what am i going to eat??

having days off are important and precious to me.  it's a time for me to catch up on errands, grocery shopping, beach time, spending time with friends, and enjoying time to myself = shopping at ala moana.  i have come to the conclusion though, that if i didn't work at roy's, i would definitely starve to death.  

i've never been one to cook, my mother and father are amazing, don't know why it didn't catch on.  i am an excellent prep cook and i can help execute a dish for 1000 people at a special event.  i must say though, i am a great baker!  lilikoi poundcake anyone??  cooking for myself has always been a struggle for me; hence why i gained some extra weight and was diagnosed with a "fatty liver" a year and a half ago.  since then, i've been careful with my diet and been working out consistently.  i definitely won't deprive myself of delicious food - i just try to not eat fried/greasy/fast food and don't eat past 10pm.

it is definitely a luxury working at roy's - it's not everyday that anyone can enjoy roy's food, but luckily, five days out of seven, i can.  it's nice because the chefs get creative with me and come up with ono dishes!

this is a "canoe" roll.  on our dinner menu, we have a canoe appetizer dish - includes:  spring rolls, mini crab cakes, tuna maki roll, shrimp sticks and baby back ribs.  all five of those items are IN the roll, wrapped in rice and nori!

do you see how massive those rolls are?!?!  i swear to you, i did not eat all that - i finished like two pieces, i shared the rest. 

here's another one - hawaii kai's version of animal fries.  they were trying to make me feel like i was back at home eating at in&out.  trust me, i am not greedy - i always share!!

i really enjoy my days off when i get to go to the beach and watch all the boys body board.  i love this picture!  pretty cool effect with my camera, yah?

the boys have no shame about rolling around in the sand!  it's a great life here.  growing up in hawaii must have been so cool!

i hope you can see this video clip - it's of the boys at sandy's beach.  sandy's is known for its strong current.  it's definitely not a swimming beach.

(fyi - these "boys" at the beach, they're not random boys!!  hahaa i'm not a creeper!)

going to the beach remind me of summer of 2007...

when matty, kam, isaac, gina and i would go to malibu or san onofre on our days off together.  looking back, it was awesome how we ALL had sunday and monday off together - i guess that was the perk when matty was our boss!  hahaa.  i miss those days.  those were the good ol' days at roy's downtown la.  of course, i had to drive us back home to matty's - where the party continued.  take me back to 2007!

anyway, here's some other pictures to share...

these are some of the girls that work at roy's - we literally only have.. six girls (besides the hostess) that work at my restaurant, the rest are... well, handsome boys!  you know that makes me enjoy my night at work!  ;)

from top to bottom/left to right:  steph, maya (used to work at roy's), reri, carmen, michelle, sheila and sharde (now works at roy's waikiki).  it's definitely nice having girlfriends to hang out with and talk about inappropriate things with!

that's lisa and kristina.  lisa used to work at roy's, she's currently living in san fran getting her masters.  she came home for a bit during spring break!  this is us at st. patty's day at the shack.  kristina and i try to hang out at least once a week (usually wednesday nights) either go hiking or paddle boarding and then go eat dinner.  

it's nice finally finding good girlfriends here.

these are my brothers...  maybe more like my sons.  kinjo and nicky.  they're both japanese speaking boys, two years younger than me.  they have this captivating personality that when they're around, i can't help but smile and laugh.

here's a la jolla reunion for ya - francisco now works at the roy's in san fran, apoli is now the restaurant manager at the roy's in poipu, and krizpin is with me in hawaii kai!  it's great how roy's has kept us all together throughout all these years, regardless of where we live.

that's mama-stacey and her daughter, aubrey.  we hiked koko head together on saturday morning.  stacey has never done it so it was a huge accomplishment that she made it to the very top on her first try!!

one of my challenges on my nights off is... "what the hell am i going to do for dinner???"

fortunately, carol called me today and invited me over to have spring rolls for dinner!

pretty good for rolling my own spring roll right???

i have one more day off tomorrow - i'm going to spend it at ala moana shopping center.  shopping!!!!  

but shit, what am i going to eat tomorrow????

now that i know how to upload a video (thanx gooch), i came across this one of jalen ella - my goddaughter.  this is taken after dimsum one sunday last year.  she's so funny!  man, i miss her so much!!!

extending aloha to japan.

three months into my new life in hawaii, i've already experienced a tsunami warning.


it was pretty intense - it was kind of busy night at work so i only heard bits and pieces of the news that there was a huge earthquake in japan and that there was a tsunami warning coming to hawaii.  it didn't all sink in until about 11pm when i looked out the window to see a huge line at the gas station next to the restaurant.  i was confused why people were getting gas - we live on an island.. we can't go very far.  but brother chris freaked me out so we both went to go get gas on the way home.  the chevron we went to only had "supreme" gas left over - oh well, gas is still gas at that point.


when i got home, dene was watching the news - thank goodness he was home!  we live deep in the kalama valley so we were in the safe zone, but i was worried for the restaurant because roy's is right by the bay in the evacuation zone.  around 2am, dene tells me to "pack a bag, just in case" - WHAT?!  talk about giving me an anxiety attack!  but here's where my vain personality comes into play...  what the heck do i pack???  i packed my jewelry box, my chanel purses, my favorite pair of heels, two different outfits, laptop and make-up.  i am a fool.  dene's telling me to pack a bag because if anything were to happen, we'll climb up the valley behind out house - how the heck was i going to carry all that important stuff???  seemed like the locals knew how to prepare for the worst - i, on the other hand.. not so much.  dene and i stayed up till about 4am watching the news.  once we knew the tsunami wasn't going to hit oahu hard, we went to sleep.


