Year: 2008

Ever since I was very young, mochi has been a special treat for me. My mother would take us to the Japanese part of town every once in a while to stock up on the Japanese foods that she liked, and we would always stop by the little bakery in the shopping center. We each were allowed to pick one piece of mochi to take home with us and eat later. I usually picked the striped mochi – a piece with white and pink stripes, but although sweet, it lacked any specific flavor.

As I grew older, I learned to love a wider range of mochi. As a young girl, I wouldn’t touch the pieces with azuki bean paste (red bean paste) in the middle. Now I’ll go out of my way to get sushi with azuki bean paste in the middle. (Although I haven’t gotten around to making any yet. I’m working on it, for sure.) I love flavored mochi – especially orange-flavored mochi, and I’ve even tried making my own. (That was a yummy experiment!) So of course, when I saw a mochi stand in the mall in Hawaii, and read about a mochi ice cream store online, I knew I had to visit both.

Kansai Yamamoto – Mochi

Kansai Yamamoto is a small stand in the food court of the Ala Moana center – the same food court where I ate at Coco Ichiban Curry House. We had been walking through the mall after dinner at the Curry House on Sunday, and like a magnet I was drawn to the stand.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many flavors of mochi in one place. We had quite a bit of trouble deciding which types we wanted to try. Never before had we seen mango or honeydew mochi, so it was easy to decide to buy those. On a whim, we also decided to try the chocolate peanut butter mochi, since the typical plain mochi with azuki bean paste in the center was nowhere to be found.

The chocolate peanut butter mochi was… interesting. It consisted of chocolate-flavored mochi, with a chunky peanut butter filling. By itself, the chocolate mochi wasn’t anything I would want to spend money on. But if you can get a bite of the chunky peanut butter with every bite… that’s what makes it special. The contrast of the sweet and the salty, the soft and the crunchy… it’s rather delicious.

Even more special were the honeydew and mango mochi. Never had I tasted mochi so flavorful. Neither of these flavors were very sweet, but the honeydew and mango flavors were very strong. Not overwhelmingly so, but just right – almost as if you were eating the fruit, except in soft mochi form. Perhaps these have a lot more extract or juice in them than the ones at home, or perhaps it’s just that everything seems to be more flavorful in Hawaii. I wonder if the Los Angeles smog has been dulling the flavors of foods all these years? No matter – these mochi were delicious.

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Bubbie’s – Mochi Ice Cream

This place is hell to find. After dinner at Yotteko-Ya on Monday, it must have taken us a good half-hour to find Bubbie’s, even though it wasn’t that far from Yotteko-Ya. As much of a pain in the butt this place is to find (it’s hidden from view from the street, and you have to take a little side-street to get there), it was entirely worth it.

Of course, I have had the mochi ice cream that you can find at Trader Joe’s or Japanese supermarkets before. The normal flavors – strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, etc. can all be found here. But what takes Bubbie’s above and beyond are the other flavors. After several minutes gawking at the menu, we decided on chocolate peanut butter, guava, sakura (cherry blossom), and azuki bean. The chocolate peanut butter mochi ice cream was alright, I liked the guava mochi ice cream, the sakura mochi ice cream was a new flavor I am very glad to have tried (and enjoyed)… and then there was the azuki bean. Oh my goodness, the azuki bean. Bits of bean were flecked throughout the ice cream, and the flavor was very prominent, unlike some of the other flavors of mochi ice cream. By far my favorite, I immensely enjoyed the azuki bean mochi ice cream. So yummy.

We enjoyed the mochi ice cream so much, we got four more pieces to go. We got almost the same order, except instead of the guava, we got green tea. Quite good choice… Son loved the green tea mochi ice cream. Although the mochi ice cream did melt a little in our hotel “freezer,” I actually enjoyed them better like this. The flavors are stronger when the ice cream is slightly melted, so the azuki bean mochi ice cream was that much more enjoyable for me. Yum.

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When Son and I booked our trip to Hawaii, we knew that in addition to trying all the best local food, we wanted to have sushi. Lots of sushi. There are many other sushi restaurants we are looking to try (one can never have too much sushi) but since it is close to our hotel, we decided to try Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Sushi Bar first.

