march 5 – honolulu, hawaii – todai

ok, so hawaii is nothing if not heavily influenced by japanese culture. Accordingly, japanese food is plentiful throughout honolulu. todai’s is a chain seafood buffet that someone from my work group thought was the apex of japanese food.

my impression was less favorable. i should start by saying that i am generally not a big fan of buffets unless it’s chock full of breakfast food goodness. that being said, i was skeptical going into the place.

the food was overflowing – and came in all sorts – hot seafood dishes included various assortments of cooked fishes, chinese-style fish and vegetable dishes, and crab legs (i only ate some of the spicy calamari (good, not great) and the garlic eggplant among the hot foods, so i cannot speak to much of the food quality here. the cold seafood included a large assortment of japanese salads and sushi. the sushi was good but not great and given the restaurant’s location in honolulu, the fish seemed less fresh than it should have been.

one major milestone: i tried unagi for the first time and actually found it quite tasty.

the desserts at todai’s are cuter than they are tasty. they are served in teeny-tiny little portions, which is probably good – given that they seemed relatively flavorless, the tiny cheesecakes and tiramisu were not worth any amount of calories to expend on them. the bananas in caramel, though, were quite yummy.