Archive for February, 2012

At Last! Nabe at Home

Although it’s been on my “would be nice if I had one” list for a long time, I’m not sure why it took me so long to finally buy one. Perhaps it’s due to the limited storage space in our kitchen, our tiny dining table top, the fact that it can get pretty warm in our apartment, I don’t know. But at long last, we have a tabletop burner stove!

This thing is great. Now we can enjoy hot pot, okonomiyaki, and yakiniku parties at home. Plus, in the event of a power outage I can still cook hot ramen. (Traumatic memories from a 24 hour power outage following an earthquake many years ago are still fresh in my mind, when I searched high and low for any restaurant open and serving hot food. Eventually I found Golden Eagle Chinese restaurant – bless them – busily cooking up whatever they could on their gas stoves in the dark to feed the hungry that lined up at their door. From that day, they had a loyal customer in me).

So anyway, I cordially invited hubby to a shabu shabu party for two (then sent him off to buy the groceries). There’s something about cooking your own food that instantly turns a meal into an experience, an activity, a part-ay!

No disrespect here, but our dinner was so much better than Ichiriki. We started with a pot of water and had ponzu and sesame dipping sauces on the side. We ended the meal with udon noodles of course, enjoying the pure beef broth infused with flavor from mushrooms and green onions.

And then we ended up eating shabu shabu again the next day, but with pork instead of beef.

Lunch at Ichiriki

I had a business lunch at Ichiriki the other day. The lunch menu at Ichiriki is great because it’s simple and reasonable. Most nabes are $11.95 + $1.50 to add-on noodles, and you can choose your meat and broth. Rice is included.

We chose the shio nabe (salt based broth) with pork and Ichiriki nabe (a sweeter, shoyu based broth) with beef. Both are good, but I think I like the shio, especially when adding ramen noodles at the end.

The soup gets reduced over time, so you can ask for more broth, but whoa, it was super salty by the end! The nabe was delicious, but I think I exceeded the recommended daily intake of sodium in this one meal.

So we had to balance the sodium intake with… sugar. ←Huh?

Green Tea Warabi Mochi with Green Tea Ice Cream ($4.95)

Uji Kintoki with Vanilla Ice Cream ($4.95) – green tea shave ice with mochi, azuki beans, and condensed milk. After a hot salty meal, these chilly sweet desserts really hit the spot.

I really enjoyed lunch, but I yearned for a healthier version at home with less sodium and more veggies, which inspired the purchase of a certain item the very next day…

MENU: View the menu on their website

Ichiriki Japanese Nabe Restaurant
510 Piikoi St
Honolulu, HI 96814
808.589.2299

Lunch:
11:00a-2:00p daily
Dinner:
5:00p-11:00p Sun-Thu
5:00p-12:00a Fri & Sat

Parking: in the back, free during lunchtime!


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