We decided to get a table outside, which was wonderful. Amazing view of the sunset, warm but not too hot, and mostly quiet. Our waiter was fantastic – always knew when we needed a water refill or our next course, but was never overbearing or in the way. As our meal, we decided on the Chef?s Omakase Tasting Menu for Two. At only $75 and including everything we would have ordered, we found it to be a great choice.

The first dish out were our miso soups. The soup was nicely flavored, had a sufficient but not overwhelming amount of seaweed in the bottom, and included many small cubes of tofu. It was a bit salty, but both Son and I love salty flavors so we both enjoyed the soup.

Our first course consisted of the Sansei Special Roll and Sansei-Style Poke, accompanied by a bowl of edamame. The Special Roll was made up of spicy crab, cilantro, cucumber and avocado dusted with furikake and accompanied by a sweet Thai chili sauce not unlike the one I used on the last sushi I made at home. We both adored the roll, although I found it to be spicy – almost too spicy. The furikake on the outside was an excellent addition, and the sweet chili sauce added a wonderful sweetness to the roll.

The poke was composed of ahi tuna, salmon, tako (octopus), sweet Maui onions, wakame, and kaiware sprouts, in a spicy poke sauce. I found this to be delicious, although Son undoubtedly enjoyed it more. It was not spicy, but rather tasted of shoyu and sesame oil. Son would not have changed a thing about the poke, but I was displeased to find the sauce masked the fresh flavor that I enjoy so much in the tuna.

After the first course, we could already feel ourselves filling up. Had we known before-hand that we would be eating a three-course dinner, we would have definitely eaten considerably less during the day. Our second course consisted of mostly fried foods, so we tried to take it easy on our stomachs and not finish every last piece of each dish. For course number two, we received Panko-crusted Fresh Ahi Sashimi, Japanese Calamari Salad, and Asian Shrimp Cake. Of those three, the Asian Shrimp Cake was easily our favorite: a black tiger shrimp cake crusted with crispy Chinese noodles, served with a ginger-lime-chili-butter and cilantro pesto and topped with two miso marinated shrimp. Just the Chinese noodles eaten with the sauce were amazing. Sweet, crunchy, yum. I wasn’t a huge fan of the actual shrimp cake, but Son adored it.

The calimari salad was amazing as well. This consisted of “Calamari fritti tossed in spicy kochujang vinaigrette served over Kula greens in a crispy won ton basket” The vinaigrette had the flavor of a sweetened cocktail sauce, but wasn’t at all thick. It clung perfectly to the calimari. We did not eat all the calmiari, but had the entire course not been fried and if we didn’t have a third course to look forward to, we would have easily finished it.

The last dish in the second course was our least favorite dish of the night. We found the Panko-crusted Fresh Ahi Sashimi – fresh Island yellowfin tuna wrapped with arugula, and flash fried topped with a soy wasabi butter sauce – to be too bitter. Considering the other two dishes were both sweet, the bitterness of the arugula was too sharp on our tongues. The ahi, however, was soft, melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and dipping it in the soy wasabi butter sauce was amazing. Anyone who doesn’t mind bitter foods would probably love this.

Normally, we would have stopped at this point in our meal. (Actually, we would have stopped after just the first course – we were already stuffed by then!) We did our best to save room for the last course, and oh my goodness are we glad we did. This was by far our favorite course of the evening. This last course included Matsuhisa-Style Miso Butterfish and Lobster & Blue Crab Ravioli. The former was Son’s favorite dish of the night, the latter my own favorite. We could have easily had an amazing dinner with just these two dishes.

When Son tried the miso butterfish – butterfish marinated and seared in sake and sweet miso – he commented that it made him think of bread, but he couldn’t figure out why. I gave him a bit of a confused look, until I tried it myself. “Hawaiian bread.” “Yes!” Imagine the sweet, buttery taste of Hawaiian bread, and then apply that taste to smooth, melt-in-your-mouth fish. I believe I only got a bite or two out of the entire dish – Son couldn’t stop eating it.

Just as Son adored the miso butterfish, I fell in love with the ravioli. These were ravioli stuffed with sweet lobster, blue crab, and shrimp in a rich truffle butter sauce. Oh, that sauce. Even after I finished the ravioli, I couldn’t stop dipping into that amazing truffle butter sauce. Quite frankly, to heck with the Lobster and Blue Crab ravioli. I found the lobster and crab filling to be unenjoyable – it seemed to me that they overcooked the seafood. Yech. Just give me the pasta covered in that sauce… I’ll die happy. Buttery, rich, slightly earthy in such a perfect way… Son had better watch out – I may have found a new love. 😉

Overall, this was an amazing, delicious, romantic meal with a great view of the ocean. The street down below is filled with little shops – a perfect place to walk off the big meal.

