IHOP (Maui)
Again, there's no real need to review IHOP, except to say that it felt like the right place to go after a hellish (but ultimately not very bad, if somewhat expensive) airport-to-hospital-to-cheap-hotel experience. And it was pretty good.
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Again, there's no real need to review IHOP, except to say that it felt like the right place to go after a hellish (but ultimately not very bad, if somewhat expensive) airport-to-hospital-to-cheap-hotel experience. And it was pretty good.
We were hoping to find a nice little local hole-in-the-wall in Ashley's Cafe (it seems to alternately go by the blue moon cafe, ashley's south shore cafe, or whatever). It was even recommended by Greg 'n' Jeff, owners of the condo where we stayed. It wasn't particularly memorable except they make their own potato chips, and they're pretty good.
Seawatch is another of Maui's highly-reviewed restaurants. Nice spot. Pleasant patio. It was basically well-done (and pricey) hotel food. So, yeah. Also, would have been nice if they'd told us the place was mostly taken over by a wedding.
The town of Paia is supposed to be charming and interesting, and Milagros is supposed to be the best burger on the island, or something. Paia seemed mostly like the rest of the places for tourists to buy stuff, though maybe a big more hippie. Milagros was pretty run-of-the-mill. Though I admit we didn't have the burgers. My fish tacos were okay, but kind of a waste of decent ahi, if you ask me. E's fish burger was fine but forgettable. On the up side, Ono Gelato is across the street.
You may remember when I tried lots and lots of pho places in seattle. A few were very good, most were fine, and a couple were distinctly not very good. Well Vietnamese Cuisine in Kihei was definitely the worst pho I've ever had. You know pho is not very good when I don't even finish it. The broth was incredibly bland, with a slight plasticky edge to it that made me wonder if it was really hand-made. Even with some chili sauce and a lot more hoisin than I usually use in it, it was still tasteless and unappealing. And the other ingredients provided no rescue -- they all seemed remarkably unfresh. The basil was sort of stiff, the noodles not quite right, and the beef flat and flavorless. Compared to Than Brothers, my previous worst pho ever, the broth was less in-your-face bad, but far more bland, and Than Brothers at least had fresh ingredients.
E had the lemongrass chicken vermicelli bowl, which was pretty good. The chicken was very flavorful and tender. My only slight complaint about that dish was that it seemed a little heavier and saucier than you usually expect from a vermicelli bowl. One nice touch was a complimentary tapioca pudding dessert. It was a nice light taste to end the meal (though probably not as good as the Than Brothers cream puff).
I don't think I really need to review Baskin-Robbins. I just wanted to say that we stopped in here a couple times as part of our standard "ice cream every day" approach to vacation, and I don't think I've ever been happier to see peppermint ice cream. See, I have a weakness for the old-school B-R style insanely pink fakey peppermint ice cream, and I have been craving it for months. For some reason, it is not being offered in a pint or anything at any of our local Seattle supermarkets (waiting for xmas?), and so this craving had festered and festered, until finally B-R was able to satisfy it. Oh artificial pink peppermint ice cream, I love you so.
We stopped at Ono Gelato twice during our time in Maui and tried the: seamist (tea and lime with a little mint and lemongrass), lilikoi (aka passionfruit), lemon, sour cream, and ferrero rocher. The lilikoi was amazing; E loved it, and she's a huge passionfruit fan. I thought it was delicious, even better than the actual fruit (I don't like the fruit as much as E, who ate it at every possible opportunity when we were in Vietnam). The seamist was very good. My first bite had a definite tea flavor, but as I ate it, the strong lime edged out all the other flavors. I love lime, but it was almost too bold and strong -- it'd be good paired with a quieter flavor, or they might even try dialing it back and giving the tea, mint, and lemongrass a little more room. The lemon was very good. The sour cream was.. interesting. It didn't taste like sour cream as such, but was interestingly creamy. The fererro rocher was very good too. All in all, worth multiple visits, and pretty much the only thing we could find worthwhile in Paia.
Sansei Seafood and Sushi is another of Maui's very well reviewed restaurants, but for once the hype is worth it. Everything we had was good, but the special deluxe poke was really really good. Also we chatted with these two teenage girls at the sushi bar who gave us some good ideas for names for Betty. So that was nice.
We also had negihama maki (tasty), pickled gobo maki (unusual, and good), kappa maki (fine), miso-yaki chicken (good), teriyaki beef (totally sweet), and sweet potato tempura (not as awesome as we were hoping). The poke was really good (rule of thumb on Maui: eat raw ahi whenever you can; but cooking it is kind of a waste).
