A Week--I Mean a Day--in Honolulu

You've heard of "dog years", but have you heard of "Honolulu days"?  We got seven times more action/excitement/crap/fun/stress in our four days in Honolulu than our usual four days on Kauai (except maybe during a hurricane).  If you're one of those who consider Kauai "anti-aging," then Honolulu must be "pro-aging"!

First 24 hours:

Our stress began on Kauai because for the first time in over 30 years of traveling, we almost missed our plane.  Just wanted to inform my five readers (yes, I believe I have five now!) that if you're not at the airport within 30 minutes of your flight, they will not check you in.  Do you remember the good old days when 30 minutes was the usual for a lot of people?   Leonard had to work late so I thought I could check in online, but later found that web check-ins are only allowed up to 2 hours before flight time.  When we got to the airport 25 minutes before flight time, I expected to check in at the counter, but was told we were too late and would have to stand-by for our flight or go on the next flight. Thankfully the security  wasn't crowded. [It's a good thing we were rushing, I didn't have time to feel resentfully embarrassed about the BODY SCAN I went through! My attitude was more like "Quick, here's my body, get it over with!"]  We got to the gate as they were boarding and the agent at the desk fixed our ticket so we could get on board ok.  Big whew!!

The flight actually left three minutes early and we got there promptly, but Dollar Rent-a-Car threw us the next stress.  There were two agents helping two customers and yet it took us almost a half hour to get our car.  We've been renting cars from Budget, Alamo, and Avis for years through third parties online and this was the first time we chose Dollar.  Is it just a coincidence that this was also the first time the online quote did not match the price Dollar actually charged us?  I recall renting from Dollar once about 15-20 years ago and we weren't very happy with them.  Well at least they're consistent! 

We automatically stopped at our favorite coffeeshop, Eagle Cafe on Nimitz Hwy. and they had just closed!  Are you beginning to sense a pattern here?  We ended up at Zippy's King Street, but the restaurant had a long waiting line so we had to go to the take out side (which also took very long).  It astounded us that even after 9 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving, Honolulu people were flocking to Zippy's. 

Line in front of Lee's Bakery

My mother had asked us to go to Lee's Bakery to pick up a custard and peach/pear pie.  She had read an article that said Lee's was opening all night to avoid the long lines on Thanksgiving Day.  Well ha ha... there was a long line just after 9 p.m. with some people sitting on chairs they had brought.  Seriously,  I've tasted their pies and they're good, but not so good that I would wait in a line for them where you need a chair.  So we just kept driving.  (Next morning we went to Dee Lite Bakery--a bit more expensive, just as delicious, and no need to bring a chair).

As it turns out, the Dee Lite pies were the best part of our Thanksgiving "lupper"  (late lunch, early supper).  For the past five years my mom has been on a quest to find a good ready-made Thanksgiving dinner and we have yet to find it.  This year she chose the Hyatt Regency's "Turkey Dinner to Go" and everything in the very nice box was chilled and had to be heated up.  This involved a lot of transferring to pots/bowls which was more work than we cared to do (they should've packed the food in foil containers).  We followed the instructions for heating the turkey and although the skin was dangerously close to black,  parts of the turkey were still cold and disturbingly pink.    The cranberry sauce was tasty, the stuffing wasn't bad, but the mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, and pumpkin pie were unremarkable. The corn chowder was as thick as mashed potatoes.  I wondered if this meal was actually made by the Hyatt or just processed food they ordered frozen?

Rapunzel's pet chameleon Pascual was just one of the
funny delights in the movie "Tangled".

Happily our first day in Honolulu ended well at Ward Cinema where we went to see "Tangled".  I loved this movie!  And the popcorn was almost as good as Kukui Grove's! 

Note:  When I started typing this I intended to write about our four days in one posting.  I forgot my own premise that one Honolulu day = 7 Kauai days, and after writing about the first day I realized 4 days would practically constitute a book!  So please come back to read the next installment(s) which will include our interesting Black Friday, the strange Chinese restaurant incident, and the Russell Peters concert! AND of course my Honolulu restaurantlogue.



Bring Your Dollar(s) to the Craft Fair!



Mary Ching's Lauhala Hat Kitchen Towels are 3-D!

It's not a good thing when a craft fair is only four hours long and yet I have time to make a few bracelets plus take a tour of the fair photographing crafts.  Yes, it was a somewhat slow morning for me at the King Kaumualii  craft fair last Saturday, but as we vendors often say, "Better than staying at home!" (As long as, of course, you make enough to cover your table fee and the materials you used.)  Of course I actually love staying home playing Bejeweled or watching YouTube, but yeh, can't make money doing that.