Sushi isn’t the only thing I’ve eaten while on vacation! Want to know about my other delicious meals? Hop on over to my new blog, where I’ll be writing all week about non-sushi meals that I eat here.

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For nearly two years now, I have been sharing my love of sushi with you. Every week, new sushi recipes or restaurant reviews. From reading Sushi Day, one might assume my entire life revolves around sushi – many are surprised that it does not.

Sushi is only one of many things I make in my kitchen. I love to bake, and I cook many other dishes as well. For quite some time now, I’ve been wanting to share my other food adventures with you, but I’ve found that Sushi Day isn’t quite the right forum for this.

So now, I begin a new chapter in my food blogging life. Don’t worry – Sushi Day won’t change one bit – but now when I want to write about something other than sushi, I have somewhere to do so. Thus I give you my new food blog…

Fridgg.com

While I have moved many of my non-sushi recipes over to my new blog from Sushi Day, I’ve also posted several new ones – my grandmother’s cheesecake recipe, a carrot cake recipe, my other grandmother’s spaghetti recipe, the recipe for deviled eggs that my mom uses, and my mother’s zucchini bread recipe.

I’ll still be the sushi girl, but now you get to see another side of my kitchen. 🙂

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When you get deep into the sushi world, something that begins to come up is candy sushi. Often, people use Hostess Twinkies or Rice Crispy Treats as the sumeshi, with Fruit Roll-Ups for the nori. However, many have heard of Suedy’s Koo-Ki Sushi. These also use a rice crispy base, but use various types of chocolate, caramel, and gummy candies for their nori and sushi fillings. Often I have lusted over the delicious-sounding descriptions and beautiful pictures on their website, but I never believed I would actually try their candy sushi. At prices from $10 for a pair of chocolate chopsticks, to $65 for an entire bento box of candy sushi, the prices have always been a bit out of my range.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom called me. “You have a package coming tomorrow, will you be home?” I assured her I would be, curious about this unexpected package. “You’re going to love it,” she promised.

The next day, a delivery man came to my door with a light package. While I was signing for the box, he glanced at the return address, then looked at me with question in his eyes. “Sushi?” I smiled and nodded, not entirely sure what he was talking about. When I turned back into my apartment and took a look at the return address, my face lit up like a kid who just found out she gets to go to Disneyland. The name on the return address: Koo-Ki Sushi.

Turns out my mom had known about my desire to try the Koo-Ki Sushi candy sushi, so my parents decided to get me the candy sushi as a graduation gift. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) I was the lucky recipient of a Black Suedy’s Obento and a pair of Milk Chocolate Mocha Bean Choc Sticks (chopsticks). They came wrapped in a protective padding so the chocolate wouldn’t move around, with ice packs so the chocolate wouldn’t melt during the trip.

The first thing I did, after dancing around my apartment with a huge grin on my face of course, was take pictures of all the pieces in the box. Wouldn’t you? Heck yeah, you would. I had to sit on my hands the rest of the day so I wouldn’t get into the chocolate; I wanted to wait for Son to get home so we could both try every piece in the box.

Believe it or not, we did somehow manage to practice restraint – we limited ourselves to two pieces of chocolate each day. The first day, we just had to try the Apricot Row (gunkan-style maki) and Lemon-Egg (tamago nigiri). The Apricot Row was incredibly fun to eat. The “ikura” (salmon roe) were made of apricot-flavoured gummies, set on top of rice cookie “sumeshi” and wrapped with dark chocolate “nori.” The gummies were perfectly chewy, and although the texture was, of course, very different than a normal gunkan-maki would feel, it was delicious and enjoyable to eat. The Lemon-Egg was definitely my favorite Koo-Ki Sushi treat in the entire bento box. It consisted of a lemon-flavoured white chocolate “tamago” with lemon meringue filling, set on top of rice cookie “sumeshi” and wrapped with a very thin strip of dark chocolate “nori.” The lemon “tamago” tasted almost exactly like my favorite Girl Scout cookie of all time – a lemon sandwich cookie that used to be sold in my grandmother’s area. She used to always buy us several boxes, since they weren’t sold near us. (Side rant: I hate how the types of Girl Scout Cookies sold differs from district to district. Why not just have everyone sell the same cookies? Oh, how I miss those lemon sandwich cookies.) The white chocolate used for the “tamago” is incredibly creamy, and the rice cookie is perfectly crunchy, without being too dense.

