The Sepos (RB’s term) are generally not known for their culinary expertise. Admittedly they like to talk about it a fair bit, but at the end of the day they are just not that good at it. They can talk all they like about their appreciation of food (and everybody knows that they like to talk a fair bit), but this is the country whose greatest offerring to global cuisine is hot milk with a hint of coffee flavour (come on *$s, that is not coffee) and a real estate company famous for its cheap hamburgers, which I am guessing were the invention of an immigrant from that other bastion of fine cooking, Scotland. To support my claim, I would suggest taking a look at this great site (
http://fxcuisine.com/default.asp?language=2&Display=129
) for its explanation of artesian Jock cooking.
Anyway, enough bad mouthing a country with more nuclear bombs that Michelin stars. There is one thing the Sepos do well, and that is pigs. They can create food from a pig that no other country can get close to. Whilst the Portuguese can do great things with a whole pig that deserve due credit, and I am sure the Chinese can use every bit of it in some way, they are no match for the yanks and what they can do to a swine. Southern style ribs, dripping in a sauce that makes you want to use the rib as a spoon and eat the sauce direct; Mr. Brown & Mrs. White sandwiches of pork so soft and tasty it could be used as a pillow; bacon, that essential food stuff that can be abused so much (Danes in particular should be banned from ever touching a pig; perhaps we could adopt a sort of kosher eater for pigs, pigs should not be touched, processed, baconed or eaten by anyone with any connection to Denmark), can reach levels in the Big ‘ol US of A that it really reaches anywhere else.
The only state in the union to proudly bear Her Majesty’s insignia on its flag also can do great things to a pig, most famously its Kalua Pig. I was recently in the Islands and had some steak, which was OK, but over priced and not that exciting; some fish that was fine, next to the beach, romantic and all, but not a shade on what you would get here; most other stuff tasted as if it had come out of a factory that uses by-products of the oil industry to produce human consumable products (sorry I am not going to call such muck food). One of the more memorable meals I had was a loco-moco using Kalua pig instead of the usual hamburger in a dive of a bar a couple of blocks back of the beach with dodgy looking crew-cut boys from Ohio trying to chat up the hookers whose skirts were shorter in length than my belt was wide; real comfort food, rice, with a heap of shredded pork on top covered with a smallish lake of gravy and finished off with a fried egg.
The food: So the test for today was, would Ogo’s pig, be as good as the pig in a dive on the back streets of Waikiki. And low and behold the answer is yes. The pork was great, flavoursome, dripping with just enough oil to be moist, but not overbearing, ripped into more pieces that Roy, Siegfried’s mate. 31 points.
The price: Small portion 800 yen, medium portion 900 yen and large portion 1,000 yen. I instinctively went for the large portion and it was a good size. A lot of places skimp in the meat in their large portions and try and fill you up with the cheap carbs, but Ogo did not do that. A good generous serving of meat, the way it should be. 8 points.
The volume: I arrived hungry, I left full, of meat, I was happy. Oink oink. 13 points.
The extras: 100 yen for the desert set, a coffee and 4 ice cream balls, not much other than that, but I had my caffeine and sugar hit so I was happy. 8 points.
Bonus: .The place is obviously an old hostess bar, where the guys have put up a couple of Hawaiian posters, some grass on the walls a fish tank and try to pass off as being like a local beach shack in the Islands, doesn’t quite work, but I found it kind of cute, in a high school festival stand type of way. What didn’t work was the sound system. They claim to have Tokyo’s largest selection of Hawaiian karaoke songs (although I would try and hide that point if possible), but the sound system just didn’t work. In the days of digital radio from any planet within a few gillion light-years available from the net, why their Hawaiian sounding radio channel had so much static was beyond me. Surely they are not picking it up by shortwave in this day and age. If so, bonus points for being retro cool, but I doubt that was the case. 5 points.
The details: Akasaka, Minato-ku
Phone 03 3585-5337
Web site: http://www.ogo-onoloahawaii.com/
Posted by ladswholunch 
