14 thoughts on “Restaurants (2023-)

  1. New smashburger spot where Shilawon used to be. Sorry Reid.

    It’s near the office and it inherited the space (which still looks like a KBBQ joint) including the under-building parking. Woo.

    I took a photo but it’s not a very good photo. But here’s the IG: https://www.instagram.com/carl_og3_ojisan

    I had The One with a side of crinkle-cuts and a Coke Zero. $24 with the tip; the other burgers don’t cost quite as much. The burger was solid. Very good, actually. Nice flavor. Not as good as Daley or Shay’s, but still good, and much more convenient for me.

    1. Shilawon is the one at the bottom of a condo, right? I’m going to be at the convention center today, so I might try this, although I haven’t really enjoyed the smashburgers I’ve eaten so far. (I like the fact that they serve crinkle cut fries, though.)

    2. OK, thanks.

      I didn’t get to try the place. I ate at a Cali burrito at Senor Pepe’s, with carnitas. I thought kalua pig might be good in Mexican food, as it’s similar to carnitas. Well, the carnitas at Pepe’s taste like (a bland) kalua pig. Pepe’s is next to the Poi Bowl, so I guess the Poi Bowl is providing them with the pork?

      Overall, the whole thing was disappointing.

  2. I think a new Japanese (?) restaurant is opening (or going to open) right next to K’s Bentoya in Waipahu. We’re talking a really small place, and not really a good spot for a nice Japanese restaurant. (When I passed by at night, it looked nicer than restaurants like Yagura or Gyo Taku.)

    Last night I stopped over and peered in the window. It looks like it’s just a sushi bar, which seats about 8. There’s no signage except for the numbers 22 and also “22 Waipahu” on the health certificate.

    I can’t find anything online about this–except there’s a sushi place in Kailua called 22 Kailua. I never went to this place, but I’ve heard good things about it. Is he opening a new location in Waipahu? That would be kinda cool.

  3. Honolulu Magazine featured a world traveler who lives in Hawai’i for a month every year (or something to that effect). He basically goes out to eat every day when he’s here. In the magazine, the guy featured his favorite Hawai’i dishes, and one of them was a twice-cooked pork (described as “double-cooked” on the menu) with noodles. He added that eating the pork with the noodles first and then eating the pork with a bowl of rice was the ideal approach. Finally, I believed he claimed this was better than anything he had in China (and his wife was from China).

    I was skeptical, but the claim piqued my interest, so we went to try these out. Chong Quing Cuisine (located across from McCully Zippy’s) is the restaurant that makes the dish. (I think it’s a Szechuan.)

    In addition to the double-cooked pork noodles, we got a beef noodle soup dish.

    The verdict? On the first few bites, I thought the dish was good, but nothing really special. It’s the kind of thing that Don or Mitchell would say, “I could make this at home,” and it wouldn’t be a ridiculous claim. There’s nothing really special about it. On the other hand, it’s the type of Asian comfort food that I really craze–something simple, not spectacular, but just right when you get tried of eating out or eating non-Asian foods.

    Additionally, the guy’s approach really did work well. Larri’s theory was that saltiness of the sauce at the bottom of the bowl worked well with the rice. I think there’s some truth to that.

    A few other things. I think the pork was pork belly–imagine thick bacon, with some pieces being lean and others being fatty. It wasn’t really crisp, but there was a nice firmness.

    The noodles for both dishes had the nice, chewy texture of freshly made pasta, but they were bland in my view. The shiru for the noodle soup dish was also disappointing. It basically tasted like spicy water. (Some northern Chinese dishes overuse chili oil, in my opinion, but that is a better flavor than the soup broth here.)

    All in all, the double-cooked pork dish was solid, but I wouldn’t necessarily drive out of my way to eat it. Then again, if I’m craving simple Asian comfort food, I just might. (And I’d eat it the same way.)

    1. This is in that old Japanese restaurant spot where you would see all the Japanese seniors lining up at 4 every day. I used to walk past it all the time when my office was on King St, and I meant to go with coworkers but we never worked it out, and now we don’t work there anymore.

      Five Foot Foodie featured this spot in her IG just yesterday I think.

      That guy in Honolulu Magazine eats out three meals a day, and I think it’s more than a month every year. I think it’s like every other month for a month at a time or something. Sounds like a nice life.

    2. Don and I (and maybe Gregg?) went to that Japanese restaurant. I think it had Hata in the name, but I could be wrong. It was an OK, old school, mom-and-pop Japanese restaurant from what I recall.

