King’s Hawaiian Bakery & Restaurant: We rolling, they hating…

Today I went to King’s Hawaiian Bakery & Restaurant. We’d often pass by the Baking facility and The Local Place coming off the freeway on the way to Torrance, and I looked forward to trying out one of the restaurants.

King’s Hawaiian Bread, if you are unfamiliar with them, are these lightly sweet, fluffy, almost inhale-able, impossible-to-pace-yourself type bread rolls. In my family, we’d jokingly say we “did a line” of them when eating a whole row of rolls.

The interior was cutely decorated. Giant pineapple!

We sat at a booth near the fish tank.

I ordered the Maui Chicken Sandwich and King’s Hawaiian Iced Tea. The tea is great! Not too sweet, and unlimited refills.

They brought out warm rolls & butter, and we made them disappear.

Our ahi poke appetizer. It was a tad salty due to soy sauce, but overall good, and lots of fish.

He got the Luau something something aka lots of meat and potato & mac salad!

My Maui chicken sandwich. It was good, and big. The chicken was fried katsu-like, so light and surprisingly  juicy for white meat. The onions were lightly pickled, and goes o-so-well with how big the meat is. Just like the pickles that come with curry rice help balance the heaviness of curry, these pickles helped balance the richness of the chicken. The fries were also good.

Love the presentation. Put the orchid in my hair, afterwards.

If you like King’s Hawaiian bread, I highly recommend you try their place if you’re in the Torrance area. After lunch, we stopped by the bakery for some desserts to go. (The desserts may appear in another post, if we don’t forget to take pictures!)

Thanks for reading.

Refreshing Boba

From Tastespotting blog.

Are you a Boba, a.k.a. Pearl a.k.a. Bubble drink fan? I am, and I am picky about the texture of the balls. I hate paying 3+ dollars for a ball drink, then have the balls get hard in the fridge. Or, maybe they served sub-par balls in the first place.

Here’s how to quickly soften the balls. ( This makes them edible, if not perfect.)

Boba refreshing technique:

1. Poke hole, drain most liquid into another container, leave enough to cover the balls. Put liquid into fridge or freezer for now.
2. Microwave balls on high for 5 to 60 seconds, depending on microwave. I check balls at 1/2 time. (Meaning you carefully test a hot ball in your mouth.) WARNING: Over microwaving balls will lead to pasty texture!
3. Let balls cool. Use funnel to re-introduce liquid, and enjoy.

( If your ‘liquid’ was frozen shake, then remove all the shake, store it in freezer, and microwave the balls in water or tea.) This technique works for homemade Boba or Mochi, too. Try out different times, until it’s right for you.

Thanks for reading! I hope this was helpful. Do you have any Food Refreshing tricks? Please feel free to Comment and Share in the Box below.

Fanime 2013: Clockwork Alchemy’s Tea Room

This year, Clockwork Alchemy, a Steampunk convention put on in conjunction with Fanime offered a Tea Room. There visitors could relax with a cup of tea and cookies, included with membership to the convention. You could drink as much tea and eat as many cookies as you like. Wow!

They had three tea selections. Earl Grey was the one I mostly drank because I needed the Caffeine. Another was caffeine-free green tea. And finally, there was a special Clockwork Alchemy blended Rooibos.

For cookies, they had oatmeal raisin, ginger snap, almond, and tea cookies.

Earl Grey

Almond cookie and Tea cookie

My brother and I had a great time. It was quite relaxing to sip hot good tea and eat yummy cookies while quietly chatting or enjoying the Steampunk decor. I certainly hope they bring it back next year!

More outfit information at Kawaii eto Kowai

Eating Japanese in Torrance

This weekend I’m eating and staying in Torrance. I can’t wait to eat Japanese food, Japanese breakfast buffet, Japanese bakery, and Ofuro~>

This is the okonimiyaki place we intend to eat at.

http://www.gajamoc.com/

Their menu is huge! And their parfaits, a regularly appearing dessert in the Animes I watch, look good.

Let’s get fat!

Asparagus & Strawberries Galore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know that Asparagus and Mayonaisse go well together? If it’s homemade Mayo, even better. This is Spectrum’s organic mayo.

