Archive for the 'Food' Category

Korean-Style Fried Chicken

If you’ve experienced Korean-style fried chicken, Mochiko chicken, Garlic chicken, or any of the various and sundry spin-offs of the theme, then the version they make at Cooke Street Diner will probably surprise you. The serving is predominantly meat, and the amount on skin and fat is minimal. There is enough skin represented so you get a nice crispy crunch once in a while, but it isn’t all skin like at some other places. The chicken was cooked just about right, so it was still moist and soft on the inside. A couple of the smaller pieces were on the dry side though – that counted for a half-point deduction on the rating. The sauce is moderately thick and actually has a bit of a spicy burn that comes through the sweetness. As in the past, I ordered it with brown rice and a tossed salad with a creamy dressing. $6.23 USD including tax.

Recommended

Three grinning monkeys out of four.

Continue reading ‘CSD Again and Again!’

Monday, June 9, found me on a Hawaiian jet for Kahului, Maui with my boss. A later flight, less crowds at the airport, everything went uneventfully. Pick up our equipment and jam it all into a Chevy Impala, which much smaller than the land boat you used to think of, still has a pretty big trunk. Drive out to Lahaina is also uneventful. Weather is postcard blue skies. I end up dozing having the luxury of being a passenger. We’re installing system at new Genki Sushi in Lahaina, in new mall accross the street from the cannery mall. The install goes pretty smoothly, although no benefit of air conditioning this time around makes for sweltering hot house.

Break for late lunch, boss asks what I feel like eating. I don’t really know what’s around, he mentions Mexican. Mexican is good, we end up at Maui Tacos, which is debatably “Mexican”. I wonder if this is the original Maui Tacos, seeing that we are in Maui. Anyway, on a side board I notice they have tacos el pastor so decide to try theirs. I get two as a combo plate. Ends up being a pretty decent pile of food. Flavor is decent, perhaps not as flavorful as might want, but its not bad. The pork is little cubes nicely browned, not drowning in oil or shredded like kalua. The beans and rice are unspectacular and I don’t eat all of it. I don’t touch the greasy looking chips, they look as greasy as the ones I’ve had at the oahu location. The condiment bar is a nice feature of Maui Tacos, soda refills are free. The counter service guy was pretty pleasant and efficient. So as long as you’re going for So-cal Mex, this was a decent value, I’d give it right in the middle of 2.5 smiling monkeys, with no bulging forehead veins on the angerometer. Continue reading ‘Maui Das Y’

Don’t look at me: I didn’t do it! That’s how they spell it at Cooke Street Diner. It’s the regulation rice, hamburger patty, cooked egg and gravy, but you can opt in for brown rice instead of white, and get tossed greens on the side instead of macaroni salad. It’s as healthy as a Loco Moco can possibly be.  The salad greens and dressing were good as usual, and the rice was rice. The hamburger meat was a little on the dry, overcooked side, but was still flavorful. There was a good chunk of mystery gristle or vein that got wedged between two of my teeth that took a while for me to wiggle/scrape/pry out (no floss at work). The egg is cooked how you like it, in my case “over easy”. The egg was nicely cooked – still white on both sides, still runny inside: It was not all brown and crispy/burnt around the edges from being fried in too much oil at too high a temperature (ala Zippy’s). The gravy was familiar from some of their other dishes like the meatloaf. I give it a B- overall. Slightly better ground beef in the hamburger patty and maybe more careful preparation of the patty (not overcooked) would have raised the score, but it was well within spec for the $5.50 USD including tax. Continue reading ‘Loco Moko’

This past Thursday evening dinner choice was Little Village, located on Smith Street, downtown. A mid sized eatery for the area. Chinese food, Fabio was hard pressed to give it a style. When we arrived, it was fairly crowded, a little unexpected as past visits have been pretty quiet. Interior decor is a bit unusual, it seems the thought was to make it feel like you’re eating outside in a “little village”, in the comfort of airconditioning. It does give it a bit of a theme park aura. There’s a little faux oriental style bridge leading to a double door facade seperating the farther dining area. We were half expecting some kung fu fightin to break out and some various martial stunt man to come crashing through the round window.

Anyway, on to the food. As is common for somewhere like this, we  go family style and order Monoglian beef, seafood noodle, and the spicy steamed fish. Dave started of by ordering an iced milk tea. Warning, it seems you’ll be batting 50/50 on this. His first instance, he ordered a milk coffee, and found himself with a milk tea. He enjoyed it so much he orders that exclusively now, but now it seems half the time gets iced coffee, which is what he found himself with this time. The ticket from their computerized POS system even prints it out, go figure.   Continue reading ‘Spontaneous Orgasm’