Next, we tried some of the garnishes that came with the “sushi.” The Peach Blossom was a little flower-shaped piece of peach-flavoured white chocolate, on top of a flower-shaped rice cookie. Small, perfect for when you don’t want a lot of sweet, and subtly peach flavoured. Delicious. On the other hand, the Green Tea “Wasabi” didn’t quite do it for me. I didn’t taste any green tea, so it just seemed like a normal lump of green-colored white chocolate to me. Son enjoyed the SUEDY’S “Shoga” (ginger), which was ginger-flavoured white chocolate. I’m not a huge ginger fan, so I didn’t much like it, but if you enjoy the taste of ginger (like Son does) then you will like the ginger piece. The last garnish was a little plastic fish filled with dark chocolate “shoyu.” The flavour of this really reminded me of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup… not quite the same taste as “real” dark chocolate, but not a bad taste at all.

The Great White Sushi was an ebi- (shrimp-) shaped piece of white chocolate on top of rice cookie “sumeshi,” with an almond filling and green tea “wasabi” between the “shrimp” and “sumeshi.” I thought this was the most beautiful piece in the box… I almost didn’t want to eat it! When I finally allowed myself to bite into it, I found that it was enjoyable, but there was an overwhelming amount of white chocolate. I would have preferred to have a better balance between the white chocolate and the rice cookie. (On a side note: I used to love white chocolate, until I OD’d on it when I was younger. Now, I can’t take too much white chocolate at one time, which could have influenced why I wasn’t so fond of this piece. Son, however, who absolutely loves white chocolate, enjoyed the piece quite a bit.)

The last two pieces in the box were both “maki” pieces. The first we tried was the Fruit-O-Maki (futomaki) which consisted of caramel and fruit-flavoured white chocolate “fillings,” surrounded by rice cookie “sumeshi” and dark chocolate “nori.” I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The white chocolate was super melt-in-your-mouth creamy, and there was a perfect balance between the fillings and the “sumeshi.” My only critique for this piece was that the caramel was a bit too chewy, so it detracted a little from the mouth-feel of the piece.

The Mau’i Maki (California Roll) was very interesting. This one was an inside-out roll, with piña colada-flavoured fillings and candy “tobiko” sprinkles on the outside. I did not like the fillings at all – I don’t enjoy the piña colada taste one bit. However the “tobiko” were fantastic. The little candy sprinkles very closely replicated the crunchy popping texture of real tobiko, so I thought they were an excellent choice to complement the roll.

But wait… we’re not done yet! Although that was all the pieces in the bento box (which by the way, is a very adorable bento box that you can wash and re-use for real bento!), I also received a pair of Milk Chocolate Mocha Bean Choc Sticks (chopsticks) as well. These are both beautiful and delicious. On the package, it recommends swirling them into your coffee, which I’ll bet would be delicious. However, I chose to eat them by themselves. At the bottom of the chopsticks, you only taste the milk chocolate, but as you reach the upper third of the chopsticks, you find that beneath the gold-dusted design, there is a crunchy coffee-flavoured inlay. These were quite pleasing to eat and beautiful to look at… I would definitely buy them again and try swirling them in my coffee this time.

All in all, I found that the Koo-Ki Sushi pieces were well-constructed, delicious, and worth their high price tag as a treat for special occasions. Would I make a habit of buying these? Most certainly not – my wallet wouldn’t survive a hit like that. However every once in a while, I wouldn’t mind trying these again.

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Koo-Ki Sushi ships everywhere in the United States, although there is an extra charge for shipments to Alaska and Hawaii. They do not ship to P.O. Boxes, and during summer months require overnight shipments to prevent melting of the chocolate. If you think the shipping costs are too expensive (and they are a bit pricey), you can also visit their store at 830 Jury Court, Suite 1, San Jose, CA, 95112.

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