Revisiting Mana Bu's for Musubi.

On Wednesday morning we had the chance of being in the area of Mana Bu's just around their opening time of 1030a.  Since it is a rare occurrence for us we stopped by to pick up several musubi to have for lunch later.  If you're familiar with this little mass producing musubi shop you'll know that if you don't get there early enough, selection will be slim & often most varieties sold out.

This time I chose a Konbu, Shiso & Kinpira Gobo Pilaf.  They ranged in prices of about $1.30-$1.70.  Very satisfying!

I'm not one who would normally go out to purchase musubi made by someone else, but in this case I have to say the occasional splurge is well worth the cost.  I cannot imagine trying to make myself 3 different varieties at home.  It would not make much sense.  A visit to Mana Bu's & I could have a dozen or more variety of musubi to eat!  They also have multi grain rice varieties too!

I posted on my blog about Mana Bu's a couple of years ago.  Here's the link to read that post.  http://nakama-m-photos.blogspot.com/2008/10/mana-bus.html.

The other dish is a pork eggplant that we picked up from ANOTHER PLACE down the street.  I wont mention the name of the place, but it was JUNK!  The eggplant was inconsistent with raw, firm bitter tasting pieces mixed into overcooked mushy eggplant pieces!  It was also too salty tasting like it was just soaking in an unbalanced  shoyu based sauce.  Anyway, I don't like this "deli" down the street and haven't forever, but we just decided to give it a try again.  I don't know if I'll try again in the future.  Probably not...

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Lunch at Mr. Mandoo

On Sunday we thought we'd go get lunch at Mr. Mandoo.  As we left Ala Moana Center, we looked for it on Piikoi Street.  It was missing!!  Since we were certain it was there before, we drove up to the curbside and looked to see what happened to it.  There was a sign in the window that said they've moved to 710 N. King Street in Kalihi.  Since we were planning to go to Home Depot anyway, we went to check out their new location.

It's a pretty good location with several parking spaces that are shared with the neighboring convenience store.  Inside there are 3 four top tables and 2 two top tables.  Not much seating, especially when they're busy.  It was very busy there! 

The menu is a little confusing to me, but you should be able to figure out what to order.  We had an order of the fried mandolin, chicken katsu plate & a few steamed "king" mandoo.  We wanted to try the spicy pork steamed mandoo, but they were all out.  We ended up with 2 vegetable steamed mandoo and 1 sweet red bean steamed mandoo.  It was too much for us to finish.  They served tea, kim chee & miso soup too.  We ended up taking home 1 whole vegetable & half of the red bean mandoo.

I stuck the leftovers in the toaster oven this morning with an ice cube to add some steam and baked the mandoo for our breakfast.  It came out rather nicely toasted. 

The food is very tasty at Mr. Mandoo.  I also like the design & decor of the tiny restaurant.  The service was also good considering there seemed to be only 2 people working!  1 lady out front & a man working the kitchen.  Almost every seat was full & other customers were also coming in for take out orders! 

Check it out!

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Cakes & Cupcakes Techniques Class at Williams-Sonoma.

(I hope Posterous posts the photos this time!!)

This morning was the cupcakes & cakes technique class at Williams-Sonoma.  It was crowded.  I'm sure it was booked up within hours of their email blast last month.

The yellow layer cake with butter cream frosting was delicious!  This was a very interesting class.  Lots of good pointers to pick up even for someone who is an avid cook/baker.

Some other photos I also took at the store...  I took a photo of the Easter Egg poster because Kelli was insisting that it was an owl on the blue egg as we looked at it from outside the store.  I told her it was a cat, but she didn't want to believe me!  ;)

I hope some of you are already registered for next week's filled class!!  It's going to be about pies!!

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Rick Nakama R GRI 808-382-6761

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