If you drive south through Kihei (strip malls, public beaches) and then continue on and through Wailea (fancy resorts, sweet but still public beaches) and keep going you reach Makena, which just seems kind of wild and untouched, except for the occasional super-nice and very expensive house, and lava rock beaches and nice scenery. Among all these very very nice and expensive houses.. is a little crazy cart with a grill and a crotchety but basically nice woman named Marissa making soft tacos and grilled corn. It's called the Makena Grill, it's really very good, and my recommendation to you is that you be polite. Also, try the corn.
About the first thing we did in Lahaina was head for Real Fruit Ice Cream, a heavy blog recommendation (it has a good yelp review too). Daily ice cream is pretty much a traveling rule for us, so this took precedence over other possible meals or plans. As advertised, it's fresh fruit blended with ice cream. You pick out your fruits, and then it's blended into the ice cream with this awesome giant screw-looking thing that produces a sort of fruity soft-serve. Yum.
Mala is the restaurant at the Marriott in Wailea, which should tell you a lot. Wailea is where some of the nicest, priciest resorts are. The whole area is almost nothing but resorts, golf courses, a few high-end shops, and some very nice houses and condos. The beaches there (public, which is nice) are lovely. As the restaurant at the Marriott, Mala has a very nice deck overlooking the Marriott's lovely pool area and ocean view. The prices are high and the service is good. Fortunately, the food is actually good too.
E had one of their daily specials, a blackened and baked kampachi with sweet potatoes (and some other stuff) that was delicious. The fish was perfectly done and everything was good. But I'd have to say my dish was one of the best fish preparations I've had in a long long time: the avalon seared sashimi with shiitake ginger sauce. Sashimi, in this context, apparently always means ahi (the waiter was confused for a second when I asked what kind of sashimi). The ahi was seared, with the center still raw, sliced, and fanned across the plate on a bed of shiitake-ginger sauce. This sauce was a very flavorful mushroomy thing with big chunks of shiitake and a strong ginger flavor -- i.e. it was intensely, thoroughly and very satisfyingly as described. I tend to like saucy flavor-heavy things and so really enjoyed it. It went perfectly with the ahi. The dish also came with mashed potatoes (fine, nothing special) and was topped with white and black sesame seeds and an artful pile of pickled ginger, both nice touches. Seriously, one of my favorite fish experiences in a long time.
Our first day on Maui, we decided to go for a drive and, essentially, ended up in Lahaina. We walked around a bit, sought out some reputed ice cream and examined a couple of recommended restaurants. But when we stumbled across Saigon Seafood, we figured it was fate. First, we love Vietnamese food. Second, we love anything that reminds us of our trip to Vietnam. And third, Vietnamese is great on a hot day.
Even better, it turned out the place makes really good food. E's banh xeo (the fried pancake thing with bean sprouts) with shrimp was very good. It's one of her favorite dishes, but often screwed up by even pretty good restaurants. The fried spring rolls were very tasty. And my vermicelli bowl with grilled beef and pork and bits of pork skin (??) was very good. But the home run was really the fried rice. E has been on a "fried rice for breakfast" kick lately, so we got some of their pork fried rice to take home and ate it the next couple of days. This is a really really great dish of fried rice. We're not sure what, but something about it tastes more Vietnamese than your typical fried rice, and it's just really flavorful. The (Vietnameseish) pork is especially tasty. The one wrinkle for me was that the nuoc cham seemed a lot milder than we're used to (this was true at the other vietnamese place we tried on maui too).
Also, the waiter was great. He and his wife are expecting a child about the same time as we are, so we had a nice chat about babies and Vietnam and our visit there and how much grandparents love babies. Good times. If we're over that way again, I bet we'll stop by. And if we lived here we'd be regulars.
We'd read good reviews of Da Kitchen and stumbled across it our first morning on Maui. We were still adjusting to the time change, and though it was about 9:30 we felt kind of like lunch. E got the "Da Kitchen Omelet" ("Portuguese sausage, green onions, mushrooms, onions, tomato & cheese"), which was really good. Like many things in Hawaii, it was served on a big pile of rice. With a bit of soy sauce, it made for an excellent breakfast. I had the Kalua pork sandwich ("Slow cooked pork shredded from da bone"). It was piled absurdly high with pork. It was really more salty than interestingly flavorful though, and I thought it was just okay. The macaroni salad (a Hawaii staple) was surprisingly good though -- I'm not really a fan of macaroni salad but I ate that one.
I more or less followed this recipe, except with sweet potatoes, and not all the different spices. They came out pretty good, though not quite crispy. Maybe they needed to stay in longer (I didn't cut them too thick, and gave them about 25 minutes).
Ingredients
1 large sweet potato, cut into long strips
2 egg whites
smoked paprika, oregano, ground black pepper
Directions
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the egg white until very light and foamy. Mix in the spices. Add the sweet potatoes and toss until coated. Lay them on silpat on a baking sheet. Bake at 425 for about 25 minutes, flipping about halfway through.
