@postaday 132; #postaday2011
For our first dinner sans Kid2, aka Charlotte, Kid1 (Sophie) and I paid a visit to Hana Sushi in Hawaii Kai for the conveyor-belt dining experience. What a kick! Not only did Sophie finally perfect her chopsticks technique, she blew me away with her sense of adventure. When the angels were giving out traits, Sophie picked up on the eating-as-adventure gene, Charlotte not so much.
Just as I was packing up to leave my cube in the Mothership last night, Sophie texted me:
“When will u b here?”
“I’m leaving now; gotta walk to Ross to get the van! Cool your jets! Lol”
“lol k c u soon :)”
Eager or what?
Once we were in the van together at Niu Valley Middle School, I gave her the option of going home and finishing her homework before going to eat. What was I thinking? Growing kids are always hungry! So I parked by Safeway and walked over to the restaurant. It’s in the old Cold Stone Creamery spot. In my opinion, Hana Sushi is a much better use of the space!
One other family was there when we arrived, and not much was moving along the conveyor belt. As fans of conveyor-belt sushi know, plates are priced based on their color. At Hana Sushi, the cheapest plates are green and $1.50. I don’t even know everything that we got on green plates. There were also yellow plates, orange, red and purple plates. We also ordered some bigger sushi items to share as well.
Sophie requested the Philadelphia roll: Rice wrapped around cream cheese and cucumbers, topped with salmon. I’m not sure what else was in it as I like salmon smoked, grilled, canned and hashed. I also like lomi lomi salmon. I guess I’m a salt-cured kinda gal. She swooned upon her first bite. She left half for her dad. I went for the Fantasy roll, which was snow crab and avocado rolled in rice and topped with green, red, orange and black tobiko. I’m a tobiko fan from way back. Big roe or eggs on sushi, not so much. But the little microbeads that are tobiko? Snap, crackle pop!!! Mmmmmm. I expected the green tobiko to have the bite of wasabi, but it seemed more of a mellow green tea flavor. We saved half of those for John, too.
We also had the broccoli salad: mayo, Okinawan sweet potato cubes, carrot pennies and raisins with raw broccoli. Very good. I grabbed seconds of the bok choy, steamed and cooled to room temperature in sesame oil. Love that! We also have something called the lava flow, which had spicy ahi flecked with tobiko on top. Spicy is right!
The wait help were very attentive and kept our water cups full. I appreciated having the menus left on the table so we could identify what was going by and decide if we wanted to grab it or not. There were things we admired as they went by such as the tako sushi, the unagi, the toro, the ebi, the oysters.
Finally, Sophie had two balls of mochi ice cream. I had a nibble of the mango, which was very bright. She enjoyed the rest of it and a vanilla one. Considering that half of what we had came home with us in two bento boxes for John, I’d say the price was right for three people.
We parked close to Safeway so I could easily load the van with eight bottles of seltzer and a six-pack of secret sauce, err, bubbly. When I got home I finished the pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish food. In bed again by 9 p.m. Up this morning at 3:20 for my workout.
Tonight? I wonder if that kid would wanna try Pacific Soul with me? I bet she’d dig on some soul food! We’ll have to see.
Lavagal 
that was worthwhile for the joy it clearly brought to kid1. glad you were able to go.
The pictures are making me jealous! Looks like a much better place than Cold Stone. Looks like Kid1 had a blast.