  4. We went to Waimea this weekend, and we tried a few restaurants. The last time I visited the Big Island was about 15 years ago, and from that visit, I had a relatively low-opinion of the restaurants (in Hilo). Essentially, the good restaurants were merely OK.

    Village Burger (Located in the strip mall with Foodland)
    I believe they used grass-fed beef. It was OK, nothing great. I got one with gorgonzola and bacon. The fries were solid, shoe-string-style, homemade. I wouldn’t really recommend this place, as it was just OK to me.

    Pau Pizza
    NYC style pizza, with the glass cases featuring different pizzas that you can order by slice. It’s very similar to Boston’s Pizza, but I think I would give this place a slight edge. The crust is chewy, and I liked the ingredients (except maybe the button mushrooms). I wouldn’t be surprised if owners are from the east coast. (They also have a Mexican restaurant, as part of the establishment, but we didn’t try any of the food.)

    The restaurant is small and cute, almost like something I’d see in Portland. It’s part of a small strip mall (with a small record store next door.)

    Fireart Cuisine
    This is a Chinese restaurant (with local plate lunches added in) in Waikoloa (where we actually stayed). Larri tried another branch in Kona and said it was solid. Surprisingly, it was. We just got the garlic green beans, sweet and sour pork, and potstickers. The green beans were cooked really well, and the sweet and sour pork was solid, although pretty standard. (They seemed to use pork chops/loin, and it could be a little dry.) The potstickers were merely OK. Still, I had a good impression, and I feel like it was better than most Chinese places on the Leeward side.

    Waimea Coffee Company
    We asked one of the guys at Pau Pizza to recommend a coffee place, and he recommended this place. I had the cortado, which was good, and a macadamia chocolate tart (OK). They served Ka’u coffee, which I really wanted to try the next day, but I was able to make it (unfortuately).

    Nanako Pattiserie
    The pizza guy also recommended this place, a Japanese-French style bakery like La Palme D’Or. We got this coconut pastry that was like haupia blob on to of a macadamia shortbread base. It was good. We tried the earl grey tea jelly with milk. That was OK. I would have preferred more jelly and less milk. Larri got some other desserts, but I didn’t get to try them yet.

    Hawaiian Style Cafe
    My family really liked this restaurant (the one on the Hilo side), so I was curious to try it. We only got pancakes and mixed plate (kal-bi, shrimp tempura, and fried oysters). It was just OK, but I liked the vibe–kinda like the old Eggs and Things.

    There were two other restaurants that I wanted to try–FORC and Moa Kitchen. The former is a bistro, with steak and seafood. The latter is a Japanese restaurant, featuring ramen with chicken-based shiru. (They have sushi and other items on the menu.)

    Many of these places look like they’re made by outsiders–versus local families that started businesses soon after they arrived from another country. I mention this because I tend to think the latter may be less likely to produce exceptional food, while food made by people who recently arrived from the mainland or other foreign have a better chance of being exceptional. (I would guess they’re well-off and not coming from poverty. Another reason for thinking this: Waimea reminds me of the North Shore on O’ahu, where you have a lot of Caucasians from the continental US–people who are middle and upper class. Waimea definitely has that vibe or a similar vibe to Kailua.)

    By the way, I really liked the drive from Kona to Waimea–from the wide barren lava landscape to grasslands and widing roads–I felt like I was moving from a lunar surface into a Cowboy movie. It as such a different vibe from the urban/suburban spaces on O’ahu or even places I like to visit on the continent. It is calmer, quieter, making one feel a bit smaller somehow, with nature having a bigger presence. I don’t think I’d like to live here, but it’s good place to visit.

    Addendum (1/23/2026)

    I forgot to mention that we also tried some food at the farmer’s market (on Parker School property). We tried the spring rolls and potstickers. Both were really well-made. Nothing to go out of your way for, but good. However, we also tried a macadamia tart and pecan (pie) tart–both of which I would make an effort to get. They used whole macadamias for the tart, which I prefer to minced approach, and both tarts utilized caramel and short-bread crust. The caramel was really good, a next smooth feel, but not overly sweet, which surprised me. Both were really good (but not cheap).

    Addendum (2/1/2026)

    I forgot to add that Larri and I went looking for Lisa Siu, the baker of 3660’s bread pudding and 12 Avenue Grill’s desserts, who we understood moved to the Big Island. We discovered that she was the baker at Hualalalai Resort, the bar restaurant. It was about 25 minutes from our hotel, and there was a winding driveway and walking path to get there, but we made the trek.

