Category Archives: Commentary

Burgers, Commentary, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Puerto Rico & St. Croix

April 29, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This is just a quick commentary post about some of the tasty treats I encountered on a trip my wife and I took to Puerto Rico (Old San Juan) and St. Croix. My wife’s cousin was awesome to invite us to their destination wedding at a resort in St. Croix, so we made a mini-vacation out of it by doing a pit stop over in San Juan before puddle jumping to St. Croix for the nuptials.

OLD SAN JUAN

LUNCH

Our first food adventure was this lunch spot in Old San Juan called, uniquely enough, Cafe Puerto Rico. We started with an appetizer sampler, which included fried cheese (center top, below sipping sauces), corn sticks (left), fried chicken chunks (center bottom) and alcapurrias (right).

The chicken was perfectly fried and juicy inside. The fried cheese was a bit dry, and had a consistency more like tofu than what you might expect from hot, fried cheese. The corn sticks were pretty much corn dog batter, but without the dog inside. The alcapurrias were delicious, but quite different from the version we had at Inti. There was still meat inside, but there was less mashed potato ball and more crunchy wrapper type material happening.

Then I had yellow rice with pork sausage, which came with sides of beans and fried plantains. The sausage was tender, hearty and bold-spiced. The rice was cooked to a nice al dente with not too much grainy texture. It was great, especially with the beans poured over it. The plantains were really special though. They were chunks that hat been squashed flat and then lightly battered before frying, so they had a crispy outside but a little softness and texture inside. Awesome.

My wife had chicken mofongo. This is a mixture of starchy veggies (usually plantains and/or cassava) mashed up and formed into a bowl or pocket, and then topped or filled with pulled chicken and sauce. I though the chicken and mofongo itself were both dry, although tasty.

DINNER

That night, we had a belated anniversary dinner at a really nice restaurant right across the street from our hotel, called Marmalade.

This place is charging NYC prices but the food is worth every damn penny. Since we had a huge, starchy lunch, we opted to share an app, a pasta dish and dessert, while each ordering our own entree. Here’s what we had:

First was this nice beet salad (yes – the beet crazy is even happening in Puerto Rico, not just NYC), which was served carpaccio style with citrus, hearts of palm, goat cheese and micro-greens.

Our waiter gave us a complimentary cup of this delicious white bean and truffle soup, which was dusted with pancetta crumbles. Very velvety and smooth, earthy and rich. I loved it.

For our pasta, we tried the truffle pappardelle. This had a great flavor, but the texture ended up being a little bit lackluster, as the peppercorn and truffle bits that were embedded into the pasta dough ended up changing the tensile properties that you usually expect with a perfectly cooked pasta. Still delicious, in a perfectly suited marsala sauce to compliment the truffle and mushroom flavorings, but I think it would have been better with shaved truffle instead of truffle in the dough itself.

Our entrees were amazing. My wife had the haddock cheeks, which came with fresh spring peas and a rosemary foam type of sauce. The portion size was generous, and the fish was cooked perfectly.

My entree was the Berkshire pork cheeks. These were roasted to a perfect softness, and served with amazing spicy habanero grilled pineapple pieces. These were so great. I was expecting a lot of heat but the sweetness of the pineapple really rounded it out to a nice balance. I wasn’t crazy about the smear of BBQ flavored bean puree in the center of the plate, but otherwise this dish was fantastic.

For dessert we shared a strawberry and rhubarb crumble that was topped with a nice scoop of fresh citrus ice cream, poppy seeds and some granola. This was nice, though I almost wish it was all served cold, as opposed to the hot strawberry and rhubarb compote and the cold ice cream. I realize that is out of the ordinary for something like this, but I think it may have worked better.

A great meal, and excellent service. Even the drinks were awesome. My wife had an “Urban Hipster,” which was made with raw coconut pulp, pink guava yerba buena & Don Q Crystal, with a splash of ginger beer (left). It was nice and refreshing, as was my cocktail, the Jimi Hendrick’s. That was muddled mint and sliced jalapenos swimming in fresh cucumber juice, Hendrick’s gin and a squeeze of lime (right).

COLD SNACK

The next day we found this hidden shave ice type joint that serves up these little plastic cups of goodness for only $0.75 each.

