Friday Part 1 - Presentation, Golden Palace and Sikdorak

August 10, 2012

What an incredible day! There is so much to share. I know this will be a multiple part post.

The first half of the day revolved around work. Ann arranged for me to give a presentation of the DVFR data downtown at Kinau Hale, the main Department of Health building. I really didn't expect that anyone would come since there was such short notice. However, a LOT of people came. I was so pleasantly surprised. I did the presentation and it went pretty well. Not perfect but pretty well. I am glad we were able to share this information with other programs. To the people that came to this presentation and all the people who made my time during this internship at the Hawaii State Department of Health such an incredible experience - MAHALO! (Thank you!)

With that finished it was time for lunch. A lot of folks said their goodbyes to me at Kinau Hale since they had to get back to the office. Ann, Lisa, Emily and Jane and I went to Golden Palace in Chinatown for dim sum. Here are some of the items that we ordered. I cannot name them all but I didn't have anything that wasn't delicious. Also, their dim sun is VERY inexpensive. So had this huge meal and it was only $10.00 each!!!
These are taro puffs. They are SO GOOD. They have something in the center, maybe a little piece of pork? Then a bunch of mashed taro around that, then an outer crispy crumbly coating. It is hard to describe. They are wonderful. I mix a little dish of Chinese hot mustard sauce and shoyu (soy sauce) then dip the taro puff in that. OMG SO SO GOOD. I am addicted.

 Vegetable spring roll, this has taro in it. So imagine a vegetable spring roll that had mashed potato.

 Turnip cakes. These taste just like potato pancakes not like turnips at all.

 Blurry picture of a pork dumpling of some variety. My favorite of the steamed dumplings.

 Spinach dumping in a rice flour wrapper. I didn't have this myself.

 A variety of pork dumpling. Yummy.

 Several types of dim sum and jasmine tea. I do know the plate closest tot he bottom center was turnip cakes. The far left was a mixed seafood item wrapped in a tofu wrapper. The middle (which is being picked up by chopsticks) is a shrimp dumpling, The basket on the right I'm not sure what that was.

 Shrimp stir fry.

 No idea what this was. Some sort of noodle dish. Look closely and you can see the wide noodles under the greens, mushrooms and meat on top.

Ann dropped me off and I was able to spend the afternoon sorting through gifts and the last of the items to ship home for people. I tried to condense it as much as possible and get rid of extra bags and whatnot. I got a call from Lisa around 5:45. She was downstairs and was offering me a ride to a special event downtown. The Honolulu Museum of Art, the Bishop Museum and I'olani Palace were all open tot he public for the evening for $10.00 and that included free shuttle service between them and special entertainment at each location. I was very happy to go! I am going to make a second post just about the Palace so I can put tons of photos there.

After touring the Palace I was honestly too tired and my ankle too sore to do other museums. I spent from 6pm till almost 9 at the palace. Lisa and I had discussed getting a late dinner so I could see Wayne and Papa George to say my goodbyes to them. So i called Lisa and they all came to pick me up at the palace. From there we went to a restaurant Wayne wanted to try called Sikdorak. This is yakiniku or "grilled meat". What this means is you order your meat then grill it at your own table. It was super fun. This place is open 24 hours a day and for $19.95 is all you can eat. what an INCREDIBLE deal. They also have a good variety of options of meat. We got a lot of options so we could try many things. Along with your meat you choose it comes with white rice, a small dish of salad, sliced cucumbers, kim chee, sliced fish cake, peeled garlic cloves and sliced jalapenos. There is a double sided cause dish for each person with teriyaki sauce in one side and sesame oil with sea salt in the other. A separate small dish of miso sauce is added to the table.You can also ask and receive big lettuce leaves to make your yakiniku into lettuce wraps and red chili sauce called gochujang (it tastes a lot like sriracha).

 Top right is garlic gloves which we cooked slow till they turned into a garlic paste which I ate with spicy ork in lettuce wraps with the red pepper paste. Left of that is short ribs (there are no bones) which were pretty good. In the center is seasoned beef (teri beef) which was very good and tender. The bottom is spicy pork which was my favorite! Top towards the center is pork belly which is fatty portion of pork - way too much fat for me but it is similar to bacon. Top left is beef tongue which is very thin - I tried it and was prepared to be freaked out. It was actually very good, it tastes like very tender been tenderloin. However, I only ate a couple of slices because I coudn't get my brain past what it was.

 One plate of raw meat. Top left is beef tongue slices, top right is pork belly, bottom is a HUGE thich slice of ribeye. The scissors are to cut the meat into whatever sizes you want.

 Full size plates of seasoned beef on the right and spicy pork on the left. Each is sitting in pools of their individual marinade sauce.

I think we ate ourselves into a near coma. We stuffed ourselves and ate WAY more than we should. We had 5 full size plates of meat and 3 half size plates. We were absolute gluttons. We actually had so much seasoned beef and spicy pork that the little grill was so coated with the sauces that the grill itself caught on fire. We waved down the waitstaff and were like, "Ummm... fire... fire... could use some help here..." hehehe. We were done anyway so they shut off the flame. What a fun fun fun time.

They brought me home and I gave hugs all around and said my goodbyes to Papa George and Wayne. I brought my boxes inside so I can pack my last items and ship them home. I waddled up the stairs and barely managed to drag myself into the shower before falling asleep. A nice cool shower and the fan blowing cool air on me was perfect and I went to sleep and slept well.

What an amazing day! I will post the pictures of I'olani palace in the next entry.

To be continued...

Aloha!
~Melissa