Chili has long been a staple, especially for the winter, when I'll occasionally make a big pot and have leftovers for a week. But my chili recipe was pretty embarassing: basically some meat, some canned tomatoes, and a packet labeled "chili". I've been experimenting a bit with non-packet-based chili (both to seem cooler and to reduce unwanted things like sodium). This recipe also marks the return of beans to my chili after a 25+ year absence, after my father and I politely petitioned my mother to leave them out of her chili.
Ingredients
1 lb beef sirloin, cut into 1" cubes
14 oz can diced tomatoes
14 oz can mixed pinto, kidney, and black beans, drained
1 whole onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp chipotle chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin seed
2 tsp ground coriander seed
2 tsp oregano
1 ear corn, removed from the cob
olive oil, butter
Directions
Place the meat cubes on a baking pan so they don't touch, and freeze for about 30 minutes. Pulse them in about three batches in a good processor. Spread the ground beef out and remove any large chunks of meat or gristle. Add a small amount of oil to a frying pan over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add the diced onion and spread out. Don't stir; let the onions begin to char, a few minutes. Stir and let sit for a couple more minutes. Add the garlic and a pat of butter and stir. Turn heat down to medium and keep stirring occasionally for a few more minutes. Reduce to low and let saute for a while.
Meanwhile, heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add a small amount of oil. When hot, add the meat and brown. When the meat is browned, remove with a slotted spoon, drain the skillet, and wipe it out with a paper towel.
Put the skillet back on medium-high heat and add back the meat. Add in the onion and garlic mixture and stir. While stirring, add the tomatoes, beans, and corn. Fill the tomato can with water and add about half of it. Stir in the chili powders, oregano, cumin, and coriander to taste. Let it begin to bubble then turn down to medium-low and simmer with the top off for at least 20 minutes (the longer the better). You can add more of the water and then let it cook down again; cook it down until you like the thickness and take it off the stove. Serve with grated cheese and fresh chopped scallions.
Verdict
Pretty good. The texture is good, and the flavor is pretty good. It has a bit too much of an afterburn, but at the same time is missing a little depth of flavor. A little less of the chipotle powder and, I'm thinking, something with a little smokiness in it might be good. Smoked pepper? Bacon? I tried a little smoked paprike sprinkled on toward the end, but that didn't seem to make much difference. I also didn't freeze the meat quite long enough (I did 25 min) and it ended up pretty mushed together, like store ground beef. I was going for a looser effect, though this was fine. I'll try that too, though obviously this recipe would be fine with ground beef from the store (or, say, ground ostrich which is healthy and wouldn't require that you drain the grease but would still be beefier than ground chicken or turkey).
This is a recipe from Cook's Illustrated (July, 2008) for "the perfect drive-in burger". It's a great burger, very different from your typical grilled burger (which can also be great, of course). The only drawback is what a makes of the frying pan, spattering grease everywhere -- next time, we'll see if it cooks up as well in a nonstick pan as it does in a heavier pan. Anyway, I'm putting here because I'm reusing some of the techniques. For example, I'm reusing their ground beef idea (they freeze cubes of sirloin and boneless short ribs, pulse them in a food processor, then handle them very lightly to get the perfect flavor and texture) for chili (successful recipe to follow, I hope).
Ingredients
10 oz sirloin steak tips, cut into 1-inch chunks
6 oz boneless beef short ribs, cut into 1-inch chunks
kosher salt
ground black pepper
4 soft hamburger buns
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vegetable oil
4 slices american cheese
thinly-sliced onion
Directions
Place beef chunks on a baking sheet, leaving space around each chunk. Freeze 15-25 minutes until starting to harden but still pliable. Place half of meat in food processor and pulse until coarsely ground, 10-15 1-second pulses, stopping and redistributing meat around bowl as necessary to ensure even ground. Transfer meat to baking sheet, overturning bowl and without directly touching meat. Repeat with remaining meat. Spread meat over sheet and inspect, discarding any long strands of gristle or large chunks of meat or fat.
Gently separate into 4 equal mounds. Without picking meat up, shape each mound into a loose patty 1/2" thick and 4" in diameter, leaving edges and surface ragged. Season top of each patty with salt and pepper. Using spatula, flip patties and season other side. Refrigerate while toasting buns.
Melt 1/2 tsp butter in heavy-bottomed 12" skillet over medium heat until foaming. Add bun tops, cut side down, and toast until light golden brown, about 2 minutes. Repeat with more butter and bun bottoms. Set buns aside and wipe out skilled with paper towels.
Return skillet to high heat; add oil and heat until just smoking. Using spatula, transfer burgers to skillet and cook without moving for 3 minutes. Using spatula, flip burgers over and cook for 1 minute. Top each patty with slice of cheese and continue to cook until cheese is melted, about 1 minute longer.
Transfer patties to bun bottoms and top with onion. Add condiments, cover, and serve.