Saturday, April 09, 2011: FINALLY, a day off and a whole day to spend with friends :) As you may remember him from previous blogs, my best friend, Nate, and I went to hang out with another one of our best friends, with whom we haven't seen in FOREVER!! Our good friend, Joli, along with my cousin, decided to join Nate and I on our day of fun. First stop, as always, is FOOD!!
As we drove along towards Waikiki, we had to decide what to eat. So many choices....buuut, we decided on La Tour Cafe on Nimitz Street, Honolulu. Its kind of like a more upscale Bale, which is another Vietnamese restaurant with a bit of a French flare. Its a pretty modern, contemporary place with a nice cafe feel where you can order sandwiches, paninis, flat breads, and other lunch foods. Here's what we go :）
First, my cousin, Cari. She orders the sun-dried tomato and turkey panini. Each sandwich cme with a small side salad with a dressing that...I don't know what kind of dressing it was but it tasted like a mix between Ranch and Caesar dressing. SO YUMMY!! The panini itself was pretty good too, made with roasted turkey, tangy sun-dried tomatoes, baby spinach, and mozzerella cheese, all in a crispy, toasted panini sandwich :)
Next, Nate's curry bowl with toasted baguette slices. Now, Mr. Nate loves his curry but this one didn't taste like the kind of curry you'd be expecting. It had a sweeter taste, like Thai curry, with a very subtle taste of coconut milk. The baguette slices were toasted to crispy, toasted perfection, leaving crumbs everywhere haha :)
My turn! I ordered the lemon-grass chicken banh mi which is basically, despite the fancy name. Just like the type of sandwich you'd get at Bale, but so much better. The roll is so much more crispy, crunchy and the flavor of the lemon-grass chicken is so much more intense, which is a good thing in my book. And of course, the vegetables in the sandwich were pickled carrot strings and cucumber :)
Last but not least, Joli's food :D Joli ordered one of the flat breads, which looks and taste juust like pizza. Her's was called the margherita flatbread, made with fresh mozzerella cheese, basil, and tomatoe sauce. Simple, but delicious :)
As a side dish, Joli and I both ordered the homemade macaroni and cheese to share with Nate and Cari. This was some of the best mac n' cheese I have ever tasted! It was extremely cheesy, with more than just one kind of cheese (I think there was three types of cheese total) and crunchy Italian bread crumbs on top. And to think it was served as a side-dish :)
[the wonderful cheesy-ness of the mac n' cheese :)]
For dessert, I bought a few of the macaron flavors to try (yes, its spelt with only ONE "o", not two---according to Joli, Miss Patisserie student. The word "macaroon" with two "o"s refers tot he coconut ones that are more like a cake). These are French macarons and there were a bunch of different flavors to choose from but I decided to go with strawberry, Melona (honeydew), coffee, chocolate, and Japanese white peach. All of them were good but, the Melona one was definitely my favorite :)La Tour Cafe: very good, very affordable, and definitely worth it to go back over and over again :) Until next time.
---へローケルシ
