Hawaii

My college friend Chris is getting married later this year, and he just moved out to Hawaii, so a bunch of us flew out there for a little bachelor party.

The first night, we went to a luau.

Me with my mai tai and my Hawaiian shirt.

Luau dinner: kahlua pork, some form of fried chicken with a creamy macadamia sauce, pineapple, and poi.

The next morning, we went to a Japanese buffet, which was probably one of the best buffets I've ever been to.

The sushi select was good. They were not doing the standard cheap-ass buffet tricks of using small/thin pieces of fish on overly large bricks of rice.

The rolls were also very good. They even offer "fancy" rolls like Spider rolls (fried soft-shell crab) which are normally fairly expensive in normal sushi restaurants, so it was impressive to have them provide it on an all-you-can-eat basis.

Uni! (Sea urchin roe!) This is another expensive item (often $6-$8 for two pieces of uni gunkan zushi in restaurants) that I was impressed to see offered. I probably ate my buffet price in uni alone (I forget, it was probably six or seven dishes of it).

A close up of one of my uni runs. It was also served with a piece of octopus.

That evening, we drove up to the northeast side of the island to go ATV riding. After that, we spotted a road side stand where we got some sort of pork. It was a smoked or salted pork wrapped in taro leaves, served with a side of poke (a kind of Hawaiian sashimi).

Very, very yummy.

The actual stand/truck.

The next day, we ended up at the Honolulu swap meet somehow.

Sweet smells of something fried...

It's sort of like a donut, but not filled with anything.

We made another sushi run before I headed to the airport.

Mmmm... Natto! This natto was probably the most similar to the natto that I had in Japan in 2002. Most of the natto that I've had in the states up to this point did not really have that full "mucousy" effect that I guess fresh natto is supposed to have.

Soft-shell crab hand roll.

Dole freeze (frozen pineapple ice-cream-like product). Ever since I had this stuff as a kid in DisneyWorld way back when, I've always liked Dole Freeze and get it whenever I can (which is not very often).

I want some baby-back, baby-back, baby-back...

Decided to smoke some ribs!

Ribs and chicken in the BBQ. I used mesquite to smoke the meat for about 4-5 hours. That was too long for the chicken (not surprising), but the ribs came out fine.

Close up of the ribs. I used a rub made with brown sugar, cumin, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, and I think that was it. The brown sugar made the ribs a bit sweeter, but it also ended up making the rub a bit thicker which I thick prevented deeper smoke penetration. I'll probably use a drier rub next time.

Sue did the sides duty. Collard greens and some of the cheesiest mac and cheese ever.

Hockey Tailgating

My ice hockey team has some great cookouts. It's not unusual for us to have double grills going at once.

Pasi on grill number one with plenty of makara. He's even got a pan to fry up some peppers and onions for the sausages.

Wally on grill number two. The rig is a little funny because the pop-up stand on the grill broke, so it now sits on a portable work bench.

Austin

Went down to Austin to Visit IBM/ARL.

I got to grab some Amy's Mexican Vanilla ice cream which is absoluately fantastic. I also picked up some SaltLick BBQ for Sue, but then I sadly left it on the plane when I arrived in Atlanta. To quote Bryan: "Dude that is a flogging offense. You are shame." Indeed, I am shame.

Michigan

We went to Michigan over the 4th of July weekend to visit family from Sue's mom's side of the family. One of Sue's cousins owns a small bit of farm which we got to visit. (Why are the next two pictures on the food blog? Because chickens and cows are food, of course!)

Chickens.

Sue and her brother Mike feeding some veal, um, I mean calves.

We also took a drive over into Ohio and I ended up getting what might be the largest ice cream cone I've ever had. You had to eat quickly, too, otherwise it would melt and run down your arm.