Hiroshi's in Honolulu

I guess my excuse for all the fancy restaurants is that this is a continuation of my birthday celebration--combined with me and Kea wanting to get to all these restaurants before we have to fly back to Michigan. So, Hiroshi's is one of my other favorite restaurants. We dream about the Kampachi Carpaccio--or as we like to call it, Kampaccio--all year. Honestly, I don't even know what kampachi tastes like because it's the sauce and garnishes that really make the dish. We found green onion, ginger, tiny cubes of tofu, tomato, and yellow bell pepper. And Kea doesn't even like tomato and bell pepper.

My new favorite dish is the chawan mushi. Usually it's basically a savory custard with things like little bits of seafood and shiitake in it. It is typical Japanese food but I never had it growing up so any kind of chawan mushi kind of excites me. This one was amazing though. The custard was on the bottom and there was broth on top. I think the truffle oil really made it because it was just rich, yummy goodness. But not too rich. Kea said he was sure there were ingredients in it that he didn't like but all together it tasted great. It was so good that I didn't mind at all that the portion was small enough that it was served in an espresso cup. That's how good the food is here. It's so expensive ($88 for two, no drinks) but so worth it.

Our other favorite thing was the complimentary rice crackers and wasabi aioli that are served before the meal. The crackers are made out toasty puffed rice stuck together and broken into irregular chip-sized shapes. It somehow manages to taste better and better throughout the meal.

We also made sure to save room for dessert. I had the Haupia Lemongrass Creme Brulee and Kea had the Bananas Foster Ice Cream Puff. Both were awesome. The desserts here are beautiful and not too big. They're served on rectangular plates with different elements set out in a row. So I had the creme brulee on the left, orange sorbet on the right, and some fruit and sauces artfully set up in the middle. Dessert here is so satisfying!

We also had the sushi duo, panko-crusted ahi, spinach salad, and almond-crusted mahi. These were all okay. The miso salmon in the sushi duo was a little salty; I liked the ginger-scallion ahi better. The almond-crusted mahi was my least favorite. It was a little too rich and I think mahi just reminds me of junk fish.