Customer Reviews

Sam Choy's Island Flavors

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4 star:		(1)
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Sam Choy's book is one of my favorite cookbooks. The recipes are so simple and always have great results.

This is not a diet book, but it is great for the evenings you have company over and want to WOW them with a minimal amount of work. The Crab and Shrimp Stuffed Mushrooms with Mango Bearnaise Sauce is worth the price of the book. A close second is the Ahi Salad with Creamy Peanut Dressing (translation: seared ahi on a salad of radishes, cabbage, sprouts, and green onions tossed with a spicy peanut, cilantro dressing - it's killer). The Macadamia Crusted Mahimahi with Coconut Cream Spinach Sauce is so easy and will really impress the in-laws.

Other dishes regularly made at our house include: Seared Albacore Tuna with Coconut Ginger Sauce, Roasted Chicken with Macadamia Nut Stuffing, both of his recipes for BBQ pork ribs, and Sesame Ginger Snap Peas.

I really can't say enough about what a great and easy cookbook this is. Every recipe I have tried from it is a "make againer". The next recipe I have flagged to try is something he calls My Kids' Favorite Seafood Lasagne. It has scallops, shrimp, mahimahi, and salmon smothered with great sounding white sauce and lots of cheese and pasta - is your mouth watering yet?

Well, the high point of my first visit to Hawaii last week was my dinner at Sam Choy's Restaurant on the island of Maui. Everything I tasted was excellent. The meal started off with a green salad which was pretty ordinary, except for the dressing. It was the house dressing and was called Sam's Original Creamy Asian Dressing. I believe the sesame oil is what gave it the little extra kick and I plan to make the recipe myself and relive the experience. I started to order crab cakes (I always order crab cakes if they're on the menu because I love them) and shrimp cocktail because it was just before the long night flight home and I didn't want to feel stuffed. However, I decided I had to go for it if I was going to really get a Hawaiian dish so I asked the waiter for a suggestion for the classic Hawaiian specialty. He advised that Sam's signature dish was Steamed Mahimahi Laulau. Laulau is a traditional Hawaiian dish. The preparation is to wrap pork, fish, beef, or chicken in ti leaves, tie off the tops and put them in a earth oven called an imu. If you can't get ti leaves, you can use corn husks or aluminum foil. I admit that I was a little nervous about eating steamed fish since I usually eat it fried (sounds terrible doesn't it?), but when the waiter brought out the Laulau, I got excited that I was eating something that was wrapped up in a leaf. --so exotic! It was very tasty and quite delicious. The creamy herb sauce had a nice flavor and the vegetables were "easy" to eat because they were julienned. I will order this again if ever I'm lucky enough to go there again.

There are over two hundred recipes in Sam Choy's Island Flavors that are specially adapted to work in any kitchen. I was thrilled to see that the recipes for the dishes I ordered are in this cookbook. Sam Choy opened his first restaurant in 1991 and I understand he has restaurants in San Diego, Tokyo and seven in Hawaii. Before that he got his start by helping his father cater feasts for large groups of tourists and then went on to become the executive sous chef at the Hyatt Kuilima Hotel, chef at the Oscar Restaurant at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and executive chef at the Kona Hilton.

The recipes range from the Lava Flow that I heard so much about before I went to Hawaii to the Macadamia Nut Pie and Ginger-Pineapple Sherbet -- yummmmmm -- have to try those. There are excellent recipes for sauces and marinades and they seem to be simple enough to make. There are gorgeous pictures and on most pages, a little intro on the recipe, which I really like to read. This is really a neat, neat cookbook and I highly recommend it.

