Cookies are only the start for Big Island Candies

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Oct. 6, 2020

Big Island Candies — which hooked us years ago on its shortbread cookies half-dipped in chocolate — hasn’t let the pandemic slow down product development. Read more

Food truck champs Aloha Plate back in hunt

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Oct. 6, 2020

The Aloha Plate rood truck is in the Bay Area competing in a new national competition. Read more

By Request: Balancing good nutrition with favorite flavors

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Oct. 6, 2020

Royce Arakaki’s first job in food service, making takeout sushi as a high-schooler, taught him a couple of things. Read more

Interactive online cooking classes make a worthy COVID-19 past-time

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Sept. 22, 2020

Cook-along sessions have become a popular early evening activity, combining entertainment with education and dinner. Read more

By Request: Local cookbooks offer help during stay-at-home orders

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Sept. 15, 2020
• 1

Adam Gilbert closed a restaurant and started a book. Read more

By Request: Get creative with Spam during tough times

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Sept. 1, 2020
• 3

In the Before Times, we would now be in the afterglow of our annual outpouring of devotion to gelatinous meat in a can, the Waikiki Spam Jam. Read more

Alan Wong ‘suspending’ restaurant operations

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Aug. 31, 2020
• 46

Chef Alan Wong has shut down his King Street restaurant, saying he will wait out the coronavirus upheaval with the hope of returning some time in the future. Read more

Oahu restaurant owners fear effects of shutdown

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• Aug. 26, 2020
• 51

Oahu restaurant owners understand the reasons behind a two-week dining-room shutdown that begins Thursday, but they are still frustrated and fearing the worst. Read more

Wine master Chuck Furuya uncorks his next chapter

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• July 21, 2020
• 7

Chuck Furuya is no longer working the floor in a restaurant dining room, but he’s still talking wine. Read more

Foodland Farms debuts newest location in Kapolei

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• July 14, 2020
• 1

The newest Foodland Farms opens in Kapolei this week with a unique entry system in place — online reservations to get into a grocery store. Read more

Foodland Farms Kapolei to open July 15

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• July 2, 2020
• 6

Reservations are suggested for shopping times at Foodland Farms Ka Makana Ali‘i. Read more

Kapolei loses popular gathering place in Plantation Tavern

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• June 23, 2020
• 4

At its best moments, Plantation Tavern was just the type of gathering place that owners Adam and Sunny Gilbert envisioned when they opened the Kapolei restaurant in 2014. Read more

Real Gastropub in Kakaako is closing its doors for good

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• June 13, 2020
• 63

The restaurant, bar and brewery had been open barely a year when the coronavirus forced the shutdown of Oahu restaurants. Read more

By Request: James Beard finalist Gaby Maeda gives Grandma credit

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• June 2, 2020

At age 15 Gaby Maeda was busing tables at Sekiya’s Restaurant & Delicatessen in Kaimuki. At 29 she’s running the kitchen at State Bird Provisions in San Francisco, one of California’s hottest restaurant tickets. Read more

Tanaka Ramen owner says Oahu ready for food, fun

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• June 2, 2020

Tina Wang earned a degree in mathematics at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and was on a Ph.D. track when she decided to go a different way. Read more

Recipe: Dabbling in dumplings

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• May 26, 2020

Brendan Pang, a competitor on “MasterChef Australia,” runs a mobile restaurant called Bumplings Perth out of an Airstream trailer. His book about making dumplings is a charmer. Read more

Showing Aloha: Hawaii forges new food network, provides food boxes and prepares meals for needy families on Oahu

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• May 20, 2020
• 24

Hot meals for homebound seniors, lunches for kids cut off from their school cafeterias, food boxes for newly needy families. Read more

Feeding Oahu Together offers online ‘shopping’ to needy families

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• May 19, 2020

Feeding Hawaii Together kicked into gear on April 1 — just when the community really needed the security of a new food pantry. Read more

‘Top Chef’ quest ends for Hawaii’s Lee Anne Wong

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• May 19, 2020
• 1

Lee Anne Wong’s journey on Season 17 of the Bravo competition ended last week. She had made it to the top seven “cheftestants” in a field of 15. Read more

Community groups react to COVID crisis, forge changes to food chain

• By Betty Shimabukuro
• May 19, 2020

Here’s a snapshot of some of the many groups around Oahu working to gather food, prepare it, distribute it to the needy and deliver it to the homebound. Read more

Chefs of Honolulu’s Senia score spots as James Beard finalists

• By Betty Shimabukuro and Joleen Oshiro
• May 6, 2020
• 1

Chris Kajioka and Anthony Rush of Honolulu’s Senia restaurant are finalists in the James Beard Foundation Awards. Read more