2010-2011 ILIMA AWARD

"The 'Ilima Awards are determined annually, partly by a reader poll and by our restaurant critics' choices from among the best restaurants reviewed that year" Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

 I copied and pasted the above explanation here just in case some of you don't know about the Ilima award - just like Jimmy and I were. The first time we heard of the award was when we received the letter that Hot Pot Heaven was one of the winners for this year.  We didn't know how prestigious this award was. Jimmy pulled out his phone and googled it;  I went down to talk to our property manager thinking she might know best since more than half of the spaces at McCully Shopping Center are restaurants.  Jimmy and I were both happy with the answer we got from the web and from our property manager and agreed to participate in the cook out at the Diamond Head Theater. It was a beautiful event! It took a lot of work to prepare but the staff who volunteered their time and us all had a wonderful time. 

Setting up:  I think we over did it. We brought almost everything from our shop :) Other restaurants just gave out one of their special dishes but we gave everything we had. Must be because we feel everything at our restaurant is very special :)

On display was our Thai/Mushroom combination pot - the most popular broths for us

Di Anh, Jimmy's mom's best friend, we call her "di" which means mom's younger sister  - our chef cook - always hard at work and always there whenever we need her help.

Jimmy's cousin, Trinh Ho, aka - Hot Pot Heaven's graphic designer was luring in the guests to try our broths :) They all loved the broths and many have already showed up to Hot Pot Heaven!

Our team (LR): Tina (my sister), KS (our filler), Di Anh (our cook), then Jimmy's parents

:) =)

At the end of the night: with the award in hands and bellies were full of sample dishes from other winning restaurants - we were very happy!

I just realized now that Jimmy didn't have any picture! It was because he was kept in the waiting room of Diamond Head theater the whole time while we were outside taking pictures. Before the guests were realeased to go out and and try the food, they were entertained by the talented Diamond Head Theater performers. Instead of calling individual restaurant to go up and receive the award, the restaurants were grouped into categories and a song was written for each group. Representative of each restaurant then was called up and performers sang and danced to them :) Jimmy, of course, loved it more than any picture!

Overall, we all had a great time and felt ver proud to be able to cook along side with many famous restaurants! We will continue trying our best!







Reflection . . .

Tonight I went out to have dinner with one of my good friends who will be leaving the island to pursue different career and life style. We had a great time together talking about old times. Wishing him the best! On my way back from Ala Moana, I passed by McCully Shopping Center and I saw the sign of our restaurant ...

...........so instead of continuing to my new home in Kapahulu,  I decided to stop by and admired the sign. I still clearly remember the feeling I felt when the sign was first put up. We were excited, happy, proud, and I was in tear. After 7 months of waiting, our sign was finally up for the world to see. The interior of our restaurant was far from finished but Jimmy and I were both very excited that the sign were up. How could we not be excited when we signed our lease 7 months ago and nothing was in place except for this sign. It was the only "real" thing of our restaurant at the moment.

 The wait for the permit to rebuild the place was long and dreadful. We were so worried that it would never be approved and we would just pay rent for the next three years. There were nights I couldn't sleep thinking our restaurant would never be open. The debt was building up and the place was vacant and nothing can be done to it.  Our permit finally got approved after 6 months and our construction crew started with the place right away. They worked days and nights. After two months, our sign was up and things started to fall into places.  Final inspections came and we were approved for opening. We were beyond excitement. The night before our soft opening - family and friends stayed with us until 3 A.M. to help set up. Some were peeling off labels from our brand new dishes and washing them. Some were scrubbing the floor. Some were trying to help us divide up ingredients on plates.  It was a crazy night but I couldn't sleep after.

The first day we opened for only family and friends. Oh man, we were missing so many things. No working table - we used a wooden table brought from home that is only knee high. We had neither folk nor straw. Everyone enjoyed the meal together then were grilled for suggestions. Oh, I forgot to mentioned that Jimmy's cousin, Alan, was rushed to the emergency room because he cut his hand while helping us with the dishes and received 8 stitches!

Saturday June 19, 2010 - first day of our soft opening week! I worked during the day and rushed back to UH-Manoa as I was dorming with 42 high schoolers. Jimmy worked at Foodland during the day and rushed back to run the restaurant at night. Nightly, Jimmy would bring the dirty rags to me so I could wash and bring them back the next morning. I don't know where we got the energy to go on then but we did this for the first two months......

It has been 1 year and 3 months now since our restaurant is in business ... With the help of family and friends, we both able to keep our full time job and the restaurant runs fine. As I was looking at the sign tonight, all the memories rushed back.  I am grateful for my husband, Jimmy Tran, (then boyfriend :) for working so hard and for being so patience with me. I am grateful for the love and support from our parents, sisters, and everyone who supported us - family, friends, and customers. Please continue to support us because without you - WE ARE NOTHING!

Upward Bound... my other job

So customers have been asking why I had been missing at Hot Pot Heaven for the past month and the answer is above! I was the mother hen for these 38 high school kids at Frear Hall at UH-Manoa.