I have been eating Hawai'i sytle for many years and the food is the best food you'll ever eat. Sam's book captures some of the best recipes that I have ever tasted. The recipes are so easy to follow and the meals created with them have left even my Japanese mother just praising the food. I have tried to re-create many Hawai'i style food and with this book it is exactly the way I remember from the island and the way my friends from the Island remember. I really like the way he show how to cook the tunas. Thanks to you, Sam Choy for bringing the Island food to the Mainland for the Mainland people to try

Sam Choy's Island Flavors is a wonderful book for people who enjoy the unique taste of food in Hawaii but aren't lucky enough to live in Hawaii and enjoy it every day! Sam Choy's recipes are simple and easy to make. They don't require you to be a master chef to try out the recipes. This cookbook includes recipes for all types of foodlovers (vegetarians, chicken-lovers, seafood lovers and meat-lovers) and takes you from appetizers all the way down to recipes for tropical drinks. Some of Sam Choy's recipes also include substitutions since a lot of us aren't lucky to be living in Hawaii and have some ingredients so readily available to us. My favorite recipes include: Crab and Shrimp Stuffed Shiitake Mushrooms, Quick and Easy Shoyu Chicken, Local Boy Beef Stew, and my very favorite Macadmia Nut Pie! This is a wonderful cookbook. Made me very homesick for my old hometown of Waipahu, Hawaii!

Hawaii's master chef, Sam Choy, brings his famous poke and other Island fare to us mainlanders.

Not your usual recipe followed by full-page photo, this book rather gives just tons of recipes and limited color photos.

Over 300 pages of tropical fair, highlighted by mainly fruit and seafood dishes, exotically prepared. Try his Cold Papaya, Mango and Cape Goosberry Bisque, it is so good and refreshing. With all the availablity of tropical fruits and good seafood to most regions of the country, this fare is ours now in our own homes.

To date, the dishes are relatively easy to prepare, and sumptuous and so unique to consume. Outstanding is the Baked Whole Snapper with Coconut Milk and the Chicken Hekka, a standard Hawaiian party dish.

For dessert the Pineapple Coconut Yum Yum was aptly named. A Drinks section completes the book has some outstanding offerings --- especially get into the LavaFlow--Get It While Its Hot and Tropical Crab Itch.

With an UKU here and an OPAKA PAKA there, a touch of mango and crushed lemon grass, coconut hull fires and roasted HAPU UPU U, new ways to whisk a mother hollandaise,and flavors that jump right up off the page.That is Sam Choy's Island Flavors.
When exploring new techniques and language in cooking it really is irrelevant if the recipes are complicated, compound, simple or sublime, what matters is if they work. The recipes in Island Flavors work. Too often the reader/cook is duped into buying a cookbook by the way it looks and the food displayed, or by the hype and narrative of paid critics and TV shows. Thankfully there is no illusion to this cookbook. I have found the recipes to be both true to the pan, and true to the palate.
This is a highly recommended cookbook for the novice as well as the more experienced cook. It is full of great information, and you can feel Sam Choy's love of food throughout the book. Food is love so why not read and cook with those who love the craft, and leave the dilletantes of cuisine to gather dust on the backshelves, or in the late night hours of Emeril hell. Sam Choy cooks great food, is a great chef, and is a great food writer. Cook along with him as you read and you will understand why so many of the great chefs are smiling all the time. Food this lively can only make you happy.

I had first picked up Sam Choy's Island Sampler and loved everything I made so I wanted more. I got this book and once again everything I have made has been delicious. Choy does a great job using few ingredients and few steps not like many cookbooks that have you using five pans and thirty different ingredients. Way to go Mr. Choy!

All of Sam Choy's books are good, but this one has a special place in my kitchen, because it covers the gamut of dishes. Unlike his seafood and Poke books, Sam provides some of the finest "home cooking" recipes of the islands.

Well done!

After I bought this book I tried Sam Choy's famous roast duck. Man..oh man.. it's so easy and the taste is too die for ! I tried some more of his recipes and all of them turn out great. I hope one day I can really try his cooking ! It will be a dream comes true !

I've been a fan of Sam Choi for several years and own several of his cook books. Let me tell you how happy I was when I learned that Sam had written a new book filled with his culinary creations. This book is very basic (few fancy photos), but it seems to contain most of Sammy's traditional, classic Hawaiian dishes. You've definately got to try some of his beef or chicken recipes (wow!). Planning a trip to Hawaii or just want to eat like you're there? Then this is the cook book for you.