They tasted like the bottom part of those Marino Italian ice cups, where all the ice crystals of sugary goodness settle in the freezing process. So freaking good… I had coconut, and my wife had strawberry. These hit the spot in the blazing heat.

ST. CROIX

In St. Croix I only documented the rehearsal dinner food, and the wedding reception food, both of which were excellent. Let’s get right into it.

REHEARSAL DINNER

The rehearsal dinner was at a joint called Savant in Christiansted, St. Croix.

The bride and groom had been there before, and we certainly trust their culinary opinions, so we knew we were in good hands.

We started with some beer-battered fish fritters and grilled baby squid. Both were great. The fish was nicely battered: crispy and light on the outside, and juicy and tender inside. The grilled squid had a great char flavor on them, and they were nicely seasoned.

The place got really nice after the sun started to go down.

I had the bacon wrapped pork chop for my entree. This was really frigging good. I was worried about the cooking temperature on this – concerned that it might be ruined it cooked through, yet bad if undercooked – but these guys nailed it. It was delicious and flavorful from end to end.

My wife had a coconut and hazelnut crusted mahi mahi dish that was on special (along with several other mahi mahi dishes – I guess they needed to move the product). It was served with a spicy watermelon sauce. This was such a unique and delicious dish. Really well conceived and executed.

She also had this nice looking blood orange based cocktail. very pretty:

ASSORTED RESORT FOOD

Not really worth mentioning in depth here are some items we tried at the restaurant on site. Breakfast was a bit pricey and somewhat lame. The grits were flavorless, and the sandwich needed better bread. My wife’s eggs were decent (though overpriced):

There was a really nice hot sauce that was spicy and mustard based, went well when mixed with mayo and eaten with french fries. Not sure if this was the same shit put into different, reusable bottles.

A great drink was the banana colada. Really nicely done with ice cream. It was like a vanilla and banana milkshake with chocolate syrup and rum:

WEDDING RECEPTION

This was a very good meal. I’ve been to lots of weddings where the food sucks, and I was a bit worried about that here because the lunch and dinner service were really REALLY slow and a bit lame on the food items (with the exception of the pulled pork slicers). But the restaurant at Renaissance Carambola Beach did an great job for the wedding, which is all-important for the couple.

The meal opened up with this really nice sundried tomato risotto, which was topped with pea puree, spicy saffron foam and a potato crisp. Everything here was perfect. Nicely balanced with spicy and sweet, and the rice was cooked expertly.

The salad (not pictured) was nice too. Lightly dressed arugula and spinach, with beets of course, goat cheese, and a honey nut roasted shallot vinaigrette.

I had the petite filet with gorgonzola, which came with broccolini, carrots and mashed sweet potatoes. Petite is a misnomer here, as this baby was about 10-12oz. I was a happy man, as it was perfectly medium rare in the center with a great crust on the outside. Bravo!

My wife had the pan seared Chilean sea bass with orange ginger sauce and crab risotto. This was tasty too, but a bit redundant with what tasted like a repeat of the appetizer risotto.

Dessert was a passion fruit and key lime torte, served in a champagne flute like a tiramisu, parfait or deconstructed cake. It was nice! Not too heavy or sweet, and a good balance between acidity and sweetness.

LOCAL BEER

A fun part of any trip for me is sampling the local beer selections. As I mentioned above, I tried the two Puerto Rican brews available to me at the lunch joint; Medalla and Magna. Both were solid, light and refreshing. Overall that was a very starchy meal, and very filling. This was okay by us since we had walked a shit-ton of miles that day just exploring Old San Juan, and working up a serious sweat in the sun. The two local beers were great to cool off with while we were eating:

In St. Croix, there was a much better selection at the resort. I was ordering like a mad man just to try them all. Here’s a few:

Carib – light and crisp, and actually from Florida.

Virgin Islands (St. John Brewers) Mango pale ale, and summer ale. Both were delightful, but the mango one really stood out as a favorite for beach style drinking. It was delicious.

Blackbeard ale: contrast the light brews above with their stout. This was chocolately and sweet, without being too sweet or too strong to the point of boredom and uselessness. This was a great stout. I never thought I’d be into a stout while on a beach, but this is the exception.

AIRPORT SNACKS

I love to try weird chips, sodas and snacks wherever I go. Sometimes they’re a hit, other times they’re a miss.