Carolyn Ogata's Cupcake Potholders

The Ogatas' Geta Table Accessories

Despite selling my handcrafted clothing for almost 20 years, I often come across people on Kauai who have never seen my work. Craft fairs have been popular for even longer than my 19 years in the business, but obviously not everyone attends craft fairs. We should be urging attendance not just to "keep it local," but because there are many creative and quality products being produced in a diningroom or spare room near you! There are hundreds of other very unique products, but pictured here are just a few.

If you haven't been to a craft fair in recent years, try attending one again.  They're not as crowded as they used to be--which is sad for us crafters, but good news for you shoppers!  At Hawaii craft fairs--and I'm sure the same can be said for craft fairs throughout the U.S.--you are purchasing quality products that are made by your neighbors rather than supporting foreign products, often of lesser quality.  Ask for a business card or receipt so if in case of a problem you can contact the crafter.  Return/exchange policies differ with each vendor, but many are very accommodating. 

Crocheted Potholder Gift Pack



Charlene Adric's Platter Gift Pack

Many vendors make gift-giving a cinch by preparing gift packs for you.  I loved Charlene Adric's very creative idea of writing, printing, and assembling her own mini-cookbooks and including one in each of her colorful and attractive kitchen gift sets.   (Reminder:  Click on any image to see a larger version.)



Pam Coyamin's Potluck Must-Have's

 A couple of my favorite items were what I call "potluck must-haves" made by Pam Coyamin.   The first is a 9 x 13 pan cover.  No more messing with foil that won't stay on, no more having a lift up the cover to peek at the contents, and no more condensation problems.  I can't wait to use mine!  Next to it on the table were soda box covers.  OMG!!  The aluminum foil business is in serious trouble here!!  You will be the hit of the potluck with these items no matter how bad a cook you are! *LOL*

Miss Hillary Handbags is much more than handcrafted bags!

 If there was an Eye Candy award for this fair,  I would give it to Hillary Akau. She has a very eye-catching "boutique" of a table that would catch any girly girl's fancy.  You want to just eat her creations, but you have to wear them instead.  Visit her Etsy store at http://www.misshillary.etsy.com/ . 



Pink and green is a combination I find irresistible!



One Size black iris dress

 As I'm writing this I'm wondering why I'm showing you everyone else's craftwork and not my own? Am I beyond shameless self-promotion? Heck no! At the fair while I was selflessly photographing the other crafters' creations to feature here, it never occurred to me to photograph my own....so I ran just now to take some photos (notice the closet door backdrop)! [Again, click on any photo for a larger version.]

Black tank "3 Cards" design

Men's Texas Orange Palm Pocket

If you've been following the local news, we micro business people--much smaller than small business--are now under scrutiny because apparently the State suspects we're making billions in cash that we're not reporting.  That's pretty sad, but understandable giving the shortfall of funds that the government is experiencing.  Craft vendors have been doing less and less business each year from what I hear from my "co-workers" and in my own experience.  I've had my GET license for the 19 years I've been in business so it doesn't affect me much, but it's a tad annoying that Walmart can make billions using cheap Chinese labor and those of us here at home trying to compete with that are being "nickeled and dimed." 

So take your dollah to a craft fair please! Speaking of which, Russell Peters will be at the Blaisdell this Saturday! Check him out here: my "You Save Fifty Cents Here" blogpost.

Okay Diner Now Okay Plus

I love restaurants.  I don't enjoy cooking so I'm not very critical when I eat out, unless of course the food or service is extraordinarily bad--which it usually isn't.  It's especially fun to go to a new restaurant, though, because somehow a new restaurant seems to invite extreme criticism!  We start channeling Gordon Ramsey for some odd reason.

So the other night we happened to check out Kauai's newest restaurant, Tiano's--formerly Oki Diner--on their opening night.  We had no idea it was their first night.  Frankly I wouldn't have chosen to try them on their first night because heck, I've watched enough Kitchen Nightmares where the "made over" restaurants are given brand new menus and expected to perform to a full house that same night to Chef Ramsey's expletives-deleted accompaniment.  I figured they do that just for the TV drama because the producers hope for chaos to make "good TV."   Well they probably could've brought their cameras over to Tiano's because there seemed to be almost as much opening stress that night.

Delicious rolls were freshly baked!

