a good filler for the light seafood, but I thought that saffron rice would be something of a higher caliber.

My date had the special of the day. It was basically like my paella dish, minus the saffron rice, plus a lobster tail. The lobster was no doubt delicious, the shrimp was the same salty ones, and everything else was great. This dish came in at a whopping $50… all for the lobster I guess.

With our meal, we had complimentary sides. At first, it was thought of because we ordered a whole bottle of wine, but I soon realized that the table next to us had this as well, without a whole bottle of wine. The sides were composed of broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, fried plantain, croquettas, and rice. I loved the fried croquettas, and we see a trend with me and fried foods. I can’t have them often, but who will disagree with me that anything fried will taste as least decent?

To top the night off, we ordered the Tres Leches cake $7. How can we pass it up? Even if we are full to the brim, this is a must try. And, I’m glad I did. The cake wasn’t really cake consistency. It was a cross of cake and pudding… sponge cake-ish with cream sauce. The cake seemed soaked in this cream sauce and this made the cake heavenly. This cake is really really sweet, and oh very very heavy. A good dessert after seafood, but not seafood and rice. Heh.

At the end of the night, I’m happy to have experienced this restaurant. I would definitely recommend this place for anniversaries, birthdays, and what nots… but just remember, it can get kind of pricey.

Eddie V’s Edgewater Grille

9400 Aboretum Blvd., 78759

Over the weekend I had to go to Austin for a business trip… and you know about business trips… entails different types of food! My boss and I decided to check out Roy’s (Hawaiian Fusion) Restaurant. Good thing I called in for a reservation first because apparently they were having a private banquet. Next best thing on the list, Eddie V’s. Steak and Seafood, so done over and over again, but we headed that way anyhow. I decide on this meal – that I, would not eat steaks, and let me just say, I love steaks, but tis time to try something different. I only took a few choice pix because I didn’t want my boss thinking that I am weird-er… and it also proves difficult to explain to people why I am busting out a camera to take pictures of my decadent meals.

We started out with one appetizer, the George Banks Scallops in Tempura. Something very different and interesting. It is explained as wok-seared asparagus and shittakes with honey black bean glaze. I have to say, this was the best dish out of the whole meal. The scallops were o-so tender and soft, not chewy at all and the batter was crispy but not tempura consistency, a little more coarse and heavy. The glaze had a sweet ting to it, but I didn’t mind. I could also taste the soy sauce throughout the dish, a little less on the sodium would be better for me. The only problem I had was the wooden chopsticks that came along with it. Now why would you taint a good dish with a cheapo set of flimsy wooden chopsticks? Is the tempura batter and black bean glaze not asian enough for you? Anyhow, I was slightly put down by the placement of the pair of chopsticks on the platter, so I scooted them off (but you can still see it)… I mean if the dish absolutely must be paired with chopsticks to be asian-amified, at least get some decent ones that aren’t $0.10 each.

My main course was the Chilean Sea Bass, Roasted Crisp with lemon, garlic, and scallions. I had quite a confusion going on here… When I saw sea bass, I was thinking of cod fish, and I wanted me some cod. So the whole time I’m thinking to myself, mmmm… fatty-ness. Sea bass does not have the fatty flesh like cod, eh. It wasn’t that the sea bass was bad, it was good, it was very light and somewhat healthy, but not extremely good. Listed as Mkt Price, means prepare to pay loads, it’s okay though, I didn’t have to pay. My boss had swordfish (which I did not picture), and it was pretty good. Swordfish has almost a steak like texture to it.

For a side, I chose the Creamed Spinach Almondine. It was baked in a casserole dish and came out piping hot. The cream was not too overpowering and there was plenty of spinach. It is hard to tell in the picture, I couldn’t get my camera to focus right, so this will have to do. Honestly, I wanted to ordered the Truffled Macaroni and Cheese Gratinata, but my boss wanted greens… sigh, one day I will be able to taste overpriced mac and cheese… one of these days.

For dessert I chose the Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Pudding Soufflé with bourbon sauce. It looked amazing. I love the stuff on top and the bread pudding was rich and delicious. Now, I am not a dessert person, so I can’t really tell you how it compares with others… it was good, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I might have tasted similar… It was cool how the waiter poked a hole on top and poured in the bourbon cream… teehee.

All that plus a bottle of Chardonnay… yeah, those calories are here to stay.