Besides Hot Pot Heaven, I also have a day time job - a guidance advisor for Upward Bound at Windward Community College. Our program works with first generation and low income students to help them prepare for college. During the school year, I visit students at Kailua, Kahuku, Kalaheo, and Castle weekly. I get pay to nag them to get on with school works and share with them information about colleges. Once a month, students come to WCC on a Saturday where Upward Bound organizes different workshops for them. During the summer, students dorm at UH-Manoa while taking college credits as well as enrichment classes. Wednesdays, we go on field trips to see different college campuses, cultural enrichment places, as well as fun and sweaty physical activies such as hiking and swimming.  Summer is always fun and exciting but it requires a lot of preparation and staying with 38 high school kids over nights -- well, you can imagine it :) Overall, I always have ton of fun and I get to really learn more about each individual student. I feel like I have become family with them as I know their talent, interest, passion, and their little quirks.  I also learned a lot about  myself - my ability to deal with problems that arised, my level of patience, and how to deal with teenagers :)

The program ended two weeks ago and I am still in the recovering mode. I am back to my regular work schedule at Hot Pot Heaven and also planning for our wedding on August 20th, 2011.
 We will close this day for lunch and dinner. We will also close lunch on Sunday August 21 but will open for dinner.

I will now trying to make my goal of posting once a week into a reality! Thanks for reading!

Our Water ...

I have been to a few states but I have decided that I cannot live anywhere but Hawaii. I can’t deal with the cold. I wear jacket when it is 77F outside. The people in Hawaii are also super nice. But the most important factor is the water. It is so clean and fresh! We practically can drink water from any fountain, faucet and it still tastes fresh and clean.

At Hot Pot Heaven, we serve that fresh and clean water with a touch of fresh citrus fruits and mints. We have been using fresh calamansi and mints from my parents’ garden. Now that calamansi season is over, we have been using lemon and mints.

Recently, at a church function, one of my friends added fresh fruits –orange, strawberry, cucumber- in our water jugs and it tasted wonderful. I love it! I love the taste of strawberry and cucumber best! The orange gave a hint of bitterness but still pretty good. Soon, you will see strawberry and cucumber floating in our water jugs.

Our Dishwasher ...

Monday is usually the slowest day of the week for us at Hot Pot Heaven (so if you ever want to beat the crowd Monday would be the best day to visit us :) That, or you can also call in to make a reservation). My nephew, who is working in the front, is on vacation today so the HPH team had to work extra hard today to keep the customers happy.
 Because it was a little slow, the kitchen staff didn't have much to do so we decided to shine everything in the kitchen. From the fridges to the legs of our working tables - all shined. That's what we do when we are a little slow - we clean and I am just super happy that everyone in our kitchen like to clean. One of the person who like to clean is our dishwasher, Mrs. Tuyết. Although we have a dish washing machine, Mrs. Tuyết always rinses and inspects each dishes before putting it in the washer. Our machine maintenance person claimed, "This is the cleanest dishwasher I have ever seen" .
  Our HPH team calls Mrs. Tuyết - "Cô Tuyết" which means, Aunt Tuyết. Aunt Tuyết  just came from Vietnam about 11 months ago.  Her first job is here, at Hot Pot Heaven and she is still with us. I am so glad I found her because she is a CLEAN FREAK :) and has a great memory. She cleans everything in sight and remembers what items we need to order. The only thing Aunt Tuyet feels uncomfortable about is her English skill. She can’t speak at all. Thus, she is happy in the back working with other Vietnamese-speaking people. I happy that she is comfortable and her lack of English skill actually bring a lot of entertainment and creativity to our staff.

We made up names of a few vegetables that Cô Tuyết doesn't know the Vietnamese names for them (we don't have them in Vietnam) to help her remember them better and these names are sometimes just simply hilarious. For example, we call bok choi - "cải đít mập" which means "fat butt veggie" :)

What do you think of our name? "cải đít mập" :)

Another vegetable that we made up name for is spinach - we called it "cải dập" = "easily bruised veggie".

Cô Tuyết has now learned almost all our items in English but we still use the names we have created for these  items as it always makes us laugh. She also now knows how to say "rice" and all the names of our broths. I am very proud of her and very glad to have her on the team. Cám ơn cô Tuyết :)

Oh, another thing that made me super happy today is that I just discovered that I can take the stove range apart and clean them! yay!  My uncle, chú Tình, who used to own a restaurant, showed me today. We only cleaned it a bit as I learned about it a little late. I am looking forward to the weekend to clean this fire range! Cám ơn Chú Tình :)

Monday . . .

Monday is my day being a filler. My job is to keep the two fridges in front well stocked at all time. Well, I try but this has never been the case. The fridges often look empty and the popular items such as shrimps, Chinese cabbage, choi sum are often not seen. In addition, I have to cut meats for customers.   I used to dread Mondays so much but now I love it. My slowness really pulls everyone at Hot Pot Heaven together – hahaha so there is my excuse for being slow.

