Honolulu City Bites

Be careful in this garden!

Mini Garden (Beretania St.)-- One evening we went to Mini Garden for dinner. I had enjoyed the food there before and it had been crowded, but this time the place was deserted except for one other family. This was mildly disturbing but we made excuses like "it's the recession," and "yesterday was Thanksgiving, people are eating leftovers at home."

I remembered the other time I ate there and my "ESP" experience, and wondered if anything extraordinary would happen.  The waitress came to take our order and I thought to myself, "Maybe since business is so slow they'll try harder." Well, as they say, "Be careful what you wish for!"

I'm sure most people will agree that generally speaking, waitresses at Chinese restaurants are "all business" rather than friendly and chatty, but our waitress was full of humor,although we couldn't understand everything she said.  For the five of us we ordered five dishes and rice (crispy gau gee, chow fun. walnut shrimp, ginger chicken, and Mongolian beef--yeh unimaginative, I admit).

The first dish she brought us was salt-and-pepper shrimp and when I said this was the wrong shrimp, she said something that we interpreted as "this is extra for Mama" (as she kept addressing my mom throughout our visit ). At the end of the very delicious meal, she brought us bowls of coconut tapioca and I told my family how I had "predicted" this when we first arrived. Yeh right. After we packed up our leftovers, Miss Personality told us we could pay at the register so being the house accountant, I followed her. She told me the bill was $70+ and as she swiped my card I thought $70 seemed high. Because she had been so nice, rather than demand a recount, I told her "You didn't give us the itemized bill." She replied to the effect "ok let me write it out, I'll bring it to you."

I went back to the table where we debated between not leaving her a tip and leaving a good tip. After all, we had no menu to consult on pricing (how much was the rice, we had to ask for tea---do they charge for tea!?)---so we couldn't be 100% sure she added on the dishes we assumed were free, although I was 90% sure.

She didn't bring me the bill and since the food had been so good (msg?) and we're basically a non-confrontational family, we just left as she cheerfully bid us good night. 

Upon leaving, however, it continued to irk me that I had let that pass and intended to at least phone the restaurant later to talk to the owner.  I wondered if the owner would even care and primarily wondered if the owner had an accent like Miss Personality's.  I found a similar complaint online about the same restaurant, although it involved a waiter and a patron who actually had the itemized bill.  I did call the restaurant but the owner wasn't there and the lady who answered sounded like Miss Personality.  She told me to call in the morning, but I haven't yet.

I ordered an Italian omelet...scrumptious!



Cafe Kaila (Market City)-- My high school girlfriends were planning to get together for lunch (see below) and one of them recommended Cafe Kaila at first because she had enjoyed the food.  After reconsidering, they decided on Tsukiji and that was a wise choice only because Cafe Kaila is not recommended for groups of more than four.  It is almost always packed, from what I read online, and sure enough when we went for breakfast at about 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table.  If we had gotten there a few minutes later, we would've had to wait even longer!

Strawberry Belgian Waffle...sans
whipped cream.



The service was good considering that the place was packed--not that it's a big place, though. The food came fairly quickly and the servings were generous.  It's totally understandable why Cafe Kaila is so popular. 





Tsukiji (Ala Moana Center)-- What a perfect place for a get together luncheon! I always enjoy Tsukiji, but be warned that the price went up to about $20 for lunch, probably due to the price of fish. I'm not sure if the price goes down after the holidays.

Seven of the 18 Chantares, Kaimuki High School...
Class of Long Time Ago

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with a few of my fellow Chantares--needless to say it was nonstop talk!



Hasu and "Sushi Tempura"















I love that the desserts are mini-sized!















Yummy!  Shaved Ice with the works!

Desserts are my favorite part of the meal and at Tsukiji, although the cakes were good, my favorite is the shaved ice. You can choose your syrup (the melon is delicious!) and whether or not you want azuki beans and/or condensed milk. Yes, yes, yes!

During our 4-day stay we also ate at Zippy's (Nimitz and King Street) and Kakaako Kitchen--all very good!

I didn't get to have my dim sum at Happy Days this time--next time for sure!

Note: Click on photos for larger versions

A Profitable Black Friday!

As I said previously, our 4 days in Honolulu like "dog years" gave us what seemed like 28 blog-worthy Kauai days.

