Dim Sum, Shave Ice and North Shore Grinds

July 6, 2012

What a busy day today. I woke up extra early hoping to have time to pack the boxes to send home. I was able to get that done and headed into work at 8. It took a while to pack everything and make sure nothing would get destroyed as the packages were beaten up during shipping. I wanted to share the "off-street parking" option that we have here. It always makes me smile to see this huge yellow Hummer. Well, when gas is over $4 a gallon why not just throw your money in the wind and buy something that gets 1 mile to the gallon.

This morning I worked on tweaking the DVFR data and cleaning it up. For lunch Ann, Lisa and I went to have dim sum. We ate at a place called Happy Days.We entered what seriously looked like the proverbial hole in the wall place but inside it was big and quite nice. The food was alright but the dim sum in Chinatown was better and cheaper. We went here because it was close to work and we didn't have a lot of time. I will not be going back to this place while I am here. After reading the reviews on Yelp and Urbanspoon I REALLY won't be going back. We didn't have any serious problems during our visit but there are many places to try and only so many days that I have here.

The huge fish in a tank at the entrance.Yes it is alive. This is only half of it. It is huge... And kindof creepy. And in a tank with nothing but water. Maybe it is bored?

We had lots of dishes. I can't recall what ANY of the names were but I can try to describe what was in the items. This first one was filled with pork. It didn't taste like a potsticker but was good.

This had pork and the wrapper is thin tofu. I didn't eat this one.

This is a fish and seafood dim sum of some type, wrapped in thin tofu. I didn't eat this one either. I don't care as much for the thin tufu sheet style wrappers.

This was steamed manapua with char shiu. I have had the baked ones several times but this was the first time I have had it steamed. It was tasty. I think I like the baked ones better, but these were good and i enjoyed trying one and finding out the difference.

 These are fried chicken feet. Hell no I did not eat these. None of us did. Ann got them for her husband but i took a picture. We took them to him after lunch. ICK ICK ICK.

 This was really delicious. This is like a steamed sweet rice cake. Kindof like jello made from rice. It was very good and I really liked it.

 This is an egg custard filled sweet bun. I really liked this. I was apparently in a mood for sweets today.

 This is by the checkout. They are cooking several items and it looked interesting.

We left the restaurant, paid for parking and went up the street to the post office. After a rather annoying wait while the one postal worker showed someone how to fill out forms for a while we finally got our packages shipped. We quickly drove to Ann's house and gave her husband Rico the lunch she got him then went back to work.

After lunch we returned to work and had a very productive meeting. This meeting was to cover the overall violence assessment plan to determine both incidence (new cases) and prevalence (existing and new cases) of violence across the lifespan in Hawaii. Ann had developed a powerpoint to cover this as well as to explain the purpose of the Sexual Health Survey we are working on. This seemed to be quite productive and the Family Planning supervisor is going to look over the family planning questions and determine final choices. We will meet again on Wednesday to confirm the questions and go from there for finalizing the survey. From there we await IRB approval and then I get it entered into Survey Monkey. It should be good to go for piloting in the fall.

After the meeting Ann and I discussed a bit about the report for the DVFR. I was working on a couple of charts and trying to determine the best way to make that information presentable. I'm still mulling over that. I am not happy with how it reads, I think it is still confusing. I hope my brain will mull over it and come up with a solution over the weekend.

After work Lisa, Papa George and I went for shave ice at Your Kitchen. We went here once before with Ann and I shared the mango shave ice which was delicious. I had read reviews online that the strawberry and milk shave ice was fantastic so I wanted to try it. It was FANTASTIC. It tasted like fresh strawberry juice and the milk was homemade condensed sweetened milk. Combined it was just amazing. I loved it!

Lisa and Papa George shared a green tea shave ice. For some reason here the call it shave ice instead of shaved ice. regardless, the green tea was good but I liked mine better!

We each also got a small dish of what they call "melted pudding". They top it with a caramel sauce. I only had a bite and brought the rest home for tomorrow. I had plenty of sweets today already. However, I wanted to try it since i had seen it the first time at this place. It tastes like a hybrid between vanilla pudding and flan. It doesn't taste like custard at all. It is hard to describe but good.

Lisa and papa George were going home to dinner (Wayne was cooking) so we went next door to North Shore Grinds so I could just pick up something for dinner. My ankle was hurting pretty bad so I knew I didn't want to cook anything.I hadn't eaten a whole lot for lunch at dim sum, even though I took lots of pictures. So I was really wanting something for dinner besides just the sweet deliciousness. I've had dessert before dinner several times lately. Can't say that bothers me at all :)

The menu was rather amazing. I don't know if you can read this but the offerings were pretty impressive for a TINY little place.It serves plate lunches, sandwiches, salads and Hawaiian foods.

I ordered the #19 herb crusted mahi mahi with lemon cream sauce. It comes with mac salad and rice (of course). I brought it home to eat so Lisa and Papa George could get home to their own dinner. Lisa did order the teri steak and had me try a bite. It was ono! (delicious) I had her try a bite of mine and she liked mine a lot. Once I got home and settled in i had my food. The mahi mahi was very ono. The mahi mahi was tender and flaky and breaded in an herb blended panko and fried crispy. The sauce was under the fish, which kept the top of the fish crispy and kept the whole thing from becoming a soggy mess. The mac salad was fairly tasteless but I added salt and pepper at home and it was fine. To me the mac salad here is always tasteless so it was pretty normal. The 2 scoops of rice (ACK! So much rice!) I bagged up and will have tomorrow with something else. Just too much to eat in one sitting. It was very good though and I enjoyed it. At $8.85 for this HUGE amount of food I thought it was very reasonable!

For my last picture I wanted to share something just neat. When I was walking up the steps to the house after Lisa and Papa George dropped me off I looked over and there was this interesting little plant growing between the lava rocks that make up the wall surrounding the steps. These little plants were all over the place in the lava rocks, just finding a way to sprout up and grow even in a rock. I thought it looked neat so I took a picture.

And now it is time for sleep. I am very tired. not sure of plans for tomorrow so I'll just see what happens. Have a wonderful Friday evening.

Aloha ahiahi ia oukou, (Good evening to all of you)
~Melissa