Located in a business park well off the main drag, it felt more like a locals' hangout than a tourist trap. Star Noodle was exactly the kind of place we were seeking out. But that's what we were looking for here's what we found:ġ. Still, there's a huge gulf between the resort restaurants catering to the 'haole' (foreigners), and the local joints with their loco moco and spam musubi (which we ate, and which was good, but there's only so much of that my Crestor can handle), and it's not always so easy to find the middle. And over the past couple decades, there's been an increasingly concerted push to incorporate those ingredients into the restaurant repertoire, instead of relying on flown-in products. It ought to: Hawaii has ready access to a fantastic variety of fresh fish straight from the ocean, as well as great locally grown fruits and vegetables. The good news was that locavorism seems to run strong on all the islands. But for non-culinary reasons, we elected to skip Oahu entirely in favor of Maui and Big Island. That's not a surprise, given that it's the most populated city. Honolulu seems to be the epicenter of interesting dining in the Hawaiian islands - crazily ambitious projects like Vintage Cave, refined tasting menus like Chef Mavro, pop-ups like The Pig and the Lady. Runners-up: these lady peas with guanciale and chicken liver mousse from the same meal a supremely satisfying fried oyster poboy from Kelly English's New Orleans' themed Memphis restaurant, The Second Line some delicious Delta style hot tamales from Mose Tamale truck, spotted in a gas station parking lot on the way between the Memphis airport and Graceland.

(You can see all my pictures from our dinner in this Hog & Hominy flickr set). A puffy, chewy crust with just speckles of char, a balance between crust and toppings a great interplay of spicy, cheesy and meaty with just a touch of sweet. On Sundays they offer a 'Sunday Funday' menu all day which is mostly pizzas and brunch-type items, and the best of them may have been this 'Thunderbird! Forty Twice!' pizza, topped with fontina, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, thin-sliced pepperoni and a drizzle of spicy honey.

(You can see all my pictures from Proof in this Proof Pizza & Pasta flickr set).Īnyway, to catch up and fill in some blanks on the ' best thing i ate last week,' I'm going to backtrack to the second day of our trip, when we visited Hog & Hominy in Memphis, where chefs Michael Hudman and Andrew Ticer do Italian-style cooking with Southern-style ingredients. The name was modest and the spot was too: a basic box with exposed ventilation and simple tables and chairs, not so much 'industrial chic' as just plain old 'utilitarian.' Chef Justin Flit opened 'Proof Pizza & Pasta' almost exactly two years ago just up Miami Avenue from Wynwood, across from the Midtown shopping center.

And let's start with a place that may not be among the most talked-about restaurants in Miami, but one which I think deserves more attention for what it does: Proof. I try to keep relatively current on Miami dining with the ' best thing I ate last week' and ' first thoughts' posts, and I report on our roughly monthly Cobaya dinners but then the bulk of my more expansive writing lately seems dedicated to ' travelogues' or other recaps from ' further afield,' rather than locally focused. Like the food writers I used to berate, I'm probably more than a little guilty of the Magpie Phenomenon – being constantly distracted by the latest shiny object. Someone asked me recently 'So, when you are going to write an actual review of a Miami restaurant again? You know, like you used to?' Fair question.

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