On Black Friday we went out shopping and returned home to my mom's 5 hours later  Hubby parked the car and asked "Do we have anything in the trunk?"  Mom and I were silent for a second, then we both answered no.  It suddenly dawned on us at the same time, "Hey!  All we bought was Jordan's ball!"  We looked at the fancy rubber ball Jordan held that lights up and sparkles when you bounce it.  We all burst into laughter.  "Wow, this is incredible!  Do you realize we actually went shopping on Black Friday and came home with only a $10 ball?!?!"  What was even more remarkable was that we came home with more money than we left with. 

We really did go shopping:  We went to Sam's Club, Office Depot and Office Max in search of a good deal on a laptop.  We did find one at Office Max, but ended up not buying it after all.  There went almost 3 hours--after all, you can't expect us to just spend 5 minutes at Sam's Club: so many food samples, so little time!

At the risk of sounding like a paid advertisement, the next hour was the key to the "came home with more money than we left with".  We went to visit the Gold Guys at Ward Center,* armed with their full page ad.  We actually went first to the Wedding Ring Shoppe, but left because there was too long a wait and the atmosphere made us feel like we might end up spending instead of making money.  At the Gold Guys, however, there were several tables of appraisers with customers and hey, we were offered cookies while we waited.  "I'm home!"

We were finally called to a table and my mom promptly asked our appraiser if he was one of the Gold Guys (eye-rolling on my part since he looked nothing like those guys).  Turns out the Gold Guys don't even live in Hawaii.   Never mind, just so their money is here! 

The appraisal process is very drawn out, especially since there were two of us--my mom and I--each with our own jewelry junk pile:

1) The appraiser first goes through the pieces with a magnet and rejects anything that the magnet sticks to. 

2) Next he used a jeweler's loupe to check for markings such as "925" for silver, or "14kt", etc., segregating the jewelry into little piles.  This step took very long for some reason--I think he checked and rechecked every piece! 

Chemically testing for gold content

3) THEN he did the chemical test, at which point I asked why he couldn't have jumped to that step from the beginning if it was so definitive?  I suspect it was to build suspense, but he just said it was the procedure they followed for assurance, or something to that effect.  The chemical testing involved rubbing the jewelry across a small rectangular piece of what looked like black rubber.  He'd do 3 pieces of jewelry at a time, making 3 separate scratch lines on the black rubber, then added a liquid chemical to the scratches.  If they turned black, then it was not what he was testing for (i.e. there was a different solution for each karat type).  If a sample turned black, he'd test it for a lesser karat. 

I was offered $39 for a 1 gram ingot and
I later learned they go for about $60
 on eBay.

It seemed to take so long that I was beginning to feel foolish, wondering if the time and effort would be worth it.  It didn't help when after taking apart a Croton watch I had, he weighed the 24kt gold ingot that adorned the flip-up watch cover and figured that it was worth $39.  Hmmm, admittedly it was thinner than I expected, but only $39 for what I thought was the best piece of my little pile??  Uh oh! [I decided to keep my Croton watch intact and get it fixed, so "No deal!"]



The gold I sold was a much smaller
amount than this.

 When he finally got everything tested and segregated, he weighed each group and came up with my total of almost $400.  I was very pleasantly surprised, considering I didn't consider any of that jewelry useable: an old S-chain that was kinked, a plain gold chain bracelet that was too big for me, a broken anklet that was so thin it'd break again if I had it repaired, a tiny charm that I never used (seriously...a deer?!), a pendant I never used ("from an old boyfriend", just like the commercial says!), plus 3 old chains (not heavy!) that were either broken or too short for my tastes.  What was even more amazing was that he weighed it with stones and all and then offered the stones back to me (a small jade, small gold coral, etc.), although I didn't take them.  We had brought in a coupon from their ad which added another 15% which put the total at over $400.

My mother was pleased to get about $150 for some old silver earrings and two class rings (again, weighed with stones).  At one point, as the appraiser scrutinized her old pearl ring and a pair of silver anthurium earrings stamped "Ming's", I told her she should keep them.  She said "Nah, why?  I have no use for them."  He weighed them and said he'd give her $7 for the two.  "What!?  No way,  I'LL give her $7!"  and woohoo, I scored the two "antiques" for $7! 

And so we left the store after about an hour and a half, turned right into the Brookstone Store and bought Jordan her beautiful $10 light ball.   For us, it really was a "black"--rather than "red"--Friday...and I didn't have to sell a single appliqued tshirt!!

*[UPDATE:  One of my friends called me today to tell me that after hearing my story, her daughter took their jewelry to The Gold Guys in Ward Center and got over $500.  The buyer asked who referred her and she gave my name. I didn't realize they have a referral program!  So please give my name (Colleen M. Toyama, in case you didn't know) if you sell your gold there also (first visit only).  Thanks!]