The big miss on this trip was the I Malta India malted soda type drink. It was bitter caramel flavored, very corn-ish and syrupy, with barley as well. Side note: this was made by the same brewing company as the Puerto Rican beers, which I liked. Hefty on the calories too. More than Coca Cola.

My wife grabbed an assortment of chips as well. Aside from the chicharrones (not pictured) the other two standout items that were tasty were the garlic plantain chips and the yucca chips. The plantains tasted just how you’d imagine. Salty, crispy, starchy and with a good garlic flavor. They were great. The yucca chips were light and airy, but they had almost double the calories of regular potato chips. So good though. There’s a nice coconut soda in there as well. This was a big hit with me, since I love soda and coconut separately. The combination was greater than the sum of its parts.

One nice bonus on the way home was the presence of a Carl’s Junior. I’d never had their food before, so this was a nice excuse to devour some. We tried the chicken strips, fries and the double burger. All pretty decent, but I am not sold on this stuff being any tastier than McDonalds, Wendy’s or Burger King. Glad I got to stuff my face though.

Alright that’s it! Hope you enjoyed my vacation food photos. Half were with a real camera, and the other half were with a cell phone. Sorry, but you’ll just have to deal with it, you bastards.

Commentary, Food Halls, West Village

Gansevoort Market

April 19, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Below is a quick and dirty photo dump of some of the cool joints in Gansevoort Market. My wife and I strolled through after eating lunch so we didn’t really partake in anything here. When I get back down here I will update this post accordingly.

Bruffin:

Luzzo’s Pizza:

Some other interesting shops, like gelato, tacos, sushi, etc.

MEAT! Cappone’s and Macelleria:

Some signage:

This little crepe joint was cool too – I nabbed some video:

Greek yogurt being made, teste bag format:

Bangkok Bar looked delicious:

Donostia has some interesting looking sandwiches:

This was probably the coolest thing to behold. Bacon on a stick for $5, and it was HUGE:

Would love to try a chorizo dog too.

Essentially I need to go here with the intention of eating, vomiting to make room, and repeating. Fuck yeah, Bulimia!

Commentary, Greek

Greek Easter

April 13, 2015 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

This year a friend of mine invited me over to his parents’ house to partake in the delicious food associated with Greek Easter. Namely, an entire lamb roasting on a spit!

The crazy thing was that while I was getting ready to head over to his house, another friend of mine started texting me photos of a Greek joint on the upper east side that was spit-roasting a lamb right on the sidewalk. Awesome!

Anyway, here’s a quick shot of what the lamb looked like once my buddy’s’ dad broke it down into more easily devourable portions:

I actually meant to shoot some video of the fucker’s head spinning round and round on the spit, sizzling away over the coals… but we got to reminiscing and catching up, so the cell phone never really made it out of my pocket.

There was a lot of other awesome shit too, like lamb gyro meat, minced pork, meat skewers, spanakopita (spinach pies), toasted garlic pita bread, cheese pies, lemon and herb roasted potatoes, and amazing baklava desserts. I was actually surprised that the bottle of ouzo I brought was the only one on site! Needless to say, we killed that thing.

Commentary, Downtown, Food Halls, French

Le District

April 12, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Le District is a pretty cool French food hall type of joint down in Battery Park City, beneath Hudson Eats. The place is broken down by what they sell in each area, such as cheeses, meats, crepes, etc. Check it out:

Commentary, Downtown, Food Halls

Hudson Eats

April 12, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Hudson Eats is a food hall down in Battery Park City. There’s a bunch of good shit here to try. I’m glad to see more stuff like this popping up around the city.

Blue Ribbon Sushi:

Blue Bottle Coffee:

Little Muenster – a grilled cheese shop:

Northern Tiger Chinese food:

Mighty Quinn’s BBQ joint. I reviewed their main location HERE.

Num Pang – great asian sandwich shop. Check out my review HERE.

Oh and by the way – really nice view from the seating area:

Salad joint for pussies:

Dos Toros:

Dig Inn:

Skinny Pizza – likely for pussies:

(Titty) Sprinkles bakery:

Olive’s:

There’s Black Seed Bagels, which is all the rage right now (see my separate review):

And there’s also an Umami Burger outpost (see my separate review):

Another note about this place: they just opened up a fancy French food hall on the lower level, called Le District. See my write up of that place HERE.