Tiano's has an open kitchen, meaning it can be seen by diners,  In fact, as we waited to be seated, we could observe the directing of the food servers with a certain amount of stress evident.  I'll bet if they were behind a wall, there'd be some outright yelling going on!  I overheard one server asking, "Which table is table 2?"  I mean DUH!??!  Surely they were briefed before opening?  I could understand forgetting which was table 14, but 2??  Table 2, it turns out, was just ten feet away...the second table from the serving area.  Then I heard the manager saying "she's going to the wrong table!"  Fun stuff like that.

Chef's Chopped Salad...yummy!

When we got our table, I was relieved to see it was a good distance away from the serving area.  Our waitress came quite promptly to take our order, but way too soon.  We asked for "a couple of minutes" and ten minutes later she wasn't back.  It's not like she was that busy either.  We observed her wandering--not rushing--back and forth not even glancing in our direction.  When we finally caught her attention, it was obvious she had totally forgotten about us--no, we weren't in the back corner.  She also got Jordan's order wrong.  She's lucky she's cute and she did apologize nicely.



The meatloaf looked good.....

 Dinner took a loooong time to arrive despite the fact that we'd arrived relatively late and most tables already had their food.  Of course being the first night, I have to make allowances.  Another complaint I have is one that I always have:  Why do restaurants give us just one napkin and if we use it, our utensils have to sit on their bare table that's probably germ-ridden, judging from the fact they use cloth towels to wipe them?  No one else has a problem with that?  Only me and Howie Mandel?  It seems like 99% of the restaurants we've been to do this. 

The steak was done perfectly,
but Blazing Steaks is better.

So now the food.  We loved the freshly baked rolls we were served early, they were slightly sweet--like sweetbread--crusty and perfectly warm, served with butter.  The chopped salad was very good and we were able to share the small ($4.99).  It had romaine lettuce, provolone cheese, salami, and garbanzo beans with the right amount of dressing.  Good start!

This doesn't usually happen, but we all ordered beef that night:  meatloaf, hamburger steak, and steak.  Leonard absolutely hated the meatloaf and I didn't disagree with him because I tried it. School lunch meatloaf is better, IMHO!  He was especially annoyed because it was labeled "Mama's"  or something like that and he said you'd expect it to be good if it has someone's identity associated with it.  Maybe their Mama is a lousy cook, who knows really?   It seemed to be pure meat, but low quality gristle-y meat. The only positive was the generous serving.

Third beef plate: hamburger steak.
Yes, they all look alike.

The hamburger steak was slightly better, and the steak was ok (it was done perfectly and fairly tender, though a bit thin), but Blazing Steaks' $6.00 plate is way better.  All three beef dishes seemed to have the same gravy--very dark brown.  I didn't think it was bad, but Leonard said it tasted like powdered.  The garlic mashed potatoes were disappointingly un-garlicky and had a slight tang rather than buttery. 

I think Tiano's problem is that they're attempting the heroic:  low-priced gourmet. The food looked good, served on heavy plates, so you--perhaps unreasonably--expect gourmet.  For instance, perhaps they want to offer a gourmet meatloaf that has a lot of beef, but to keep the price down, they're using lower quality beef.  I say go ahead and use bread like the rest of us!  I could be wrong, but personally I like meatloaf that almost falls apart from the bread.  Same for hamburger patties.  I know for a fact that those "old-fashioned" hamburger patties that we love have a lot of bread in them.  (My grandma had a soda fountain in Palama and made very delicious hamburger patties.)  I do appreciate their attempt at trying to give us upscale for moderate pricing (the three beef dishes were around $11.99-$12.99), but they may be aiming too high. 

When the waitress brought the check, she neglected to tell us that the "cash only" message on the receipt was incorrect. After I had triumphantly, yet begrudgingly, scrounged $44.76 in exact change (including 11 pennies) I asked if this "cash only" policy is temporary and she said they do take credit cards. Since we were one of the late diners, I wondered how many times she'd had to repeat the "Oh no, we take credit cards..." to people. Wouldn't you think she'd learn to give the diners their check and say "Ignore the old Oki Diner message on the receipt, we do accept credit cards" by then? Maybe by next week she'll learn.
 
Overall I'd give the restaurant 3 out of 5 stars based on what we ordered and the service we received.  Oh wait, I just remembered that Oki Diner has an average of 3 stars on Yelp.com, so I have to revise this to a 3.5 stars.  Oki was notorious for it's filthiness and they're the ones responsible for the tacky "cash only, ATM machine located in restaurant" on the receipt (how can a restaurant with more than 10 tables expect to survive this way?).  One of the more generous reviewers in Yelp dubbed them "Okay Diner".  Tiano's has done a complete--and attractive--makeover and hopefully will keep it well-maintained.  Possibly next time we visit and order different items, I can give them even more stars.  For now, they're "okay plus". We are certainly happy to have a clean restaurant with the American/local "diner" menu that they have instead of yet another Asian/local "barbeque". 

