The one dip I love most is home made (Duke’s in a pinch) mayonnaise for my fries. To me one of the most perfect bites in existence is a hot, crisp fry, nicely salted, dipped in mayonnaise, but the other end of the meal, a bite of rare steak dragged through the mixture of mayonnaise mingled with peppery red wine reduction at the bottom of the soup plate in which the steak frites is served is a pretty fine bite, too. That mayonnaise is also terrific as a dip for a cold, steamed artichoke.
5 Likes
I’ll dip a spoon into caviar. That’s about the only dip I Iike. Everything else reminds me of over-amped baby food. I’ve eaten ‘dips’ you’ve probably never heard of. I’ll try anything once. Most leave me with a three day tastebud hangover, wondering if the people who came up with them have perpetual sinus infections and that these concoctions they come up with are the only things they can actually taste. I can usually taste every spice they put in them, and can identify the seven they should have left out. I can also tell when the bay leaf used in a stock was garbage. Blessing or a curse? Sometimes I wonder.
My wife and I visited Hawaii once. In less than 36 hours on the ground there she was booking travel for us to Ibiza. That’s when I knew I’d married the right woman.
2 Likes
OK, so you’re in a tiny minority of people who don’t like dips. I guess your frites never meet mayo? You remind me of the vegetarian sommelier in a steahouse.
Your aversion is still poor reason to call people in the vast majority of cultures who DO make and enjoy dips, dips. It’s just gratuitously insulting.
I think Hawai’i nei was better off you abruptly fled. Did you eschew romesco, sofregit, samfaina, picada, and allioli and insult locals when you arrived on Ibiza? Beware calling a Catalonian a ‘Dip’.
Thanks for noticing me not mincing my words.
1 Like
YW. I bet you actually do partake of dips.
1 Like
Yeah, whatever. I’m just thrilled not to have to live in some kitschie Disneyland.
I do recall one that we had in Vietnam that was pretty good, very delicate, sophisticated and refined. I cannot remember the name of the dish at the moment. Half “dip,” half sauce. More a sauce. It’ll come to me in a bit. Definitely not something you’d find, even in caricature, at some chain restaurant.
1 Like
I remember fondly a dip for tom rang muoi, salt baked shrimp. It was lemon, a little pepper, and very fine salt on the bottom. As you dipped your shrimp, just the right amount of salt was stirred up. I never thought of caviar as a dip. I like it best by itself. Second best is on sour cream on a Belgian endive leaf. I never got mixing it with egg, lemon, toast, etc. If we are going there, I’d rather have an egg salad sandwich.
1 Like
If that’s all you experienced in Hawai’i, you’re truly impoverished.
1 Like
Not asserting caviar as a dip, just a play on words on dipping a spoon into some…
Nothing beats an egg-and-olive sandwich as made in the Mississippi Delta. I do pain de mie at home from time to time and always make my aunt’s egg and olive to go with.
2 Likes
It’s a culinary and cultural desert. I know you don’t think it is, but it is.
When we’re in NY, I’m a $50 cab ride from the cuisine from 20 different countries, not to mention the Michelin starred shops. See a show on Broadway all in-between. Go the the Village Vanguard for jazz.
Catch the Jets or the Giants on Sunday, basketball, hockey, Yankees baseball. I guess you could watch the University of Hawaii “Rainbows” play football. It’s a self-parodying joke.
In France, please, I can travel tip-to-tip and side-to-side for what amounts to couch change. I can enjoy the beach and be snow skiing where the winter olympics have been held in less than three hours, not to mention the food along the way. I can drive from Champagne to Aix in five hours.
The first time I encountered your personae on Chowhound I never understood why you were advertising that you live in Hawaii, as if it were some Mecca for culinary professionals or even serious gourmandes or oenophiles. It is metaphysically impossible to be on the cutting edge of either and be based in Hawaii. It’s just not possible. Sorry. What you think is a serious food and wine scene simply isn’t.
Not at all, but how would you know from your moment in time there? Many restaurants offer very good food. But if you went to Hawai’i expecting a wealth of haute cuisine, impoverishment is only one of your problems.