Commentary

The 10 Manliest Steakhouses in America

April 10, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

If you’re like me and you revel in the fact that you have a big hairy sack of balls swinging between your legs, then you might be interested to know about some of the most manly places to sink your teeth into a chunk of beef. Here’s a list of places that I think would be perfect for your next steak night dinner, in no particular order, and based on personal experience or intense research:

1) Keen’s Steakhouse: Talk about manly. This place used to be men only, until some badass, take-no-bullshit broad waltzed in and started a revolution. But aside from the old time “men only” atmosphere, this place also rocks some manly taxidermy of game that was actually hunted by Teddy Roosevelt himself. The walls are filled with history, in fact. There’s even a playbill on the wall from the night Lincoln was assassinated.
72 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018

2) Cattleman’s Steakhouse: Everything is big in Texas, as the saying goes. This place lives up to that old adage, because several of the menu items are advertised on the menu in POUNDS instead of girly ounces. The place sits on a sprawling ranch with tons of cool shit all around you, including nice scenery.
3450 S Fabens Carlsbad Rd, Fabens, TX 79838

3) George Martin’s Strip Steak: If you’re on your way out to the North Fork wineries, Fire Island, Montauk or the Hamptons for a weekend out of the Big Apple, make a pit-stop at this sleepy restaurant located on a dark neighborhood road near the Great South Bay. This place actually used to be a brothel back in the day, and there are even ghost stories and tales of hauntings to go along with all the nice T&A you see on the walls in this joint (classy nudes).
60 River Rd, Great River, NY 11739

4) Strip House: While we’re on the subject of clothes-less broads, we would be smart to mention this place, where you can also see a nice variety of old timey B&W tits and ass photos on the walls (again, classy nudes – nothing raunchy, unfortunately). If you’re out in Vegas with the guys, this is the perfect place to get the juices flowing with a solid dinner pre-game. I know one of the chefs who runs these restaurants and trains staff, so I can personally vouch for the incredible quality of the food and service here. Just wait until AFTER the meal to drink yourself into temporary memory loss. Trust me – you won’t want to forget this meal.
3667 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109

5) The Big Texan: What better way to celebrate manhood than to get involved with a steak eating contest at this Route 66 landmark legend of a restaurant? This place is famous for its 72oz steak challenge. You have to finish in an hour. Any man worth his weight in chest hair should be able to do this. But here’s the real kicker: the record is held by a woman, and she did TWO 72oz steaks in 15 fucking minutes!
7701 Interstate E 40, Amarillo, TX 79118

6) Gibson’s: The vibe here just oozes manliness. The old fashioned wood paneled walls, the photos of celebs and famous folks who have dined there, and the classic, iconic Chicago signage out front… it all just makes you salivate for a steak and martini.
1028 North Rush Street, Chicago, IL 60611

7) Mastro’s Ocean Club: This spot takes manly to the upscale level. This is the kind of place that men go to when they want to flash some coin for a great meal with great ambiance. This joint is literally ON the beach, so they even have a fantastic seafood selection if you’re feeling a little pussyish.
18412 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265

8) Dickie Brennan’s: This place is on the fancy side, but it comes correct. It also helps that it’s in a pretty awesome party town; New Orleans, right in the French Quarter. You can end your day of boozing and bluesing here with a nice fat steak before continuing the Bourbon Street debauchery well into the night.
716 Iberville St, New Orleans, LA 70130

9) Kevin Rathbun Steak: This jont delivers manly sized portions with the expertise of high caliber fine dining. Most joints go big but sacrifice quality in the process. Not the case here. The decor is pretty nice too: gray brick walls, metallic tree branch lighting and stained glass. This is your “converted warehouse” sort of joint, and as a man with hairy gonads, I like warehouses and all things industrial.
154 Krog St NE, Atlanta, GA 30307

10) Murray’s Steakhouse: This place keeps it classy, and has been for nearly 70 years. When you look at the restaurant from the street, you’ll think you’re on a movie set or that you just stepped off a fucking time machine, back into the golden age of America, when times were simpler. This joint boasts an impressive selection of beef cuts in an incredible variety of styles. It was opened up by a husband and wife team in 1946, so it makes a great romantic date spot as well as a destination for steak night with the guys.
26 S 6th St, Minneapolis, MN 55402

Commentary, Education

DIY Sous Vide & The Searzall

March 20, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Recently my cousin sent me a text message with some pretty alarming and exciting photos and videos.