There are only three people in the kitchen – a cook, a filler, and a dishwasher. We have title for each just so we know what we are mainly responsible for but we do really work together. On Mondays, knowing that I am slow (the other fillers are supper fast), the dishwasher would washed all the vegetables ahead of time for me. My sister, who helps me during the daytime, would help me stock up the fridges before she leaves for the day. The cook would help me with cutting mushroom and other items. Then, if I slow on cutting meat, one of the server in front would come in and cut meat for me! Hahahahaha – I know I don’t carry my weight and make everyone work harder but in return for their help they can tease me and boss me around (just a little bit). Also, it makes me so happy because I feel so loved.  I am getting better and Mondays are just another happy days at Hot Pot Heaven.  Like today, I was able to keep up with all the customers’ needs. I was a little slow on the meat but they all came out eventually and I hope Jimmy (he was working in front today) didn’t get any complaint.

At this moment, I am very proud to say that I can do anything at Hot Pot Heaven – maybe not as good as everyone but I can do EVERYTHING.  Jimmy’s mom taught me how to make the soups. I can rinse and put the dishes in the dishwasher (the machine). I can fill the fridges and of course, I can serve and buss tables.  Serving and bussing tables are my strongest! Kids like me and so parents like me. Grandmas and grandpas like me so their children like me  à  everyone likes me! Hehehe I would like to think so. (But yeah, I heard that kids like people who have fat face = me! I got it from my Daddy – I have a really big face and when I smile I got to eggs sitting on my cheeks. This probably looks hilarious to the kids so they smiles back at me.) I love talking to customers. The past 9 months in business, I have met many many cool customers who offer their advices, support, encouragement, and compliments. I learned so much from talking to them from running a restaurant to raising kids.

 Another Monday is over and a new day has just started and I thoughts are all over the places and I am super duper tired but one thing I know for sure - I am thankful for everyone around me. The people who work with me – thanks for all your hard work, support, and love. My dear customers – thanks for coming and supporting our business and for all the honest suggestions and recommendations. Friends and family who are always supportive. And to my fiancé, Jimmy Tran, for being patience with me.  Good night to all!

Parking

I guess I am in a blogging mode :) or it could be that I am trying to show off to you some of the pictures I took of a little wildflowers I found while walking from my car to the restaurant. Today was my day off. I was going to stay home and hang out with my sister's family and eat some yummy food but I had to go to work because one of my workers called in sick. Don't get me wrong - I love working at the restaurant and always feel happy to be there but spending quality time with the family is great and also a must! so yes, I was a little sad but after finding a pretty good parking spot today then I found this little flowers - it's so pretty and instantly, I felt happy!

I love these wildflowers - especially the one that are lonely :)  I don't know why but I have this special fondness for the one that grow in hard rock, dry soil .....




...... and can still be so vibrant and pretty!


so to connect this with Hot Pot Heaven I thought of writing about parking at McCully Shopping Center.

Everyone hates the parking situation at McCully Shopping Center - that including customers and employers/employees. The customers hate the parking situation because it's always crowded - especially during lunch and dinner hours.  Us, employers/employees hate it because we can't park in the complex! Our car is on the blacklist so if we parked there - they will tow us. So we have to find parking in the neighborhood. There were times when I had to drive around for 15-20 minutes and still no parking  - and this was what happened to our cook once. She drove around for almost 20 minutes and couldn't find parking. Scared that there would be customers waiting for her cooking, she took the risk and parked in the McCully complex! well - after finished cleaning up and ready to go home for the day at 1:30 in the morning -  her car was no where to be found! The security then told us, "it was towed". Jimmy and I took her to some place in Sand Island Road Access to get her car back. $175 was wasted and we didn't get home until 3:00 A.M. - to this day she is still sad about it and we still tease her whenever we see "the security" - it always makes us laugh. Well, thanks God it's all better now. We now all know what to do so we usually finished by midnight  rather than 1:30 in the morning and our cook now walks to work. She lives about 15 minutes walk away and Khanh Son gives her a drive home afterward.

... and for me, I have been trying to make light of the parking situation.
1. Our loyal customers are aware of the parking situation and so they come earlier or later in the night.  First, they don't have to worry about finding parking and second they don't have to wait for a seat at Hot Pot Heaven. Oh, you don't know how grateful I am for this because I get so nervous when our regulars have to wait - I usually run to the kitchen and hide in there until I can go out and tell them they can sit now.  It's also good because when they come in during slow hours,  we can give our loyal customers better service and time to talk to them. Plus, it makes them feel good that they can help us during slower hours.
2. It's a good exercise for me to walk from and to the car (though most of the time, Jimmy moves the car for me at night so I don't have to walk in the dark - yes, he is very thoughtful :) Lucky me!)
3. I get to see the pretty wildflowers along the way (just like the above pictures).
4. The staff at Hot Pot Heaven always talk about who get the best parking spot of the day and how they race to compete for a parking spot with other workers at other restaurant. We always get a good laugh out of it. Just a funny story - one time, Khanh-Son, our best fridge filler - and the prettiest girl in the kitchen (she said that herself), asked me if I could take her to her car because she parked very far that day. As we walked to the sidewalk she said, "oh, look like I gotta take you because I am right here" then laughed her head off! Yes, she found a prime spot that day and just wanted to tease me!

It's almost 1 A.M. - time for bed! Good night!