There are only a few things in this life that I will not give up for any reason.

Three of them are: Miso soup (the Japanese soup made from fermented soybeans, tofu and seaweed), Pho, (the Vietnamese soup made from broth heavily seasoned with anise, rice noodles, your choice of meat and several condiments including basil, bean sprouts, hoisin sauce and hot peppers) and Hawaiian-style saimin, another Japanese soup taken to a whole other level with the multicultural influences of Hawaii.

There's a restaurant down in Kent, Washington that I'd never been to before but is talked about on the coconut wireless as serving a mighty tasty bowl of saimin. The restaurant is called Saimin Says and it's at 26218 Pacific Highway South.

Saimin Says also serves plenty of other Hawaii soul food from loco moco to hamburger steak to tako poke (raw octopus seasoned with shoyu (Hawaii-style soy sauce), green onions and other things), "when get" (when they have it).

I had the Pocho Saimin which is Saimin Says' homemade broth with fresh saimin noodles, portuguese sausage, Chinese char siu sausage, da kine pink and white fishcake (kamaboko) and seasonings. I said yes when asked if I wanted hot mustard and I squirted about a teaspoonful in my spoon and mixed it into the soup thoroughly. It wasn't until after I did this that Miss Significantly Other told me that using hot mustard was "sacrilege" and a "haole affectation" (da kine whitey thing).

Now, she knows that I try really hard to not act haole and I defended my decision by asking, "How come they give it to you if you're not supposed to put it in?"

She told me that she never put any hot mustard in her saimin, ever. I reminded her that she was even wimpier with hot stuff than I was but, of course, telling her that didn't make any difference.

She even likened my putting hot mustard in the saimin to the way I used to put butter and sugar on my rice when I first moved out here from the east coast. Hey! That's the only way we ever ate rice at home in New Jersey! (I'm over that now, by the way.)

So I felt bad having haolefied my saimin but do you know what? That was still the best bowl of saimin I've ever had! (Okay so it's only the fourth bowl of saimin I've ever had but hush up!) It was so good that I ate every noodle and drank all of the broth and even licked the bowl when I was through.

Don't ask me how it is that a white bread guy from New Jersey can find a taste for foods such as fermented soybean soup and saimin. Heck, I even like poi! I wonder at it myself but I don't question it any more.

I just eat!