Yeah, that’s right… the motherfucker made his own sous vide machine, cooked up some filets to medium rare, and then seared them the fuck off in a cast iron skillet to get some texture on the edges.

What exactly is a sous vide machine, for you non-food nerds? The words translated from French mean “under vacuum.” It is essentially a hot tub for meat. How it works: you place vacuum sealed meats into the water bath and leave them there until the meat comes up to the proper temperature, which is set and regulated with a water heater and temperature controller. You can’t overcook the meat! You get perfect medium rare shit every time, evenly cooked through and through.

As you can imagine, I was flipping out at what my cousin had achieved. I browsed some DIY sous vide instructional websites a few years back when I was living in a house on Long Island, but it seemed like a ton of effort. I thought to myself, “I’ll just get a real-deal machine someday.” But once I saw these things from my cousin, I knew it was time to pull the trigger.

Lucky for me, my cousin is super handy and craftsmanlike when it comes to stuff like this, and he has access to a bunch of great tools like dremels and drill presses.

A flurry of texts immediately ensued. It’d be fun to build one together, I thought. THIS LINK is the instructional we worked from. My cousin ordered a bunch of the materials online…

I pulled my cooler out of the closet, which would serve as the main cooking vessel or “hot tub” (and it saved me some bucks for not having to buy a plastic tub).

and I ordered a vacuum sealer via Amazon Prime…

I also nabbed a blow torch, a can of propane, and a Searzall, because I want to flame that shit sometimes instead of finishing in a pan. Plus, this works great if I ever do fish – the skin… oh maaaaan it gets crispy…

I sent the dimensions of my cooler lid area to my cousin:

He used this to figure out how to cut the plexi down to size to serve as the top portion that suspends the water heater in position. He also built the temperature control housing, and wired the power supply for the temperature control unit and heater probe (thermometer).

I was initially concerned that the hinged top of my cooler wouldn’t close properly with the plexi in place. It turns out that closing the top tight isn’t too big of a problem when you’re using a nicely insulated vessel like a cooler. Also, we dropped the plexi to a lower lip within the cooler, so the thing closes nicely now:

Then you suction this to one of the walls. Essentially this is a water circulator. It keeps the water swirling around so that there are no warm or cold spots within the bath, which makes for a nice even cooking temperature.

BOOM! I can’t wait to fire this fucker up. I’m going to pick up some fish and beef right the fuck now.

Commentary

NYC Craft Beer Festival

March 15, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Just a quick note about an awesome event I went to yesterday: the NYC Craft Beer Festival.

It was held at the Lexington Avenue Armory, which is an awesome old slice of NYC history:

There were upwards of 70 brewers giving out tastes of their stuff, free with the cost of admission ($50).

Some favorites were Gun Hill, Abita, Atlantic, Ballast Point, Perennial, Kuka and Oskar Blues.

Commentary

International Restaurant & Foodservice Show 2015

March 9, 2015 Johnny Prime 3 Comments

Since my wife is a kick-ass baker, she gets passes to these events every year. Last year I couldn’t make it, so I made sure I had room in my schedule to take advantage this time around.

Apologies in advance for what is essentially a photo-dump here. I took photos of and tasted so many great things. I will basically annotate the more memorable ones, but feel free to ask any questions in the comments if you see a photo of something that I don’t explain well enough.

First we hit the Japanese pavilion, which I was psyched about because there is inevitably a ramen showing.

Three different flavors of apricot booze:

Pure MSG used to cook these mushrooms. UMAMI, as the idiots say.

Bonito shavings in a bag for making dashi broth:

And the tools used to create said shavings:

Black garlic – good shit. Soft, pungent, but not breath-killing.

Ramen! Tonkotsu broth:

That little cup of ramen was from this station:

This place had different colored and flavored soy paper for use with sushi rolls:

Famous noodle makers Sun:

Seaweed snack packs:

Matcha powder vendors:

This tofu was showing off a soy sauce specifically made for sashimi:

An interesting vessel for hot tea:

This company makes all natural unsweetened unfiltered un-fucked-with sparkling grape juice. The shit was delicious:

Some treats that were made with the mach powder:

Another noodle company – these ones gluten free. They were actually pretty good!

FISH!

