Up until recently, I never ever thought of MAC 24/7 when I wanted to eat out. I vaguely remember coming here once in middle school, but only vaguely remember it as a neutral experience.
I dined in here once after work to take advantage of Industry Night with one of Fran's co-workers, and the mochi pancakes were SO GOOD I knew I had to come back. My prayers were answered when Spoon Hawaii was invited to the New Menu Tasting Media Event. We got to try a variety of their newest items, and I especially loved the Lobster Mac & Cheese Benedict, Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast, and the Coco Moco, which was a gigantic half-baked cookie with ice cream from Lapperts. We were offered single-serving portions of all nine menu items.I was bummed at first because I was so sure I wouldn't be satisfied with just that, but ho brah they proved me wrong. To top it off they brought out the mochi pancakes (I think I'm psychic) for us to try, but by then most attendees had left, so we got to take home SO. MANY. PANCAKES. but i had case competition practice and had to rush to school and gave up my pancakes as an apology for being so late ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Ryan, founder of Hawaii Happy Hours, invited me onboard to help him with his app when I met him at the Otoro event. He's currently working on the Deals platform on his app to give users awesome discounts at participating restaurants, which means menu tastings back-to-back-to-back for us.
The first tasting, at The Street by Michael Mina featured pretty much all of the vendors, to market their Street Pass. The chicken quesadilla's from Mi Almita Cantina were probably my favorite, and the honey biscuit from The Street Test Kitchen wasn't anything like the Popeyes biscuit, but just as addictive. The next day, we got to enjoy P.F Chang's menu once again, and everything was deeelicious (except for the shrimp, because it had mayo, bleghhh). The following day, we met with the management of Appetito Craft Pizza & Wine Bar to try a variety of their Happy Hour foods. I'm thinking of going back again just to get the Spicy Meatballs & Garlic Cheese Bites. Just when I thought we were done, we had yet another tasting at Stripsteak three days later. Their happy hour menu was definitely on the pricier side (duh, they're $$$ on Yelp versus $$ for all the other restaurants), but I was ecstatic to try their food, because my professor from Freshman year was raving about them since they first opened. Ryan and I basically fought over the Baked King Crab Dip, the sashimi was super fresh, the ahi poke taco's were unique to say the least, and the steak... okay I barely tried the steak, but the fries that came with the steak were awesome. Aaaand Ryan outdid himself once again the week after, and got Il Lupino on board, so I rushed over from class and switched shifts at my other job twice to make it to this shoot (and major shoutout to Ryan for stalling as long as possible to allow me to get there LOL). The food was bomb af, especially the gnocchi and Pane di Pomodoro con Prosciutto. Spoon Hawaii is on a roll with exclusive media events! I rushed from work (as always) to the Royal Hawaiian Center to sample and go behind-the-scenes at Kokoro Cafe and Tim Ho Wan.
Kokoro Cafe is a cute little local sweets spot next to Kulu Kulu in the food court at RHC, where they serve taiyaki-inspired shaka waffles with a filling, soft-serve, and toppings, along with mochi waffles and slushies. The Shaka Boom's were so photogenic and so so delicious (the chocolate and pineapple Dole Whip were my favorites), but the real winner for me was the Mochi Pop, because I loveeeee anything mochi, and these were so warm, chewy, and not too sweet. I haven't heard of Tim Ho Wan until today, but apparently it's super popular around the world, and I can see why. The food, when compared to Legend Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown (where my family always goes), is very average. HOWEVER. the Baked BBQ Pork Buns. Wow. I still think about them sometimes, because they were so good. The sweet, soft but slightly crispy bun filled with the bbq pork filling was so addicting. Jess was raving about them, but with my sky-high dim sum expectations, I didn't think much of her raving review. Little did I know I would eat an entire order and get two more orders to go. Spoon Hawaii was invited to ShoreFyre's grand opening at the International Market Place, and The Pizza Press at Pearl Highlands Shopping Center.
In the AM, Alani and I ate brunch at ShoreFyre, and this event was different from other media events, because - get this - we got to choose whatever we wanted on the menu. Anything. Everything. Whatever we wanted. I was ecstatic. This was probably my favorite event so far. The food was all so amazing, and the views from the lanai were beautiful. I've written about this place twice now, so I won't go into detail, but TL;DR, the food was bomb af. In the PM, I attended The Pizza Press event, where we got to "publish" our own pizza. Comparable to Pieology in price and toppings, but what really got me was that this place had goat cheese. It's my new obsession lol They also had ice cream sandwiches, where they use their house-baked chocolate chip cookies, and boy-oh-boy that cookie was so friggin good. Chewy, chocolatey, soft, and did I mention chocolatey? I also met Kelli, from Frolic Hawaii, and we decided to meet sometime to talk, and I am so so so excited because I love all the food content they post. I think I died and went to heaven, because we got to try Charmy's Ice Cream and Vintage Cave Choco Magic in the new Shirokiya Village Walk. Hina helped me get in touch with the people in charge to do a Spoon Hawaii collaboration, in which we were able to sample three different cones from Charmy's and a whole array of sweets from Choco Magic.
The ice cream cones were all sooooo cute (kawaii?) and photogenic, I regret not taking more pictures with them (because I honestly just wanted to devour all of them). They took rather long to melt, which made it so much easier to take all my pics. The vanilla and strawberry soft serve swirl was my favorite, cause the vanilla was super light and the strawberry was like a tart Japanese strawberry gummy taste. I thought I wouldn't be able to take any more sugar after the three ice cream cones, but lo and behold, I was the last one still eating the chocolate from Vintage Cave Choco Magic. The dark chocolate (which is my favaoriteeee type of chocolate) was so so so smooth and rich, and I'm pretty sure I ate like 1400 calories worth of brownies, strawberries, and chocolates, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Living near the new student apartments, Hale Mahana, I've seen the progress it's gone through since they started building last year. They're finally finished, and as students move in, restaurants are slowly building their presence too.
Spoon Hawaii was invited to an exclusive first-tasting of Raising Cane's, which (as probably all mainlanders know already) is a fast-food chicken fingers chain, that started in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The hype was huge, and although I wasn't going insane over the food like most people there, I have to admit the tenders were very... tender. lol. It wasn't greasy like KFC, and the outside was super crisp and light. And the Texas Toast? Bruh. I'll take twelve please; actually, you can swap the cole slaw and/or the fries for the toast too - and that's exactly what I did with all the grand opening coupons they gave us. We brought back enough to feed six Quach Families. |