The Island Manapua Factory is a little hole-in-the-wall that serves regular lunchtime crowds that far exceed the borders of thier little shop. This place is a haven for crispy fried pork, peking duck, chinese style dim sum, plate lunches, sweets, and oh man, oh man, oh man... the manapua. Manapua is a white bun stuffed with this sweet shredded pork called "char siu". You can bake it a golden brown, but most often (and my favorite) is to have it steamed. The factory makes piles of these and I doubt there is ever a night when there are leftovers...
A box of manapua isn't complete without some dim sum. My favorties are the pork hash and half-moon ones! Pork hash is a seasoned dumpling of ground pork wrapped in a thin, wheat flour wrapper, and then steamed to succulent and juicy goodness. The half-moon dim sum is also steamed, and though I'm not sure exactly what it is, it tastes like a rice flour type dough wrapped around a filling of pork, onions, and chestnuts. Dipped in a shoyu (soy sauce) and mustard dipping sauce, you'll wonder what diets are really for when this is what you'd be missing...
You didn't think I'd end the post without a sweet treat now did you...? The Island Manpua Factory offers quite a few sweets, but my favorites are the rice cakes. One version of it involves layers of sweet sticky rice cake stacked on top of each other, topped with a final layer of a brown rice cake, almost carmelized in flavor. Eat with a bite all the way through the sweet stack, or enjoy my mom's favorite way with one layer at a time. My favorite rice cake there is light and spongy in texture. Not sure how they do it, but when the rice cake cools, all these little bubbles form in the cake, so when you break it open or take a bite, the texture on your tounge from the caverns hidden within make the sweet treat a multi-sensory experience. So who's up for a trip to the Manoa Valley?
1 comment:
This blog makes me very hungry
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