This reminded me of porridge, but made with sesame seeds:

More ramen – this one was Italian fusion style, with tomato and fish broth, veggies and parmesan cheese:

Gotta love these little fucking sodas:

Okay here’s a little break out for some good shit. At the end of the Japanese pavilion we stumbled into these trays of perfectly pink meat. Veal, lamb, and beef, to be precise, all from New Zealand. All natural grazing, no hormones or fucked up shit happening. The stuff was delicious. Take a look:

I look up, and instantly recognize this dude from TV. It’s Chef Russel Jackson from “The Next Food Network Star” and Dissident Chef / Subculture Dining fame. He was in the midst of hamming it up for me in this shot with some gnashed teeth, but his helper’s hand got in the fuckin’ way!

He was cooking up the goods!

This joint put forth some really high quality Scottish salmon. One was even pastrami flavored.

There were tons of bread people. So awesome looking:

Nice natural apple juices:

The Piggery had a great selection of pig-centric items. my favorites were the pate and the capacola:

Some really nice looking fucking pasta!

Sausage party!!!

Some really nice moonshine from Dutch’s Spirits, made from 100% cane sugar:

This place was pushing their fancy presenting cups for passed food, but they were also serving a nice fresh quinoa dish in a shitty old cup:

Speaking of vessels for serving food… these are all edible – pretty neat:

Items for shaving meats. Who doesn’t like shaved meat?

Stuffed grape leaf cigars:

Finishing salts:

Innovative cheeses:

These lamb purveyors were planning to cook up some really nice lamb bacon … but not until the following day of the show. Bummer. They did have lamb tacos though.

This was some really great French style meats, like pate, blood sausage, head cheese, etc.

Here’s my wife lined up with some gargantuan-sized mixers:

Knives for me!

SAUCE out the ass!

A big fat fucking octopus:

These Two Rivers dudes were serving up some carved beef:

And… PIECE OF SHIT systems… FREE!!!

Okay now on to these guys.

I was blown away by the stuff they had under the glass case, but here’s a quick look at some of the best.

A5 marbling, bitch! It’s not Wagyu, but it is a nearby prefecture.

Here piggy, piggy piggy…

Oh fuck yes…

We found our way into a booze corral. First we tried Whistle Pig rye, which is made 100% from rye and no other grains. I liked it a lot, though retail at about $75 seems a little high.

This shit is tea that is specifically meant for mixing with booze:

And although this stuff doesn’t have too much alcohol content, it is REALLY easy to slam:

Our last stop was at the pastry competition. This was essentially all chocolate sculpture stuff. I guess the theme was chic fashion or something.

Close up:

Detail on that last one:

A little closer:

Reverse side of that last one:

This one didn’t make it. Must have collapsed. Either that, or someone raged and started flipping tables:

That’s about it, assholes!

Burgers, Commentary, Food Halls, Midtown West, Other, Ramen, Restaurant Reviews

City Kitchen

March 8, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

City Kitchen is a small second floor food hall that has some pretty decent proprietors in it. All of the food sold within is pretty much meant for take-out as opposed to dine-in, though there are a few tables available and bar seating along with windows.

I’ve decided to lump all of my reviews for each place within into this one post for easy access.

First is Kuro Obi, the ramen joint at the far end.

This is an offshoot of Ippudo. They offer the karaka-men spicy pork and chicken broth ramen. It was good. The noodles were the wavy egg style, and all the ingredients within were great. I just wish for $13 I got more than two thin slices of the pork belly.

Next up was Whitman’s for a burger and fries.

The burger was great – cooked nicely to medium, good pickles, mayo coverage, lettuce and tomato. Excellent bun (potato) as well.

The fries were lackluster. Maybe I should have upgraded to blue cheese fries. They were just a little greasy and not crispy enough.

For dessert get some “shaved snow,” An ice-cream textural spin on shave ice.

We had the banana cream, finished with some coconut shavings and condensed milk (and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal).

Nab some donuts from Dough on your way out. But if you see the famous hibiscus flavored ones, get as many as you can. They sell out quick.

We tried lemon poppy and chocolate this time. Both were amazing, doughy, big, soft, and flavorful even if not fresh out of the oven/fryer. But I was bummed that the hibiscus was all gone by time we finished our ramen and burger. Ahh what the hell… I’ll throw in some shots of the hibiscus donut from way back when I first tried them at another location: