Austen "I spill more than I eat" I.'s Profile

I like to GSD. (Get Shi..Stuff Done) I like having wifi that isn't slow as molasses. I like sitting in comfortable chairs. I like having french pressed coffee.

If you like all of these things, you'll _love_ The Box Jelly. A cool, sheik coworking space popping up in Honolulu. It's near Starbucks (if that's your fancy), food and a lot of other options to propel you towards results you want.

People are accommodating and helpful.

I love working here.

Set A.  2 spicy cold black noodle and kalbi.  $30 divided by 2.  

Food served within 10 minutes.  

Surprisingly refreshing noodles and ultra tender kalbi.

Sitting to leaving took a little over 45 minutes with eating and conversation.

Yay!  I'm a fan.

I'm a soondubu whore.  I'll whore myself out to anyplace serving great soondubu regardless of the crappy service or a restaurant's "ghetto factor".  So when I found out Chodang has a $4.99 special, I put on my slutty eating clothes and gave it a shot.  What I found was bonafide cheap good eats!  

I tried the soondubu, kalbi, meat jun, and the korean pancake.  Everything tasted great for the price minus the korean pancake.  The pancake was extremely doughy and hard to swallow.  I'll pass on that next time.  

Don't go into Chodang expecting the best korean food of your life.  Go to Chodang expecting to feel satisfied with your meal and the price it took to get to you there.  It's cheap cheap cheap!

I came here for lunch one day during work and followed the advice of Michelle L. and Brandon Y and ordered the Onion soup, Croque Monsieur, and some macaroons.

Onion soup - I lied a bit when I said I followed the advice of Michelle L.  She said to spend the extra $1.25 for the large onion soup.  I ended up getting the small soup and after my first spoonful I instantly regretted skipping the large bowl.  If you read this, don't make the same mistake I did!  Order the large bowl and never look back!  And don't doubt Michelle L's advice!

Croque Monsieur - This was tasty, but nothing spectacular.  The bread was nice and toasty, which went well with the ham, tomato and cheese.  It comes with salad, which can be swapped out with fries for a little extra.  

Macaroons - Everyone talks about the macaroons and for good reason.  They rock!  Don't be afraid to drop $1.50/piece.  Buy a bunch and have a nom nom time.  The Yuzu was my favorite.

La Tour is perfect little lunch spot if you're near Nimitz.  It really is a 3.5 star place with room to grow.  The prices are reasonable, the service is quick, and the food is tasty.  I'll be back to try something new (the La Tour Burger) and hopefully bump up my review to 4 stars.

This is going to be the easiest review ever since everyone has already said everything.  Pho isn't complicated after all right?

Awesome broth, awesome noodles, awesome service.  Just plain awesome Pho.

Before I begin, I bet you're wondering how to pronounce the name of this restaurant.  I never took French, so I always had to refer to this place as "The french restaurant by the Academy of Arts".  So if you're curious its lei-geen-yol.  But don't take my word for it.  Listen for yourself: http://www.howjsay.com...

I have mixed feelings about this place.  

When we arrived, our host/server said he didn't have my reservation down, "but I guess we can accommodate you".  It's not my fault you didn't write down my reservation.  I'm also certain I talked to the same guy the previous day when I called to make the reservation.  But after that incident, he was helpful and attentive.  Maybe we just had a bad start.

Escargot - Decent.  It's not going to blow you away, but it had the normal garlic/butter combo you would expect.

Salmon Filet - Your regular boring salmon filet.  I wouldn't get this.  ever.

Ribeye w/ bordelaise sauce - Darn good.  The cut of beef was a bit tougher than I would expect for a ribeye, but the bordelaise worked well with the steak.

It's a little pricey for what you get, but it's BYOB with a $5 corkage.  That definitely offsets the cost of the meal if you bring a nice bottle of wine.  
Le Guignol is a nice little date spot and should find it's way into everyone's "Favorite Date Spots" list.  Le Guignol was good, but not great.  I'll be back, but I'm going to proceed with caution.

Yelp got another one right.  3-3.5 stars for their burgers.  I had the mushroom, mushroom burger and Kim S. has it right, it's not really a "mushroom mushroom" burger.  It's more like a "mushroom" burger.  The sweet potato fries are crispy and tasty.  You get a side of fries with the garlic fries (I love that there is so much garlic!)

But, don't be mad.  I'm giving Honolulu Burger Company (HBC) 4 stars to pad their yelp star stats.  I'm guilty of abusing the rating system.  And here's why:

Their burgers are a palate opening experience.

It's not practical, but if you're feeling especially geeky and want to try an experiment, bring another hamburger from (insert burger place that doesn't use grass-fed beef).  Take a bite from the grain-fed beef burger.  Notice how fatty it is.  Now that's a burger.  Nom nom nom.  

Now bite the HBC burger.  

Notice the difference?  Can you "feel" how lean the beef tastes?  It's flavorful, but it's missing that inherit meaty familiarity.  Do you miss the saturated fat oozing gushing from every piece?

I know I do.  I love me a fatty, corn-fed burger.  I grew up on it.  We all did.  

But if you step back and take a look in at the bigger burger world picture, isn't it cool to have different varieties to satisfy your burger hunger?  

I love that they use Big Island grass fed, free range beef and local produce.  I think more restaurants should take the leap and provide us with HBC's fare.  

When I want to gain 10 pounds, feel like a slug, and have oil coming through my pores, I'll head over to my favorite burger place.  Yelpers know that sometimes we want fat and we want it all in our belly.  But, when I'm feeling a little adventurous, I'll head over to HBC to experience another side of the burger.

Running is crap.  I got tricked into signing up for the marathon this year.  

"Only 1% of people in the world can say that they've ran a marathon"

"It's an experience"

Crap.  All Crap!

So I was less than excited when I stumbled into the Running Room to get some shoes.  I assumed that I would go in, they would say, "This one's good for novices" and I would go on my way.

Negatory.

Gaston helped me find the shoes that were perfect for me.  He made me walk/jog in the store to figure out what type of shoes would work best for my running style.  When he figured that part out, I tried on more shoes that I can remember to find the one I thought was most comfortable.  He even made me run outside around the store to make sure I was sure about my shoes.

Buying shoes was "an experience" and a good one at that.

Omakase once again.  I'm starting to see a trend.  New place, first time, same order.  Give me what you think is best.

Our server brought out a large sushi platter for 3 of us.  3 pieces each:

($103.50, 3 pieces each.  $4.31/piece)
Ika
Aji
Otoro
Hamachi
Ikura
Hirame
Maguro
Mystery Fish (Our server didn't say what was given to us)

We annihilated the plate.  I bet we would've ate the ceramic platter if it had a fish design.  Everything was scarfed in a matter of minutes.  So much hype.  Too much anticipation.  Self control went out the window.  Well I guess it went through the wall since we were sitting where there were no windows.

But after all of that noming, the consensus was "are we really at 4.5 stars, legendary status Imanas?"

We didn't give up. No no no.

"Omakase.  One more time!"

Round 2 brought us the same fish, different style.  Everything was lightly grilled except the Uni.  Aburi style.

($44.50, 2 pieces each, $3.70 a piece)
Otoro
Salmon
Aji
Hamachi
Saba
Uni

Plate hits the table.  Game on.

Sushi - 0
Us - 2

No one needed to speak after we finished.  I could tell by everyone's reaction that we had indeed come to the right spot.  The aburi toro was killer.  If you can believe it, the grilling brought out the creaminess and teri beef flavors.  Yes teri beef out of toro.  Redonk.  We had to order another round of the aburi toro.

A sushi crazy friend categorizes sushi bars based on quality adjusted value meaning that the fish need not be a 15 on a 10 scale if it's cheap.  Imanas should be in the yelp elite of quality adjusted value spots.  Nothing was over $10 and the majority around the $5-$6 range for 2 pieces.  Imanas is THE value play.  

Parking sucks, reservations only accepted from 5pm-7pm, etc, etc.

I think I've just found my default sushi bar.  Feed me!

I made a mistake and brought her coors light.  It gives her a headache.  Her favorite beer is Michelob Ultra.  Bring it!

Food still rocks!  She is also making a list of rules when coming into her place.  I told her I would post it on yelp when she finishes.  If someone gets the finished list of rules, please post it up!