Gashoken is located in this below ground Asian food mall called “Stix Asia”. There are several decent sized restaurants with different Asian cuisines, such as Japanese ramen, Taiwanese beef noodle, Japanese hot pot, Korean street foods, etc. We did our lap around, and ultimately landed first on this ramen joint because the host was really marketing it like crazy to everyone walking in front. Upon first glance, the menu was small, but alas we’re here for ramen.

This shrimp truck is located on Kamehameha Highway towards the north east end of Oahu between Hauula and the Shrimp Shack. As you’re driving north on this highway, it will be on your left side. The truck seems not very mobile, and for whatever reason has very high ratings on Yelp. Because Hawaii is pretty well known for these shrimp trucks, we decided to check this out after our Kualoa excursion.

Herringbone is run by the “Tao Group Hospitality”, which operates more than 80 branded locations in 20 different markets. I didn’t really know what to expect, but per recommendations, we were able to do a walk in around 7 PM on a Monday. The restaurant is located on the top floor of the “International Market Place” where many restaurants are located, and it has a pretty laid back exterior. As you can vaguely tell from the picture, the right side is an outdoor covered patio letting in the Hawaiian breeze.

We just landed in Honolulu for our Hawaii trip, and we were pretty hungry. Honolulu is 6 hours behind New York City! Our other friends had arrived a few hours earlier than us and suggested we check out this slight hole in the wall shop for poke near their hotel. My poke impression has always been pretty indifferent, so I was curious what is it about Hawaii poke that people rave about.

Carthay Circle is located fairly close to the front of California Adventure. You do need an admission to the park in order to access this restaurant which is basically in the square at the end of the main road from the entrance. This was actually our second time visiting. I remember the first time being fairly underwhelming, so I felt it was wasteful to even spend the time to document it. This time around, my partner wanted to check this out again. As usual, you have to make sure you get reservations way ahead of arrival, or else there’s a sketchy wait time. For this, I lowered my expectations greatly, so let’s see how it went.

I’ve always felt Los Angeles has better Mexican food, and I was offered a choice of eating hot pot or going for Mexican food. The hot pot choice would’ve been a place that we have a chain of here in NYC, and since we don’t know when we’ll be back in LA, I thought the answer was pretty easy. We decided on the Mexican joint because this is a local favorite for my cousin. Xécora is a small chain of Los Angeles Mexican restaurants with Huichol cultural influences.

We’ve finally arrived in Los Angeles to kick it with family before heading up to Mammoth for a wedding.  This restaurant was suggested because it has modern Taiwanese American tastes to it that is seemingly becoming a trend in the Alhambra areas.  Unlike NYC, I’ve always felt LA had better Asian food in the low/mid price ranges, so let’s see how it tastes.  We were able to wait list on Yelp for about 5 minutes around 10:15 AM.

We were around the Hell’s Kitchen area catching up on a Broadway musical called “MJ: The Musical” based on Michael Jackson. This area we have rarely explored much, considering early post-pandemic, this area was quite dangerous with the drug users and harassers. Nevertheless, this katsu restaurant has been on my list for years, and I’ve been meaning to check this out. We were able to walk in on a Sunday at around 5:30 PM without any issue.

We were in the Flatiron area running errands, and unfortunately the nearby S&P sandwich shop was closed for dinner. As we scoured for food, we did ultimately end up at this Tacos Güey place. I vaguely had remembered that this was a relatively new restaurant, so we opted to try it out. We were able to walk in on a Friday evening at 6:30 PM and find a pair of seats in the bar.

Nubeluz is a bar from Chef José Andrés located on the 50th floor of The Ritz-Carlton in Nomad with the intent to show visitors the NYC skyline. He has another recently opened restaurant, Zaytinya, on the first floor of this hotel. We were able to make reservations for 4:00 PM on a Sunday a few weeks in advanced. When you walk into the hotel, check in with the concierge who will swipe you up to the floor. When you arrive, you are greeted with the Nubeluz restaurant sign. When you turn right, the hosts will take you to your seating area.