Before you judge me on going to another corporate chain, give this place a try if you have not already. California Pizza Kitchen has to be one of my favorite corporate chain restaurants. From what I’ve seen, there’s five California Pizza Kitchens in Oahu: Waikiki, Kahala Mall, Ala Moana Mall, Aiea and Kailua. I’ve been to all but one and every time the food is great. This one is located at Kahala Mall.

It’s not the best picture, but you get the point.

We were asked if we wanted bread after ordering, which we all did. The bread was really nothing special, just plain white bread at room temperature on a white plate with butter. My mom use to give me sandwiches with sugar and butter when I was a little girl and that’s the only way I’ll have plain white bread now, with butter and white granulated sugar. Oh, how buttery sweetness can transform boring to spectacular.

Now I know this place isn’t really cheap, but if you want to eat out all the time, as I do, you really need to find ways to be nicer to your wallet. Ray and I do this by sharing. When we come here we share an appetizer, usually this Avocado Club Egg Rolls and we’ll get one other dish to share. It’s always enough and doesn’t break us. If you like avocado, chicken and bacon, you’ll want to try these. Avocado, chicken, and bacon just go so well together, and in these rolls you can taste each flavor so distinctly. Ray and I love these things, we could eat 8 plates each and be content.

Don’t you want to reach through the screen and grab one? My only conpaint is that we only got four pieces for $9.99, which really is two small rolls cut in half. That blows. That’s really expensive and a rip off. Why, do they have to be so good?

This time we decided to share a pizza. This one is the Wild Mushroom Pizza with cremini, shiitake, portobello, white mushrooms, fontina, mozzarella cheeses, coated with a wild mushroom pesto sauce and garnished with chopped Italian parsley, $12.99. It was available with chicken as well, but instead of that we got sausage. It was plenty and really good. We had one slice left over, which we volunteered Shane to consume.

Yeah, I know, this is a horrible picture. In my previous posts I mentioned that Shane is crazy about the Spinach and Artichoke Dip, $9.99 at CPK. Every time we come here he goes through the menu and then closes it only to order what we all knew he came here for. I had to take a picture as fast as I could since Shane wanted to devour this dish the second it landed on the table. Patience Shanie, patience.

This is suppose to be the Chocolate Souffle Cake ala mode $9.99. I hate it when restaurants loosely names their dishes just because it sounds catchy. Does this look like a souffle to anyone? It looks deflated, like a round chocolate brownie. A proper souffle is enriched with egg yolks and then folded over with whisked egg whites, baked and served in a proper ramekin. When the egg whites expand during baking, it causes the souffle to puff up. A proper souffle should be light, fluffy puffy. The word souffle is the past particle of the French verb souffler which means “to blow up” or more loosely “puff up” — an apt description of what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.

Here are some pictures of what a proper souffle should look like.

Anyhow, it was still good.

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California Pizza Kitchen
4211 Waialae Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96816
(808) 737-9446

Is it just me or does food from a food court located inside a mall never sound enticing? It seems like it’s just fuel to keep the shopping energy flowing. Anyway, it seems like I go through the same routine everytime I end up eating at the mall, I take a full walk through just to end up getting Thai. I’ve had their papaya salad twice so far and I’m a fan. Though, both times I’ve forgotten my camera, but trust me it’s good. They ask you if you want it spicy, medium or mild. Their spicy is really really spicy, so I suggest to go medium, which I did and was still slightly too spicy. It’s made fresh right in front of you.

Now, not every thing is good there. They have this crushed ice dessert that sucks donkey dick.

Looks good right. When I saw this I thought it was shaved ice with coconut milk and a variety of toppings to choose from to top it off. Finally, more toppings to choose from, I was so excited. Not that I don’t love shaved ice, but it seems like all they have for toppings is the usual azuki beans. Don’t get me wrong, I love azuki beans, especially on my shaved ice, but I also love my variety. Well, I should of took this ad literal. It wasn’t shaved ice, but crushed ice. It seriously was chunks of ice, like they put it in a bag and hammered the hell out of it, then dumped it into a bowl. The toppings were delicious, but who the hell likes to bite on chunks of ice as a dessert? Whatever, it was only $2.75 and the toppings were good.

I just wish more shaved ice places would offer these toppings.

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Little Cafe Siam
1450 Ala Moana Boulevard
Honolulu, HI
(808) 943-8424

Amongst spam, sushi and Kahlua pork, ramen is a popular commodity here on the island. Now, I’m not a huge fan of Ramen. Honestly, I’m a little confused as to why it is so popular. Why would anyone want to eat noodles in steamy hot broth in Hawaii? It’s like drinking hot green tea in a sauna. Hot soup in Hawaii is to green tea in a sauna. The more I thought about it the more cleansing and relaxing it sounded to me. I suddenly felt the need for a proper detox, the Asian way, the Ramen way.

There’s a ramen place in side the food court at the Ala Mouana Mall. I decided to check it out after a long day of shopping. Naniwa Ya Ramen didn’t look very busy, the prices looked decent and the place looked clean. After further examining the menu, I ordered the won ton ramen. Now if your not familiar with what a won ton is, it’s a flat square noodle that is wrapped around meant, usually ground pork. Won tons can be prepared in soup, deep fried , or as my mother use to serve them, steamed with a dipping sauce. It took about 5 minutes till I got my food, I took a minute to observe my food before I ate it. The noodle’s were perfect, not over or under cooked, just like the green veggies that came with it. the broth was tasty, and hot. Temperature of food is a big deal for me. If food is meant to be hot, then that’s the way I want it to be. The brightly colored pink thing in my soup was scrumptious. It tasted like some sort of seafood. Just think of imitation seafood meat, but not flaky and not imitation. the won tons, on the other hand were a huge disappointment. the noodles were a little too soft, probably from being over cooked. The meat that resided within was barely the size of the meat in a can of spaghetti O’s. Not to mention it tasted like free-range meat. There was absolutely no thought put into the creation of what could have been a very tasty treat. Considering my family use to own a small Chinese restaurant where I have spent many hours in mass production of the won ton, yes it is safe to call me a won ton expert. I’ll have it put in bold print on my new business cards. At first I didn’t think enough of them were given, but the more I ate the more I wanted to trade them in for those brightly colored pink seafood things. The meal cost me a little over $7.00. Now $7.00 still puts you in the cheap food catacgory, but when it resembles that of a .25 cents top ramen pack it starts to look a little pricey. If you want my advice, go to the grocery store and buy some green tea and head to the nearest sauna.

Directions to Naniwa Ya Ramen