Well, the Sapporo Soup Curry Yokocho has all but dwindled down to two shops. The one I used to go to is gone and another new garishly appointed shop stands in its place. Boo. Luckily, I found another place that is actually better than the old place even closer to Oodori. There is another new shop out toward Maruyama to try next time. The one closest to where I am is pretty terrible.
(0)Archive for the 'Food' Category
What? More beer? This time another Hitachino variety I haven’t had yet, the XH. Labeled as matured in sake casks. Pours cloudy dark brown with extremely strong head. Sorry, I passed out before I could write a review so my thoughts are a bit cloudy on it. I blame the high 8%ABV. I didn’t really detect the cask flavors. I recall the sweet then sourness. It reminded me again of drunk juice malt liquors that I do not like. I can’t say I’m having a very good track record with the Hitachino’s, 2.5 out of 4 booze sleeping monkeys.
Catching up on a past brew here! Seasonal brew, pours with small head, very dark. Pretty strong roasted flavor, pretty effervescent feel on tongue, dry, lingering bitter from the roast. I like, but not an intensely complex beer. 5.3% ABV, not high. 3 out of 4 dark roast monkeys.
Discovered at Foodland Farms this Hitachino variety I haven’t seen elsewhere. Pours with a pretty good head, cloudy medium dark brown. Touch floral aroma and hint of spices but not strongly hoppy. There’s some sour in there, and a bit of lingering bitter. Reading the label tells of vanilla, corriander, orange peel, but this is no Hoegarten, which I just happened to have had one earlier. Though not offensive, it does not appeal to my tastes. High ABV of 9%. Not quite 3 out of 4 drunken monekys.
There is no better way to antangonize anything than to threaten it’s food, and us humans are no exception. So it was this Saturday evening at Windward Mall IHOP. I had heard rumours of bad service, but I had no idea until experiencing it first hand. This night after a Cruise night found us in need of some food, the IHOP was conveniently located, and pancakes sounded good. We thought there might be a wait, but stepping inside that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t that crowded inside. What we didn’t realize that this also seemed to apply to the staff, there aparently wasn’t enough staff. Or so we would like to hope. It took an hour, at least, from when seated to getting our food. Tell me it takes that long to make a bunch of pancakes, steak & eggs, omlette, and sausage. I actually didn’t have much to complain about the food, it was tasty, the steak was tender, eggs cooked properly, but it took ridiculously long. Five minutes longer and we would halve walked. 
Hana hou? I sure as heck hope not! And I am sure not going to give them another chance! 1 out of 4 raving mad hungry monkeys (Moe “I want some cake” anyone?) because the food was decent for what you expect from a place like this, but the delay was simply unacceptable.
Popped into the newly remodeled and opened Foodland Farms at Aina Haina. It’s kind of a mini “Whole Paycheck” market. They borrowed a lot of aspects with the areas of higher end products, deli, and prepared foods, but not quite as extensive. The beer selection is also pretty good with some items I haven’t seen elsewhere, but again is nowhere as extensive as Whole Foods. What I did spy was this Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale. With a name like that I simply could not resist. Pours with a pretty strong head, simply popping the cap produced bubbles in the bottle neck. Color is a medium dark somewhat cloudy amber. Immediate floral aroma without even taking a sip. It is strongly hoppy, the bitter hits you from the begining, it’s no aftertaste here! I guess Bigfoot like drinking flowers? 
It demands to be drunk while eating something hearty and strongly flavored, I had it with a herbed roasted chicken and it worked well. I don’t know if I could handle drinking this by itself. Thankfully it doesn’t have the syrupy sweet that immediately turns me off, although I have to wonder how they achieved the butt kicking 9.6%ABV, and the label does say barleywine style. I only now coming off the buzz from that one bottle. I have a hard time rating this. I enjoyed it with my meal, perhaps the ABV helped, but I had a hard time finishing it after my food was done. I guess go with middle of the road 2 out of 4 bigmonkeys?
Whoa. Just spent $50 USD at Hanamaru for dinner. Oh, it was really good. I’m pretty sure that it is easy to get out of there for less than $20 for a set meal, but if you go the izakaya-style picky dishes route, it can get up there. In depth review to come soon. Definitely a better way to spend $50 than going to tonight’s Bon Jovi concert!
(0)It was drizzling in town as forecast, so we headed up to Seventh Heaven on Blackcomb to stay above the freezing level. Snow was soft in places, but not “powder”. Sticky and slow. There was a fairly good windchill up top, with a serious headwind heading down the first pitch that combined with the sticky snow to prevent forward motion. Most areas were pretty ridden out, but there were a few stashes here and there. We rode down throught the terrain garden on our last run down, then caught the lift back up to the top and rode PTP over to Whistler then downloaded on the gondola – no point in burning out our legs and wasting time on krappy conditions on the rideout! Are we “snow snobs”? Supposedly there’s more rain overnight and tomorrow with the same 1800 meter freezing level, possibly some high winds, maybe subsiding tomorrow. Whee. Doesn’t look good for tomorrow… To sprinkle powdered sugar on our already dubious day, when we went by Sushi-ya for dinner, the space was dark, and there was what looked like a “this space available” sign in the window. Fabio went upstairs and there was no “we’ve moved to…” sign on the door. Guess our favorite sushi place in Whistler is no more. Boo. Sachi Sushi was our fall-back. Sushi was good except for maybe the BBQ smoked salmon roll, which was a little on the dry side. The beef tataki was ma-ma. Chocolate ice cream at Cows made everything all better. Continue reading ‘First Snowboarding Day of 2010′
Okay, we’re here now. Check-in was as slow as usual in HNL, but security was quick and professional, so we got through in time to go to KBC for some wings, pizzas and beer. The two pizzas were $20 USD each (ouch!), but were excellent. All told, we ended up dropping $31 USD each for everything including a good tip for the cool server dude. We met Kevin and Naomi at the gate, and we were shortly boarded. The center overhead bins in the 767-300-2 (four-door/no overwing exits) were a little small for the Kifaru X-Ray with side pockets, so I had to pull the laptop power supply and ultrapod out and put them inside the pack for the bin to close. On takeoff, a bad baby immediately set to screeching and wailing inconsolably, but after bevvie service, the turbulence set in and I was rocked to sleep. Continue reading ‘In Whistler’
No, I really don’t know. If you know what bread pudding is like, it’s that kind of pudding – not the “wet” kind. If you’re really that curious, go hit up Wikipedia for more information.