Forked Up

Metro-021115-Forked-Up-Stage-Restaurant

VIETNAMESE COFFEE FLAN
STAGE RESTAURANT
1250 Kapiolani Blvd.
Phone number (808) 237-5429
website stagerestauranthawaii.com

This rich dessert is all about texture, texture, texture. You’ve got the smooth, thick coffee flan smothered in chocolate sauce and topped with crunchy bits of chocolate and hazelnuts. Resting atop that is a perfect white sphere of airy coconut sorbet. It’s like you had that sweet, creamy after-dinner coffee, except, you know, as a pudding. Since you’re at Stage, we hope you convinced someone else at the table to get the Guava Lilikoi Pearls — that’s another bountifully textured dessert, with chewy pearls, honey ice cream, coconut powder and pineapple-flavored foam. If we had to pick one, we’d pick … both. Bring us with you!

Metro-021115-Forked-Up-Michinoku

NEGITORO DON
MICHINOKU
835 Keeaumoku St.
Phone number (808) 942-1414

Negitoro is not the most exciting of sushi to eat, certainly — it’s pulverized fatty tuna mixed with green onions — but the true connoisseur knows that good negitoro is rare indeed. The ideal negitoro isn’t fishy at all, but instead rich and almost creamy. Luckily, places like Michinoku are happy to serve up bowls of the stuff in heavily loaded teishoku sets (yes, you can even get a bowl of udon as a side to your negitoro, if you wish). This little sushi bar (15 people might fit inside at a time) is buried on Keeaumoku next to the Korean supermarket and the former Sanji Ramen location.