A Tour and Many Tastes of King's Hawaiian Bakery

King's Hawaiian Bakery was started by Robert Taira, the father of the current president, Mark, first as a stand alone bakery in Hawaii in Hilo in 1956. The family then moved to Honolulu and opened up the bakery on King Street. All the family worked at the bakery and tourists were buying them as souvenirs. The round bread was the number 1 fundraising item on the island. Mark's grandma then had the great idea of starting a mail order service and demand for King's Hawaiian bread kept growing into what it is now - a big factory in Torrance, California where they still produce bread with Robert's original recipe.

I was invited to tour the factory recently, and of course I'm not going to say no to such an opportunity!

Part of this tour involved some confidential information like the machines they use etc so not many pictures, sorry! But I was surprised at what a big operation this really was, from machines that cut and knead the dough to packaging it. The end of the line was a favorite, of course, with the smell of butter and fresh baked bread wafting in the air.

Of course, the best part was probably trying the rolls fresh off the line (we got the wheat rolls), just with butter! Can't beat this.

After the tour, we went out to their back lot for lunch! They've called in some of LA's best food trucks that serves or uses King's Hawaiian products, along with a whole spread of their own desserts. Mark's daughter Courtney experiments with different recipe using the bread in the factory kitchen including things like white chocolate chip bread pudding and garlic cheese bread. Some of the desserts we had are served at their restaurant, and also their newer fast casual restaurant, The Local Place. The Tres Leches cake and the bread pudding was my favorite.

I immediately went for Lobsta Truck's lobster roll, which is served on toasted King's Hawaiian sweet hot dog bun! I've always loved their lobster roll!

The Kogi Truck does their sliders using King's Hawaiian sweet dinner rolls. Both their short rib and tofu sliders were crowd favorites.

Buttermilk Truck's French Toast sticks also uses King's Hawaiian bread.

Ludo Truck serves their fried chicken with the dinner roll.

When we left, they told us they had a parting gift for us. I was expecting a bag, maybe one or two packages of their bread. But noooo. This is the Aloha spirit after all! Our parting gift was a huge box of goodies, so big that I needed help carrying it to the car! Enough bread to last me months, coffee, cookies, apron, gift card, etc ... Jealous? I bet. Want one? They're actually giving away a box to one of my readers too! The contents won't be exactly the same but you can be sure they will be as generous. Check back tomorrow for a new post for the giveaway! :)

GIVEAWAY: Tickets and Parking to Oktoberfest at the Fairplex Pomona

October can only mean .. Oktoberfests! Beer! German sausages! There are quite a few Oktoberfests around Los Angeles, including one at the Fairplex in Pomona which takes place on Fridays to Sundays this month.

At the Fairplex Oktoberfest, there will be a German food buffet with Bratwursts (of course), Weisswurst (sweet sausage), Schweinehaxe (hock ham), Schweinebraten, and Apfelstrudel. There's an "Oom-Pah" band, games, and of course tons of German beers.

They'e offered to give away two admission tickets and a free parking pass to one of my readers (food and drink not included, sorry). 
To enter to win, just leave your name and email contact in the comments below!

You can also get extra entries by tweeting: "Enter to win tickets and parking to the Fairplex Oktoberfest via @gourmetpigs! http://bit.ly/RpDQBb"

The giveaway will end at midnight on Wednesday, October 17 so that you will have two weekends to use your tickets!

New Season Warrants New Visit to Sadie (Hollywood)

A new season means new menu and new cocktails at Sadie. Summer was the season for strawberries and cocktails like the Pink Rose (lillet rose, lemon juice, strawberry syrup, GH mumm cordon rouge - $13)

Gio Martinez' summer menu featured cocktails like the Sandy Swizzle (pineapple and sage infused chivas regal, agave, lemon juice, whipped coconut cream, Smith and Cross float, $12)

The first sip of the coconut cream on top was a weird, but as you keep drinking the flavor melds together well with the rest of the cocktail. The coconut cream brings me back to my holidays back home in Indonesia. This was my favorite and the most unique of the summer cocktails!

The chef has changed since I was here, but when I visited I had some great fried chicken. The Sadie Fried Chicken came with grilled red lady peaches, crispy confit potatoes and Bulleit rye jus for $22

There was also this gorgeous Charred Bone Marrow with peppadew peppers, leek ash, citrus chive vinaigrette, and of course, toasted bread

When there's bone marrow at a bar ... you know what might happen, bone luge!

e*starLA is a pro at this!

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