Afternoon Tea

Afternoon Tea is one of my favorite dessert shops.  One of my MANY favorite dessert shops.  They change menu constantly.  Nothing is overtly sweet, but everything is presented ever so nicely.

Sweet Fruit Tea (delicious!)

Chestnut Shortcake:  autumn 2026 collaboration with renaissance artists from the Louvre.  This one was Leonardo Da Vinci's Portrait of a Lady.  I don't know if Afternoon Tea needed to pay licensing fee to the Louvre, but I had a delicious cake and some education.  Win-win for me!  That red flower was actually a raspberry shaped like a flower.  The attention to details was amazing!

Chestnut Shortcake

Mrs. GREEN APPLE x mister Donut

Delicious donut with custard filling. And then! Jam with actual apple pieces inside the custard! What a surprise!

The top two were new limited edition flavors and delicious.  The bottom ones were not new, but still very good!

Disney Winnie the Pooh mochi from 7-11

Of course I bought them because they were cute.  Not bad.  I wouldn't buy them again because there were too many other better mochi in 7-11.

One Drop Cafe ワン ドロップ カフェ

one drop cafe is not easy to find. It's tucked in an alleyway above a Korean restaurant.  That alleyway looks abandoned and scary.  It actually took us two tries; first time we got lost and thought we had wandered into forbidden district.

The menu consisted of only three items:  vegan, vegetarian, and pork.  We ordered vegetarian and pork.  The pork dish was more like chicken cordon bleu, but with pork, and I didn't like cheese inside pork.

The vegetarian dish was not bad.  Next time we will try the vegan dish.

Vegetarian

Pork

Restaurant hours

HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA!!!

Happy July 4th!  Here's to next 250!

The Uncle Sam

Happy Mother's Day 2026 & Absolutely No Sugar Pancakes

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour, sifted
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1/2 tspn salt

Wet Ingredients:

• ⅔ cup + 2 tbspn milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tbspn butter (melted)

Note 1:  Definitely sift the flour.  One time I did not sift the flour because I was lazy and did not want to wash another thing.  The pancakes did not get fluffy even though I used the same amount of baking powder.

Note 2:  Somehow I was out of any sweetener, sugar, honey, syrup.  The original recipe called for 1 tbspn of sugar.  I was like, forget it, I'd not add any.

Steps:

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Definitely do this step first.  Then I'll have clean measuring cups and spoons for the wet ingredients.  
2. Combine all wet ingredients in another large bowl.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Fold the mixture and make sure no flour lumps.  I started out with ⅔ cup milk.  If it looked dry or thick batter (I preferred a thinner batter), then I added one more tablespoon of milk.  Today I added two tablespoons.
4. Fry the pancakes in a nonstick pan.  The butter in the batter was greasy enough that I didn't need to add more to the pan.
5. Wait for the bubbles to rise to the top of the pancakes.  Flip.  Cook a few seconds more on the other side.  Continue with the rest of the batter.
6. Serve with jam.

No Sugar pancakes!

The pancakes turned out completely fine without any sweetener in the batter.  From now on I would not add any sugar or honey or syrup.  The pancakes still needed jam and honey on top, but that meant I could cut down even more sugar in my diet!  Yay!

Trader Joe’s Jambalaya

This was a good one.  Big chunks of sausages.  I think I bit down a piece of actual bell pepper.  A little spicy. The portion size was right. The only complaint was the rice wasn't the best.

Front

Back

Microwaved 3 minutes

Microwaved 8 minutes

Trader Joe's Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice

This was average.  It was a little bit spicy, but not spice-y.  English really needs two different words to describe "spicy hot" and "spice-y full of fragrant spices".

The portion size was manageable for a lunch when I wasn't too hungry.  If I were starving, this would not be enough.

Box

Frozen

Microwaved

Trader Joe’s Truffle Risotto

“Naturally flavored with other Natural flavors.”

Hmm, was this natural?  😂

Front

Frozen

Microwaved

Seriously, it wasn’t too bad. The flavor was good.  The rice was acceptable.  And I didn’t feel too yucky after eating this highly-processed frozen food.

⭐⭐⭐

Eating My Way Through Hawaii, USA

Marugame Udon:  I've had Marugame Udon in Japan before, and I really missed it.  Before going to Hawaii, I found out there is a Marugame Udon in Waikiki!  I told Math Teacher that we would be eating there every meal, everyday.  He said I was crazy.  Yes, and we went THREE times!  By the third time, however, we finally realized the portion size in USA was bigger than in Japan.  So we over-stuffed ourselves.

Tan Tan Udon, sweet potato tempura

Kitsune Udon, zucchini and egg tempura

Creamy Broth Udon, crab and zucchini tempura

Udon Motto

Tane Vegan Izakaya:  OMG good.  If we were to return to Hawaii, we would definitely go back to this restaurant.  We were not sure if it was the skills of the chefs, or the quality produce the restaurant procured, but mango tasted more mango-y, eggplant more eggplant-y, and blueberries more blueberries-y.  I've never had such good cream cheese in a Philadelphia Roll.  So flavorful, so creative.  So we ended up going there TWICE!  We basically ordered almost every food items off the happy hour menu.

Front Entrance

Cocktail and Mocktail

Roast Brussel Sprouts

Philadelphia Roll

Agedashi Tofu

Gyoza

Happy Hour Nigiri Sampler

Hand roll

Ube Cheesecake

Cocktail and Mocktail

Hand rolls

Happy hour nigiri sampler

Smoked Beets

Eringii

Ube Cheesecake

Island Vintage Coffee and Island Shaved Ice:  the coffee was meh.  We tried shaved ice because that was something every tourist did in Hawaii. Very refreshing on a hot Hawaii day, and I was surprised there were hidden deliciousness inside the ice.  (I had thought it'd be all ice).

Island Latte

Mango Shaved Ice

Teishoku:  after Bishop Museum, we walked about ten minutes to this local shopping plaza.  No tourists at all, and that was why Teishoku was delicious.  Simple, mom and pop food.

Broiled Butterfish Misoyaki

Vegetable Tempura

The Sunrise Shack: the coffee was bad. We ended up throwing it away. The smoothie bowl was delicious. Healthy, too. A great way to start a morning.

Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Lasagna

Surprisingly, this was not bad.  I could taste a little bit of butternut squash flavor in the bechamel sauce.  I really liked the pumpkin seeds on top.

On the other hand, this was two servings?!  This was smaller than my face!  Product of Italy.  Was this really for two Italians?  Or am I just fat?

Front

Back

Frozen

Microwaved

Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Risotto

I swear; it tasted better than it looked.  Chunks of butternut squash.  The rice was microwaved nicely considering it was frozen food.

Front

Back

Frozen

Microwaved