Makizushi's Birthday Bash: Sugoi Food by Sugoi!

It was Makizushi's birthday on Friday (or, at least, that's when the party was) and the gang ordered out for lunch.  Umami and Ms. D got to pick the menu and decided to just order family style from Sugoi instead of ordering separate bentos.  We think it worked out to be a better deal.





If it was lunch for Makizushi, it had to include fried rice, which is her favorite food, much like sandwiches are for Joey (not to be confused with a "Joey Special" = Two Pizzas).  So this is the fried rice from Sugoi.  It has pretty much everything you would expect in a local style fried rice and one surprise:  bits of hot dog!  If you got a fried egg over this, it would be breakfast for two or three people.  There were six of us, so we ordered two orders.  ($4.25/order ala carte)

We ordered the pupu platter A, which had (top to bottom):  tonkatsu, teri beef, garlic chicken.  It's hard to make out, but this is actually a fairly deep dish, and so there's a lot of food.  ($35, serves 6-8).

The tonkatsu is decently thick cut, with the little strip of pork fat that it needs to give it juiciness.

The teri beef is very thinly cut and heavily marinated.  It would have gone well with some really hot white rice, or it would have made a  good sandwich with some mayo and lettuce.  Which is a roundabout way of saying that it was little too salty for my taste, especially with the fried rice.

The garlic chicken had large pieces and a flavorful sauce that was not too garlicky (which I'm told is a change from previous garlic-intense versions.

Ms. D and Umami decided to order the Yaki Udon, just to try, because, well, everybody said they would leave the ordering to us.  And Umami likes udon, but doesn't get to eat it a lot and never in prepared in this manner.  So it's basically a fried saimin, with udon instead.  If your favorite part of a fried saimin is the min, consider trying udon instead.  It's a larger, chewier noodle, with the same green onion, char siu, cabbage, and kamaboko.  ($5.50 ala carte)

Okay, there's nothing really special about the mac salad, except for the story.  It's a side that you order by the scoop, so we ordered five (remember, for six of us).  ($0.95 per scoop)  What we didn't know is that a "scoop" is not the ice cream cone size scoop, but is maybe twice as big.  Our five scoops filled the large clamshell they came in!

But, wait!  There's (much) more.  Due to some mix up, we ended up with two clamshells like this, ten ridiculous scoops of mac salad in all!  Which is funny, in a horrifying way . . .  

Finally, Ms. D brought this lilikoi chiffon cake from Dee Lite Bakery.  She says:  "It's the oblong passion deelite cake, very reasonably priced at around $10."
Umami thinks that anything named "oblong passion deelite" has got to be a winner, as this cake proves.  It's a chilled cake, with lots of light whipped cream between the layers, but what makes it is the lilikoi jelly glaze on top!

So that was Makizushi's birthday lunch:  lots of food, good people, good fun.  And six people who really needed naps two hours later!

Sugoi Bento and Catering
City Square Shopping Center
1286 Kalani Street #B-106
841-7984
www.sugoihawaii.com


Dee Lite Bakery

1930 Dillingham Blvd
Honolulu, HI 96819

(808) 847-5396