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Large portions, good service mean salad’s center at Stage
Now that my mantra is “Salad is my main meal,” I sure relish Stage’s farm-fresh salads with choice of Caesar, honey-balsamic or red-wine vinaigrette. My favorite is the Fresh Island Tuna (mixed greens, Japanese cucumbers, homemade croutons), with the Maximus Chicken Caesar Salad running a close second (baby romaine, grape tomatoes, parmesan cheese, housemade croutons). I sure am simply lovin’ these large-portion salads coupled with the ambience of relaxing in the Honolulu Design Center’s first floor — all for a reasonably priced $6. And the casual but delightfully friendly service simply tops it all! — Wylma Robinson, Honolulu
Pet food bowl’s moat obstructs ants
We’ve long been setting our pet food bowls in pans of water to thwart pesky ants, so when I spied this handthrown pottery cat food dish ($15) by Nancy Appleton of Kailua at the recent Made In Hawaii Festival, I thought it was the cat’s meow. To keep persistent ants from breaching the moat, add a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid. Find Nancy’s Glazed Apple wares at craft fairs or email her at nappleton@hawaii.rr.com. — Christie Wilson
Keiki T-shirts advertise ancestry
Is your little girl a Chinese princess or your boy a pint-size Hawaiian? Keiki can show off their heritage with this line of Kahala Kids T-shirts ($17.50). Portuguese, Korean, Filipino or Japanese, the store has the full rainbow of cultural offerings perfect for your next family gathering. Kahala Kids is in Kahala Mall. Call 7376200. — Donica Kaneshiro
Tonkatsu takes the cake at Shirokiya
Shirokiya’s new food court, Yataimura, is exciting and educational. Who knew there were so many delicious options for musubi, oden, soba or tempura? Yet one of my favorite choices there isn’t new. Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin makes the most divine tonkatsu I’ve ever tasted: succulent, tender, flavorful pork coated in panko that’s fried perfectly golden. And it’s not heavy or oily even though the slices of pork are thicker than I’ve ever seen in tonkatsu. How do they do that? Ginza Bairin offers everything from tonkatsu sandwiches to katsu don to mini and major bentos. For those folks who live in Waikiki, there’s a restaurant there, too. Prices at Shirokiya start at about $6. — Joleen Oshiro
Ifixit.com’s manuals and instructions enable home repairs
We all know people who can’t fix anything. Installing a light switch, changing a flat tire, getting the coils in the toaster to heat up again, making the VCR display the correct time — you might as well ask them to MacGyver a nuclear spaceship out of bobby pins and soda cans.
We also know people who can’t help fixing everything. Particularly those of us who are the kids of Depression-era families, where an appliance was never truly dead until it had been repaired 30 times on the kitchen table. Often it’s something simple; but nowadays, consumer products can be so complicated and intricate, or just plain tiny, that expert help is needed.
Enter IFixIt.com. It’s an online compendium of repair manuals for hundreds of products, updated and tweaked by the users themselves. We’re talking iPods, game consoles, cameras, cars, telephones, computers, all sorts of household items. No light switches or nuclear spaceships; this is the stuff in-between.
Select a specific repair, and the website leads you through each step with large clear pictures and basic instructions. I tried it with an iPod Nano Gen 3 that had a sour battery. After the replacement battery and some tiny tools were ordered through eBay for about 4 bucks, the repair itself took less than an hour. The instructions warn you that this particular repair is likely the single most difficult work one can perform on an Apple product, and indeed, there was some itty-bitty soldering involved, for which having three hands would have been helpful. But the repair, thanks to IFixIt.com’s clear instructions, was completely successful.
Now, what else around the house needs fixin’? — Burl Burlingame