To anyone about to open a new restaurant, I would recommend:

1) 2 napkins under the silverware unless you have disposable placemats.
2) Fresh flowers rather than plastic for the first few nights at least.  I sometimes wonder if NO flowers is better than fake?  How about dried instead? How about taking an idea from party centerpieces--there are a lot of nice ones that don't require any upkeep once you make them, except maybe dusting.
3) Give bigger portions for the first month or two because you're building a reputation and giving a little more is totally worth the good word-of-mouth recommendations you'll get, especially if you're not high end. 
4) Hold a class for your employees to teach them the table numbers--at the very least Table #1--and teach them how to look around at their tables as they pass by rather than zombie walking to get the water pitcher, zombie walking to get the check, etc. 
5) Pretend Howie Mandel is a regular customer because as Oki Diner probably discovered, a reputation of uncleaniless is very difficult to overcome.
6) If you inherit the previous owner's cash register, learn how to re-program it to remove tacky messages such as "cash only...ATM next to the karaoke machine."

If anyone wants to add to this list, feel free to comment and maybe I'll post the revised list later.  You never know who may be reading them!  Hi Chef Ramsey!

Nightmare on Lanakila Road

Thanks for not giving up on me! I haven't been writing regularly because it's craft fair season and I have fairs every weekend until mid-December PLUS as the story of my life goes, after months of very little work, I'm now getting more work assignments for my internet job. "When it rains it pours," "Feast or famine," etc. etc. 

I'm writing this in the parking lot behind the Hanamaulu gas station while waiting as Jordan exercises at Curves. I know I should be exercising too, but I'd much rather sit in the car and read, or in today's case, write my blog on my laptop.

Orange Grove Frozen Yogurt

This Halloween since Jordan's too old to go trick-or-treating, we let her dress up in her modest "Lady Gaghoul" get-up--she's just happy wearing a wig so I admit I spent minimum effort on this--and went to the Kukui Grove Halloween event to look at the kids dressed up, then our usual Costco shopping, then back to Kukui Grove for dinner. For the first time we tried Orange Grove's frozen yogurt shop: a bit expensive (over $12 for three smallish servings). What I liked was that it was fun to serve yourself and the delicious variety of flavors and toppings. Perfect for someone like me who hates trying to decide between flavors. I tried lychee, pineapple, coconut, chocolate, and mint..all in one bowl.  I would definitely go back!

After dinner we drove from Lihue to Wailua Houselots to see what Jordan calls the Boo House (aka Haunted Yard). The yard is haunted by the likes of Edward Scissorhands, Michael Jackson, and Gene Simmons, as well as pirates, headless creatures, zombies, and people you THINK are mannequins, but suddenly come to life.  I would love to give kudos to the family that shares their yard and creativity, but I admit that after visiting the "Boo House" three or four years so far, I don't know their name!  Shame on me.  Each year it gets better and more crowded as the word spreads. 

While at the Boo House, we ran into cousins Wes and Trinette who told us to be sure to stop at the haunted house on their lane, which is just down the road from our house. Earlier at Kukui Grove, Jordan had been disappointed to find that their haunted house had closed just minutes before we arrived, so it was perfect to find this "substitute" right in our own neighborhood! Again, I wish I had asked this family's name also because they did a fantastic job.  [Well hey, it's not like I'm a news reporter.  I don't go about my day thinking I'm going to need names to write in my blog  *LOL*] Anyway, they did a terrific job just using their garage and a lot of tarp and plastic sheeting to section it off into small spooky rooms and hallways. They even handed out 3D glasses for viewing very cool 3D displays along the route. Very very impressive!

Health tip for the week..somewhat related to the Halloween theme since it's about....err...nighttime:

Check out this article about the importance of sleep and how to optimize your sleep time:  Leonard recently had a change in work scheduling and has to wake up at 4 a.m. He and I are both nightowls--after all, I suspect we're together for 35 years because we both love staying up late. At our age, however, we have to acknowledge that perhaps getting to bed earlier is to our advantage--we need all the help we can get! From what I've heard from various sources (Dr. Oz, Dr. Mercola, our Ayurvedic Dr. Suhas, etc.), getting 6 hours from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. is much healthier than sleeping 6 hours from 12 midnight to 6 a.m. Read this excellent article to see why and for valuable tips on how to get the best sleep.

Speaking of which, I should be sleeping right now!