It's been awhile since I've been fly fishing, but I haven't stopped looking at all the different flies out there. In fact, a lot of shoreline fishermen out here on Oahu actually use flies on whipping rigs and try to catch the same quarry a fly fisherman would target - just using spinning gear. I recently bought some weighted and unweighted heads to tie some papio flies, but I keep getting drawn back to the Orvis Website because of the names people assign to the flies they tie (and Orvis picks up as a distributor; I say Orvis Website because they are really good at marketing, but others do it as well).
So besides the papio flies, these are some that I'll be trying to replicate in the near future - I'm thinking bonefish enticers instead of carp or big trout as these were originally conceived to catch.
These are Martinez's Frankenstein Sculpin in tan and green
This is a Mini Frankenstein Sculpin
And my favorite name - the "Southern Culture on the Fly - Sick Little Monkey"
I've come up with some cool names for flies I tie (if I may say so myself - just do a search on older posts on this blog that have to do with fly tying), but Sick Little Monkey has got to be one of my favorites. And I am a sucker for all things Southern (seeing as I grew up in Northern Florida and I speak fluent Redneck).
I got the Tan Tan Double
The Shoyu was really good as well.
In the spectrum of ramen shops we've been to, this is definitely up there. The shop we ate at in Hokkaido during the Snow Festival will always be ichiban, in fact that was the restaurant that changed our perspective of ramen - uplifting it from the memories of very inexpensive college food to gourmet fare. But - with that being an expensive and lengthy journey, I'll reset the number one spot to Daikokuya in Little Tokyo (LA). I can remember the soup base being so savory and the absolute perfection of the noodles. The char siu was melt in your mouth bliss... but alas - it is best not to lust for that which you cannot have (flying to LA for ramen might be in some folks budget, but not mine...). Another great ramen shop as chronicled in this very blog is Sakuramen in the NW District of Washington DC. But heck - that's even further than LA.
That said, distance makes one appreciate the opportunity to seek out local options, and this being the Gathering Place, I would argue we have some of the best of everything. This ramen shop is just one of many, but it is setting the bar high early on in our exploration of modern day Ramen Shops of Hawaii.
Stayed tuned...