The culture is rich and deep. You have only to get out of your condo/VRBO and actually meet people outside the tourist industry.
As for pro athletic spectating, you make it sound like its absence is a bad thing. Pro franchises usually come with dirty cities, crime and money worship. I feel dirty just watching it on TV.
1 Like
I don’t keep up with Hawaii. It doesn’t show up on my radar much. Is there even one restaurant there with one star, on any of the islands? Ballet? Opera? Symphony? Galleries? Museums? Who is Hawaii’s Givenchy, Chanel, Gautier, Dior?
It’s a pretty place, sort of, I don’t think it beats the French Riviera and other countries/places along the Mediterranean. It’s just OK. It’s missing savoir faire, in the deepest and most meaningful sense of the term.
Ultimately, your weakness is that you don’t understand food in any sort of meaningful context. You’re outside looking in, advertise it, but don’t seem to realize it.
That sounds good Tim, it actually does, but that’s not the flavor profile of the one that’s on the tip of my tongue. I’ll make a note though, which is something I should do more often. I’m getting too old.
That’s pretty obvious. Yet you call it a wasteland.
Yes there are 3 starred restaurants: La Mer, L’Uraku, and Morimoto. There are also three chains with Michelin stars that have recently opened or announced new restaurants in Honolulu, including the Michelin-starred restaurants Tim Ho Wan, Waikk-Golden Egg Steak, and Yauatcha. In New York City, a sister restaurant to Makili has received a star. Pretty good for the most remote island archipelago on the planet.
Maybe you don’t know this, but there is no Michelin Guide for Hawai’i. Unless a US restaurant is in NYC, Las Vegas, Chicago, LA or San Francisco, it stands about the same chance of winning a star as Christian McCaffrey stood of winning the Heisman.
Yes, there is opera, ballet (3 companies and countless hula halaus), symphony, galleries, museums, etc.
Knock off the insult schtick, Triumph.
2 Likes
Agreed! If you can’t find great food in Hawaii you must be clueless. As a seafood lover (and diver), my trips there have been incredibly satisfying.
1 Like
At least Triumph is funny at times.
2 Likes
It seems that these days you can find extremely good food most anywhere, but the places featuring people like Keller, White, etc. are rare and tend to be in or near large cities, usually places like Paris, London, NY or SF. Sure, there are exceptions, especially places focused on fresh, local produce and high quality meats and fowl that pop up in or near rural settings and seafood focused places near the ocean. It was not that long ago that people raved about the food in New Orleans. There is plenty of excellent food to be had there, but I find Houston to be a better food town.
Seafood in Hawaii sounds like a natural. What are the great vegetables grown there? Any great local cheese makers or ranchers growing beef, lamb, goat, pork, etc.? My mainland perspective is doubtless wrong, but I wonder about the availability of land for these ventures.
When did people stop raving about the food in NOLA? Have you tried N7?
Fruits and vegetables in Hawai’i are amazing. I have a friend on Kaua’i who commercially farms hundreds of acres. I made him a custom banana knife to his specs. My experience there and on other islands is that there is a strong culture of small vendors at rotating farmers’ markets.
Cattle are Hawai’i’s third most valuable ag commodity. Meat production in 2021 was north of 37 million pounds. Hawai’i ranks 40th in state beef cattle production, with nearly as many head as kept in New York. It falls short with dairy cows, mostly because the native fodder isn’t good, and it’s $$$ to import.
1 Like
Lots of stuff, including some of the best onions in the world.
As for meats… pork is super popular and incredibly delicious. Can’t speak to the rest as seafood and pork are the only things I have done during my visits. But 40 percent of land on Hawaii is farmland, with 3,600 crop farms and 1,100 livestock farms that include cattle, hogs, milk, eggs and honey.
Line caught swordfish - yum!
Best fruit ever!!!
1 Like
Maui Sweets. Was actually able to buy a few in a local “gourmet” market about 30 years ago. I was thrilled. Never saw them anywhere again. (east coast).
1 Like
