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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

CHOW FUN AT TREATS & SWEETS MAUI

What's the best things about Maui, or Hawaii in general? I tell you what, it's our mixed ethnic culture that continues to grow, from music, dance, film, stage, businesses, and of course everybody's favorite... FOOD! In Hawaii, because of our rooted culture in Polynesia and Asia, our foods are very exotic, yet simple, and tasty that anyone that moves to Hawaii always gets the food bug, the local food bug that is.


We locals do love a fine dine once in a while, sure we like to go to Merriman's and nail some delicious fish, and a steak, and some wine. Sure we like to visit James Mc Donald's place, and we do love the fine fresh foods at our friend Mark Ellman's Mala and Honu. We love to go once in a while to those fancy plated restaurants that are awesome, I mean going to Nick's Fish Market, and going to the Hyatt and sitting at Swan Court is a blast for that special night out you know? And who wouldn't want a fine night on occasion?


But it's the simpler things in life that gets us locals jacked up, simple, I mean my niece lives in Los Angeles now, she's married, and has a child, but when she comes home to Maui, that Hapa Haole girl loves her local ethnic plate lunches, and being in L.A. she can get her fine dine after all it is L.A. home of the celebs. But us locals are simple, we really drool over Uncle's steamed Uhu, gutted, and stuffed with Chinese sausage, onions, mushrooms, and soy sauce with mayonnaise mixture, of course Uhu is Parrot Fish, and it is steamed over a hot Kiawe wood burning grill, the fish is stuffed and seasoned, and wrapped in foil, men talk about how they caught the fish as they drink beer, you know the BS is all part of manhood. Me... I was the guy that always pulled the floater when my friends went diving, I'm a team player, God himself did not make me a great free diver, so I stayed on the surface of the ocean, pulling a huge tub that floated in a used inner tube and waited as my buddies speared fish and octopus and filled the tub, when they were done they shouted, "Okay Ron, swim em in!" And I did, with the movie Jaws in the back of my mind, or Shark Week. 


So today (Wednesday, July 25 I think), my buddy Ron asked me to help him at his house, the task was throw away rubbish at the local dump, and to help him dig around his house to see if the foundations were alright. Hmm, easy gig. I took that gig number one, because he's a great friend, that would give me the shirt on his back.. well, hope he'll wash it first if that time came. But you get the idea, Ron's a great guy. And number two he promised me he'd buy me lunch.


"Eh you help me, I'll buy you lunch."
"No shit?"
"No shit, I'll buy you lunch."
"Okay man.. where are we gonna eat?"
"Don't know, help me first."
"Okay."


But I could not help wondering like a little kid what I'm gonna get when we hit the toy store. As I dug around his house, I helped him inspect the house foundation, it looked great, then we went to the dump to throw the rubbish, went back to the house and washed up real fast, you know sanitize our hands, then we went to Treats & Sweets in Kahului. I actually did not want to go there because I had a bad experience not long ago there, my Shoyu Chicken plate was very very very very less than spectacular, it was just too sweet.


Anyhow, Ron tells me, "Eh you like eat Chow Fun?"
I'm like, "Yeah, you know how fond I am about Chow Fun, it's my favorite food."
Then he tells me, "I'm going to Treats & Sweets to get some."
No! That place made my Shoyu Chicken experience horrible, seriously, even if the cook was on a bad day, it was horrible. But Ron is paying, so I just shut my trap.


When we got there, there weren't anyone around except two guys that were looking into each others eyes... and ah... some kids with their mom... oh yeah and some girls that stopped by to probably smoke some dope in the parking lot.


Ron who has a bad knee ordered as I waited under the tree for shade, he motioned me over to grab the ticket, he wanted to sit down at one of the tables he was hurting, bad knees. So I grabbed the ticket and stood in line, ha ha it was only me in line at the pick up window. When the order was filled, I grabbed this huge ass paper bag, it was heavy, I took it to the table. I opened the bag, and took out two huge plates of Chow Fun, and two trays of crinkled french fries, some packets of Tabasco and Ketchup and Mustard mixture, and some pepper, and some chopsticks. I'm bad ass with the chopsticks.


The meal was awesome, simple like how we like it, the Chow Fun noodles were the wide ones, there was Charsiu Pork pieces inside, and it was hot, very very simple and delicious, no fancy veggies, primarily it was just lots of noodles and pork. Pork by the way I should stay away from because it gives me gout. But today it was just tiny bits, I ate it and so far as I type on my MacBookPro, I feel no tingling in my feet, a sign that's Yay, no gout coming on.. well I hope so.


So if you want some simple local style Chow Fun small or large sizes, stop by Treats & Swets on Lono Ave. in Kahului, it looks like an old Dairy Queen, because it is an old Dairy Queen. They got other kinds of plate lunches, and I got to admit, they do smell good, the food that is... I just had a bad run in with their shoyu chicken plate one time, we got off on the wrong foot, but that's okay, Treats & Sweets made my day a Yay Day!


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