    Unfortunately, the dessert, a fruit tart, was the version that 12th Avenue featured after Siu left. (We were told her student was now making the desserts). It was more of a granola-based topping. Bummer.

  5. The lockdown closed all the late-night cafes, and I need somewhere to go once a week or so, to be alone with my writing or books. So I started reading in bars. It’s unusual (I am almost always the only person in the bar with a book) but I’ve read that bartenders like the quiet guy reading at the bar because he’s low-maintenance, and that’s me.

    I used to hate bars, but being forced to find some good (safe) ones has turned me into a fan. I love bars. And a trip to Oakland a couple of years ago exposed me to a new concept: hi-fi listening bars. An idea from Japan, of course.

    It didn’t occur to me to see if we had any in Hawaii — I just assumed we didn’t. But we do! EP Bar, on Pauahi Street between Nuuanu and Smith, next to the underground municipal parking lot, in a space that used to be a chocolate tasting room.

    From the sidewalk, all you see is a spare, almost useless-looking anteroom, but once you go through the inner doorway, you see a nice, dark, cozy bar space.

    They recommend you make reservations, and I did, but I went on a Wednesday night around 6 and there weren’t very many people in there, so depending on the night (and the hour), you can probably just walk in.

    There’s a turntable deck and some records, with a live DJ spinning. Unlike in the clubs, the DJ isn’t mixing or beatmatching — maybe because they don’t have Don’s skillz, but probably because I guess in a lounge you’re just there to chill, and the DJ is there to set the mood.

    This DJ leaned toward highly produced hiphop with some early-2000s pop-punk. It all sounded great, but the volume was a little low, and for the first hour, there were a few people chatting with friends, quite loudly. Good thing I had a couple of books (I was reading two simultaneously) and some good drinks.

    I started with the Kurogoma Manhattan for $18. It’s the bar’s take on a black Manhattan: black sesame infused Rittenhouse Rye, Averna, bitters. Delicious. I never would have dreamed the black sesame flavor could be so good in a Manhattan but it was delicious. I prefer a Manhattan with a cherry (or three), and this didn’t have one. But it had a soft, chewy mochi ball in the bottom, a brilliant idea since black sesame and mochi go so well together.

    Then I had the bar’s signature cocktail: the EP Bar Old Fashioned for $19. Maker’s Mark EP Bar Stave Select (I’ll explain this if anyone’s curious), coffee liqueur, demerara, bitters, and absinthe. Everyone I know who’s had this drink says it’s great, and it really is. I plan to make this a regular visit, but I don’t know if I’ll ever explore the rest of the cocktail menu because these two drinks are so good.

    I Shazamed a few songs that I vibed with:

    Mac Miller, 2009 (Live)
    Kanye West, All of the Lights
    Thundercat, Dragonball Durag
    Weezer, Mr. Blue Sky
    Mos Def, Travillin Man

    Had a nice couple of hours and will definitely be back. I’d do this weekly if I could afford it, but it’ll most likely be more like very other week.

  6. Thanks for the review. How was the quality of the sound system?

    This DJ leaned toward highly produced hiphop with some early-2000s pop-punk.

    I’m a little disappointed in hearing this. Do you know if they have any schedule with regard to the type of music they play? And is it basically only alcoholic drinks?

  7. Don told me about the new foodhall on Ke’eamoku, noting that they had a middle-eastern restaurant called, Mid Eats. We went to check it out today (Free parking in the structure, a office building or condo.).

    We tried the lamb kofta and beef brisket shwarma, plus a mezze platter, which came with pita (nice and toasty), cumin fries (OK), some pickled veggies (meh) and two sides. We got the hummus and baba ganoush. In my experience, hummus is hard to mess up. While this wasn’t “messed up,” it was very mediocre, almost bad. The baba ganoush wasn’t great as well.

    However, the lamb kofta sandwich was good (both sandwiches were about $160). The pita (or lavosh?) was rolled up like a burrito, but partially fried, giving a slighly chimichunga effect. The kofta was meaty. It also came with a green sauce (tahini?) that was just OK. I really would have loved some tzatziki on this. I didn’t get to try the shwarma.

    I would go back for the lamb.

    The food hall also had Serg’s, a banh-mi place, Japanese, Thai, a gelato place, and I can’t remember what else.

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