the next morning at our weekly managers meeting, it was business as usual.  per roy, he wanted to organize a special japan relief dinner.  he did something like this last year for haiti.  we organized a dinner for 80 guests, set menu - we didn't charge for the dinner, we only asked the guests to make donations based on what they can afford.  all proceeds were donated directly to the american red cross.


take a look at the news clip below:


Local Relief Efforts Underway - Video - KITV Honolulu


once word of mouth, facebook, twitter and the news broadcast went public, it went viral and the dinner was sold out in about 14 hours!  it amazes me that roy is so well known in our local community that they are more than willing to support him and the cause.  through connections, we were able to get ALL of our products for the event donated by our vendors - amazing how people follow through for our community/nation.

roy, chris and the other chefs, collectively put together a menu geared towards food that represents the region of japan that was hit by the disaster.

how appropriate was our center pieces?  cherry blossoms with a "uchiwa" (fan) with roy's on it!

on the back of the fan, the kanji "tokyo" - those fans were made years ago when the roy's in tokyo first opened!  our florist, marci kept them!  how amazing??

if you can't tell already, i made that donation box!!  it's wrapped in roy's wrapping paper!

here are pictures of the handsome boys (men) that donated their time and help make the dinner a success!

from left to right - j-bomb, nicky, nao, oliver, john-wayne, ikaika, kula-bear and ryan.

nao, oliver, ikaika and ryan work at roy's in waikiki.  nao and ikaika used to work at hawaii kai before waikiki opened so the boys had so much fun working together.  

best quote of the night -

ikaika: "man, why don't we work together anymore?"

jw:  "because you guys left to waikiki!!"  

as they joked and laughed, they made another comment, "this is what we do best.  wait - roy's is all we know how to do!" -- that is definitely saying something about roy's as a company.

these guys, their dedication and love for roy's is absolutely admirable.

from the left - new style hiyashi chuka with grilled beef tounge, glazed black cod & pork belly, new zealand king salmon sashimi with watercress, ikura, crispy salmon skin, tomato usuzukuri with big island goat cheese, shiso tempura.

here's roy being interviewed by channel 2 news.  check out the link below:

Donation dinner raises funds for Japan relief efforts

did you see my donation box????  :)

we also met roy's goal of raising $10,000!

i am proud to work for him.

this is dean okimoto, owner of nalo farms.  i'm his favorite " katonk" - japanese american from the mainland.  we had to take a picture together because we're both wearing the same salmon/peachy color!

this is the new zealand king salmon sashimi.  has some watercress on top, ikura, crispy salmon skin, onions and dashi sauce.  salmon and ikura are my two favorite sushi items!

this is a hawaiian fusion version of the japanese hiyashi chuka.  jason peele, the chef from roy's waikiki made the dashi glass noodles.  so amazing!  topped with egg, cucumber, and fish cake.

tomato usuzukuri - usuzukuri means thinly sliced.  the goat cheese is dusted with yukari.

another great quote from the night was when oliver asked what yukari was.  john-wayne's definition of yukari was: "it's when ume and shiso made babies and dried up!"  classic.

this is the black cod & pork belly.  YUM.  that's all i need to say about that.

this is paula monma - we've been friends for about five years.  we first met because she was the sales manager when i first started working at the roy's in la.  she left a few months after i started, but we kept in touch all these years.  she takes good care of me.  :)

at the end of it all, the japan relief dinner was a huge success.  not only did we raised a lot of money, but everyone was in good spirits, enjoyed the food and had fun.  it definitely made my heart warm as i watched the community come together for japan.  it's nights like that where i realize why i've worked for roy's for 8 years.  like the boys said, roy's is also all i know how to do.  i am lucky.

here's some other pictures of what's been happening...

brother chris has been eco-friendly and has been riding his bike to work lately.  one day, my chair was missing so i used his bike as my chair to do some work.  clever huh?

roy was having fun with it too!

this is dayna - she is my new friend/hair dresser!!  one of my biggest concerns moving to hawaii was finding a new hair dresser.  i've been going to my guy in orange county for years and he's been excellent.  i was sooo bummed when i knew he wasn't going to be doing my hair anymore, but i've been so lucky to find dayna as my new hair dresser.  she is actually the redkins educator so she works very well with color and did an amazing job on my hair!  she works at salon 808 by the ala moana shopping center.  it's so perfect - get my hair done and then go shopping!  :)

remember i talked about "hinamatsuri" on my last blog?  the next day, terrence, one of the sushi boys made me a mini-chirashizushi!  if he sees this, he'll probably be mad because it's not his best work but it was still amazing and i loved it!

here's a beautiful sunset view from the restaurant.  lucky me.

this is random, but this made me laugh so hard i almost pee-ed my pants!  boys from work are playing jokes on each other - playing hide&seek with josh's bicycle!  buahahah!

from the left - hui,me, kelli, robbyn, ronnie, jackie and mona.  we went to lunch at tikis in waikiki to celebrate kelli's birthday.

we celebrated dene's 27th birthday on march 9th.  all of his friends came over, drank beers and smoked cigars.

these are a few boys from work - nick, chingy, kalena, nao and landon.  they are in a flag-football league together.  i was lucky to have a sunday off so i went to support them!

unfortunately, they lost...  :(  that's nao - "man down!!"

my mother just told me a few days ago that she and dad are coming to visit me in two weeks!  i'm excited!

happi girls day!!

march 3rd is ひなまつり - hinamatsuri, girls day in japan - a day where families celebrate their daughter's future happiness.  every year, my mom would display dolls in our living room and make me chirashizushi, which is a bowl of rice topped with different kind of sashimi.

since i'm away from home this year, my parents send me a package of goodies instead!  thanks mama & papa!

all my favorites + some new hello kitty things!

luckily, i get to enjoy the day off today!  it's going to be a great girls day.

happi girls day!!