To celebrate National Green Juice Day — today, Jan. 26 — Bluetree Café will feature two exclusive green drinks: Super Juice and the Green Glow. Both are made with 100% local ingredients, are prepared in house and served in reusable glass bottles.
Green Glow includes spinach, kale, cucumber, parsley, lemon and ginger juice to boost energy and alkalize the body. Meanwhile, Super Juice is packed with vitamins B6 and K, along with iron and calcium. It contains a blend of ginger, kale, spinach, celery, pineapple and green apple.
To learn more, visit bluetreejuice.com or follow @bluetreejuice on Instagram.
Coffee roasters win big
Hawaii Island-based Big Island Coffee Roasters will be recognized in San Francisco at the Good Food Awards for its espresso bites, which are smooth, creamy coffee bars designed to mix with hot water (for coffee-to-go) or enjoy by the bite. Originally scheduled for January, the Good Food Awards ceremony has been moved to March.
Last November, the Good Food Foundation announced 351 finalists from nearly 2,000 entries for the 2022 Good Food Awards. Big Island Coffee Roasters was one of the few Hawaii finalists and won in the Confections category.
“Our team has worked diligently with the vision of making authentic Hawaii-grown coffee a special experience and accessible to coffee lovers across the globe,” states Kelleigh Stewart, co-founder of Big Island Coffee Roasters. “Classic espresso bites is the result of us introducing new ways that local coffee can be delivered globally.”
To learn more, visit bigislandcoffeeroasters.com.
A new okazuya opens
There’s a new okazuya at Pier 38. Well, an okazuya right now with an izakaya in the works, to be exact. Nami Kaze, owned by chef Jason Peel, has been open for two weeks in the former Uncle’s Fish Market space at Pier 38. The name, which translates to “wave” and “wind” in Japanese, was appropriate because of the business’s location.
“It’s ocean breath, and we’re right on the pier serving seafood, so I thought it was perfect,” Peel says. “For me, okazuya is nostalgic from my childhood on Kauai. I always wanted to do something like that. The main concept for this place is to be an izakaya sushi bar serving vegetables and seafood.”
Currently, Nami Kaze is open for online preorder only. You can find a variety of bento sets like the popular Kauai Boy ($12.95) — comprising fried ginger chicken, Goteborg musubi, potato salad, shio konbu cabbage and nori musubi — and Nami ($18.95) with fried garlic shrimp, spicy ahi and more.
Choose from various poke bowls ($9.95-$14.95) — beet hapa-style and ginger scallion-style ahi are crowd favorites — and musubi, and you can even build your own bento.
Nami Kaze will eventually feature daily specials. The eatery is currently open 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, but that might change in the near future.
“We might switch to open earlier; it seems like a lot of people want to get okazuya before they go to work,” Peel says. “We’ve been getting so much support from the community; we’re grateful for that.”
Visit toasttab.com/namikaze.hi/v3 to place an order online.