 

There’s a simple way to eat silken tofu, just mince some ginger and add a dash of soy sauce. Done.

 

And of course, to have a balanced dinner, dessert is important. Here are some ripe organic strawberries with Talenti gelato, Pistachio.

Bon Appetit!

Aromatherapy

Despite my fear of pesticides and insects, I find myself stuffing my face into a rose, nevertheless.

Often I’m sorely disappointed, “What kind of rose has No Fragrance? You False Advertiser!” I yell in my mind.

But this time, this time was quite a wonderful minute of my day.

*breathe in* mmmm *breathe out*

I hope you stop to smell your roses, too.

Psycho Donuts. Saiko, Dounatsu?

Yesterday, I attended meetings all day. Before the main meeting, we breakfasted at Psycho Donuts.

This is how donuts should be. Crazy Decorated.

We got the Dead Elvis and Strawberry Tac-o-nut.

A custard filled donut with peanut butter and jelly drizzle, freeze dried bananas and bacon.

This was so good. The peanut butter really helps to dampen the sweetness. It almost tastes healthy. Psycho donuts is quite good when it comes to its super fluffy & fresh donut. Also, there is no rancid aftertaste as with most donuts. The Dead Elvis was so satisfying, I felt that ‘die happy’ feeling.

The Strawberry Tac-o-nut wasn’t to my liking. The shell was fluffy and perfect, the strawberry filling, also perfect, however the marshmellow creme  was too heavy.  I understand that  a heavier creme  keeps the donut shell from deteriorating.
To perfect this, more strawberry filling, less creme.

Punny, I’m a Re-Psycho too.

They had a Bates Motel theme area, with padded room! More photos in my Fashion Blog.

Generally, I’m a Psycho fan, and would come back again and again to try all their unique flavours.

Strawberries on the mind and in the stomach

As a decadent dessert to finale my meal from this post, I made a simple strawberry parfait.

I love parfaits, they are about fruit and dairy and presentation.

There was a fused berry.

Berry interesting

I layered chopped organic strawberries with whole fat Nancy’s organic yogurt, organic creme fraiche from Cowgirl Creamery, a scoop of Talenti Stracitella gelato, and cookies.

The strawberry quadrants function to hold the gelato and final toppings in place.

The combination of gelato with creme fraiche, strawberries and yogurt was dangerous territory: heaven.

oh my goddess…

The cookies were okay, but perhaps a stroopwaffle would be more up to parfait.

Looks good from this angle too.

In summation of this creation, my observation: Almost Parfaict.

Pasta, pasta, salad & wine.

Living is more than just consuming edibles, there’s important consumption of visibles,  audibles,  and sensual.

But boy is eating fun!

Salad with ginger carrot Japanese dressing

Asparagus with garlic and olive oil

Macaroni and cheese with broccoli, carrots, pepper jack

Spaghetti with asparagus, meatballs, and roasted garlic tomato sauce

Voignier~ A slightly sweet white wine

That’salad

Ppppppasta!

The cool wine brings out each bite. Manja, manja!

Butterbeer Latte, Why Notte?

So as you may imagine, I was quite excited one morning to pass this sign. Yes, I am a fan, especially of Super Sexy Snape.

So although I don’t usually shell out the 4 bucks to buy a fancy drink, I was quite willing this time.

I brought my own mug. This was a Facebook x Hello Kitty collaboration, I also have a matching tote bag. As you can see the beverage is pretty. For fear of it being overly sweet, (I normally drink black coffee,) I asked for a triple shot of espresso.

Would you like Whip? Yes, please~>

I was a bit disappointed at how short the Whip was, but that’s usual with hot drinks.

Despite the three shots of espresso, this was still quite sweet and not very Buttery, more a mild butterscotch.
Where’re the sparkly lightening bolts that shoot off around my head as I sip this magical beverage?
Not even sparkly sugar bits?
For almost 5 bucks and no Butter (as the online recipes call for), they should have swag.

Serve it in a Harry Potter cup, with Wizard’s Robe hot cozy, special Sorting Hat cover and of course a Stirring Wand.

I want to make that happen. I may concoct my own Butterbeer Latte and do so.

In short, a Latte money, but no Magic.